"Another theme that has interested me is man's relationship to himself, to his past, his heritage. When I was growing up on the reservations of the Southwest, I saw people who were deeply involved in their traditional life, in the memories of their blood. They had, as far as I could see, a certain strength and beauty that I find missing in the modern world at large. I like to celebrate that involvement in my writing."
Momaday's father, acclaimed painter Alfred Morris Momaday, is a Kiowa Indian and his mother, writer Mayme Natachee Scott, is of English, French, and Cherokee descent. Despite their white blood, both the author and his mother identify more readily with their Indian heritage. "I know about that part of me which is descended from a Cherokee great-great-grandmother, and about my ancestors who were European--English and French," Momaday told Charles L. Woodard in Ancestral Voice: Conversations with N. Scott Momaday. "In [my memoir] The Names, I pay some attention to that side of the family. But I'm not moved as much to understand that as I am to understand my Kiowa heritage. I think that's because my Kiowa heritage is quite exotic, and it represents to me a greater challenge in certain respects."
Born in Oklahoma in 1934, the author spent his childhood living on Navajo reservations in New Mexico and Arizona and at Jemez Pueblo, which is also in New Mexico.
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