Voice and Momaday's Triadic Structure in *Rainy Mountain*

Scott Momaday shows three different storylines about the Kiowas people
on each page. One storyline tells the ancient tale of how man and the
Kiowas came to be. The second storyline describes the recent history and
customs of the Kiowas. The third storyline follows the first person life
experiences of Scott Momaday as a Kiowas Indian himself.

The first storyline tracks what seems like a classic Kiowas folk story,
one meant to entertain little children. There’s a story about how they
got their Kwuda, “coming out” name, how they came out of a log. Momaday
describes a story of a hunter being saved from a bear by a dog. There’s
also a story of a woman who gets taken by the sun to be his wife.

The second storyline is more factual about how the Kiowas conducted
themselves. They are a people who hunt by circling their prey and
converging on the center. And they are told to be a people who don’t
cultivate the land, they are hunters and have never been agricultural.

The third storyline gives us a view of Momaday’s perspective. After
describing the way the Kiowas hunt Antelope, he reflects upon his
experience when he was scared of antelope who were ambling near him.
Remarking after the facts he reveals about the Kiowas being a solely
hunting tribe, he remembers a time where he saw a man eating a raw
calves liver.

One must question why Momaday has chosen to separate the reader’s
attention in three directions, all at the same time. On page 30 and 31,
he divides the pages into three completely different subjects. One is a
fable about a boy with a spider grandmother, another describes how
important horses are to the Kiowas, and the third subject is about
Momaday’s memory of swimming in the Washita River. Why not separate
the storylines into different sections of the book? I am curious about his
intentions with this stylistic choice.

~D.H.