In 1969, the same year that N. Scott Momaday began his tenure as associate professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California at Berkeley, he won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for House Made of Dawn (1968), published his autobiographical work The Way to Rainy Mountain, and was initiated into the Kiowa Gourd Dance Society. This confluence of events is remarkable. The critical recognition of Momaday's novel, for example, stimulated public interest in Native American literary history as well as in contemporary Native American writers in general. Furthermore, The Way to Rainy Mountain, over time, came to rival House Made of Dawn in literary circles throughout the world. That Momaday can reside successfully in both Native American and Euro-American traditions brings crucial attention to previously unfamiliar "assimilation" patterns in American history. The status of Momaday's work, however, results not only from his prowess as a writer but...