Ms. Brown
11th Lit
15 December 2016
N. Scott Momaday Navarro Scott Mammedaty, was born February 27, 1934, in Lawton, Oklahoma and grew up relatively close to the Navajo and San Carlos Apache communities. Growing up in Arizona enabled Momaday to participate in his father’s Kiowa traditions and some of the Southwest including: Pueblo, Apache, and Navajo traditions. Throughout Momaday 's writing his use of myths and legends from his culture (Kiowa) and his traditions, beliefs, morals, and conflicts have influenced American literature as well as his own life. He tell us stories of his mentors/ancestors and old myths/legends and how they lived around them. Until the Cavalry invasion in which his ancestors lost their freedom of religion …show more content…
In addition to that name, around his 5th birthday, ¨A Sioux elder gave him his second Indian name, Wanbli Wanjila (Eagle Alone) and later in his life he received yet a third name, Tso-Toh-Haw (Kiowa for Red Mountain).¨(Mills, Macdonald) These were names of honor because nature is very important to the Kiowa culture, they worship the earth and everything included. Before Momaday 's birth, The indigenous people migrated from the south to the east, in which ¨The Kiowas were befriended by the crows, who gave them the culture and religion of the Plains.¨ (Momaday 4) also, ¨They acquired horses, and their ancient nomadic spirit was suddenly free of the ground.¨ (Momaday 4) and ¨They acquired Tai-me, the sacred Sun Dance doll, from that moment the object and symbol of their worship, and so shared in the divinity of the sun.¨ (Momaday 4) The first encounter with Tai-me doll comes from an old myth which states, ¨Tai-me came to the Kiowas in a vision of suffering and despair. ¨Take me with you,¨ Tai-me said, ¨and I will give you whatever you want.¨ and it was so.¨ (Momaday 1) They obtained most of their beliefs from a different culture and some say it saved their culture. Before they lived in a world of brisk survival, but now ¨According to their origin myth, they …show more content…
In an interview from Ana Suarez who is a Rollins 360 employee, he states, ¨I grew up in Kiowa country, my father was a full-blood Kiowa, and the Kiowa’s have a very rich oral tradition—a storytelling tradition.¨ (Suarez) and Momaday had skill for listening well, he says ¨It came very naturally to me. I started writing and naturally drew from oral tradition.¨ (Suarez) As he wrote through his literary career, he says ¨I write other things, but I always have a Native American strain in there somewhere.¨(Suarez) This shows how his culture affected his life and writing career. When Momaday lived in New Mexico he had an imaginary friends named Billy the kid, who is a infamous gunslinger that everyone knew about even though he died 53 years before Momaday 's