“No longer were they slaves to the simple necessities of survival; they were a lordly and dangerous society of fighters and thieves, hunters and priests of the sun” (Momaday 28). The Way to Rainy Mountain is the story of a member of the Kiowa tribe retracing his ancestors steps as they moved from Montana to Oklahoma. In the story it is easy to see the influence of the Kiowa culture, beliefs, and history. In The Way to Rainy Mountain the grandmother was remembering about the sun dance. “As a child she had been to the Sun Dances; she had taken part in those annual rites” (Momaday 30). She visited a sun dance once and there were no more buffalo. The sun dance was important to them. If they didn’t have buffalo they didn’t have a sun dance.
