The Way to Rainy Mountain

As Momaday explains in the Epilogue, the Kiowa began keeping calendars around 1833 (85). The Kiowa calendars were similar to the winter counts of other Plains tribes, who added to their calendars only once each year, in winter. Kiowa calendar keepers were tasked with drawing images of a memorable event for each summer and winter. When Momaday refers to the theft of the warhorse Little Red as “the most important event of the winter” (77) of 1852-1853, he is clearly drawing upon such a calendar as his source for what the Kiowas found significant that season.

Medicine bundles are bundles of sacred objects used in ceremonies by Plains tribes, including the Kiowas. When not exposed for the Sun Dance, Tai-me resides in such a bundle (37, 80). One of the twin sons of the sun in the ancestral stories is also said to have transformed himself into 10 bundles of “boy medicine” (35). Other bundles can be personal in nature or small enough for their keepers to wear, as Mammedaty wore the grandmother bundle (81).

Peyote is a cactus found in Mexico and southern Texas that contains mescaline, a hallucinogen. It is used in rituals in the Native American Church; Momaday describes one such ceremony in Story XI, which also notes that