Born February 27, 1934, in Lawton, Oklahoma, Navarre Scott Momaday was reared in New Mexico and Arizona as well as Oklahoma. He is of mixed Kiowa, Euro-American, and Cherokee descent. Momaday studied at the University of New Mexico, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in political science in 1958, and at Stanford University, where he received his master’s degree in 1960 and his Ph.D. in 1963. The Way to Rainy Mountain was published the same year that Momaday’s House Made of Dawn (also in Literature and Its Times) won the Pulitzer Prize for literature. Weaving together three distinct voices—Kiowa tribal stories, history, and personal narrative—The Way to Rainy Mountain is largely an exploration of American Indian identity. The book represents the author’s attempt to uncover and preserve the stories and history of the Kiowas and to determine his place among them. After the 1965 death of his paternal grandmother, Aho, Momaday retraces the travels of the Kiowas across what would become the United States. With the help of the three distinct voices specified above, the memoir shows how myth, history, and individual experience intersect to create a person’s, indeed a people’s, identity.
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