The Way to Rainy Mountain

The Leonid meteor shower on November 13, 1833, is one of the earliest events in the Kiowa calendars, beginning “the historical period” for the tribe (85). The Kiowa golden age was already passing, having spanned from 1740 to 1830, and left few material traces. It is still, however, in reach of memory, as demonstrated by the person of Ko-Sahn, a 100-year-old woman whom Momaday met who recalled a Sun Dance. The dance began with an old woman carrying sandy earth for the dancers in a sack upon her back. Momaday concludes by imagining that sometimes, Ko-Sahn must have dreamed herself as that woman, or seen the falling stars of 1833. The Epilogue then concludes with a poem entitled “Rainy Mountain Cemetery,” addressed to an unnamed interred person as the noonday sun casts a shadow of their name upon the headstone.