“Another great storyteller is emerging.”—Tony Hillerman Award-winning author Mardi Oakley Medawar On a scalding summer day in 1866, the Kiowa Nation gathered at Rainy Mountain to witness the magnificent Cheyenne Robber standing before them—charged with murdering a fellow tribesman. It was a day Tay-bodal would never forget. A day that threatened to tear the unity of the entire Kiowa Nation... Known as a wanderer and eccentric healer, Tay-bodal was always on the outside of the clan. Now, for the first time in his life, Tay-bodal's unconventional ways will prove invaluable to the survival of the Kiowa Nation. He has just five days to find the truth behind the murder. But Tay-bodal will discover more than truth. He will embark on a journey so spiritual, so important, that he will finally know what it is to be a Kiowa Indian... "Medawar, a Cherokee, reveals legendary Native Americans as believable people and offers her readers a comprehensive look at historical Kiowa life and values."—Publishers Weekly "Her characters, white or Indian, are people...This is our history."—Don Coldsmith, award-winning author of Runestone "More than a mystery, Medawar's novel is a beautifully written, life-affirming, heartwarming story full of adventure, humor, and tears...a cunningly plotted story that is as devilishly funny as it is charmingly told."—ALA Booklist

First published in paperback by UNM Press in 1976, The Way to Rainy Mountain has sold over 200,000 copies. "The paperback edition of The Way to Rainy Mountain was first published twenty-five years ago. One should not be surprised, I suppose, that it has remained vital, and immediate, for that is the nature of story. And this is particularly true of the oral tradition, which exists in a dimension of timelessness. I was first told these stories by my father when I was a child. I do not know how long they had existed before I heard them. They seem to proceed from a place of origin as old as the earth. "The stories in The Way to Rainy Mountain are told in three voices. The first voice is the voice of my father, the ancestral voice, and the voice of the Kiowa oral tradition. The second is the voice of historical commentary. And the third is that of personal reminiscence, my own voice. There is a turning and returning of myth, history, and memoir throughout, a narrative wheel that is as sacred as language itself."--from the new Preface

This precursor to The Way to Rainy Mountain was originally published in a handmade edition in 1967 and has never before been commercially available.

“Both a masterpiece about the universal human condition and a masterpiece of Native American literature. . . . A book everyone should read for the joy and emotion of the language it contains.” — The Paris Review A special 50th anniversary edition of the magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning novel from renowned Kiowa writer and poet N. Scott Momaday, with a new preface by the author A young Native American, Abel has come home from war to find himself caught between two worlds. The first is the world of his father’s, wedding him to the rhythm of the seasons, the harsh beauty of the land, and the ancient rites and traditions of his people. But the other world—modern, industrial America—pulls at Abel, demanding his loyalty, trying to claim his soul, and goading him into a destructive, compulsive cycle of depravity and disgust. An American classic, House Made of Dawn is at once a tragic tale about the disabling effects of war and cultural separation, and a hopeful story of a stranger in his native land, finding his way back to all that is familiar and sacred.

"Another great storyteller is emerging."-Tony Hillerman Award-winning authorMardi Oakley Medawar On a scalding summer day in 1866, the Kiowa Nation gathered at Rainy Mountain to witness the magnificent Cheyenne Robber standing before them-charged with murdering a fellow tribesman. It was a day Tay-bodal would never forget. A day that threatened to tear the unity of the entire Kiowa Nation... Known as a wanderer and eccentric healer, Tay-bodal was always on the outside of the clan. Now, for the first time in his life, Tay-bodal's unconventional ways will prove invaluable to the survival of the Kiowa Nation. He has just five days to find the truth behind the murder. But Tay-bodal will discover more than truth. He will embark on a journey so spiritual, so important, that he will finally know what it is to be a Kiowa Indian... "Medawar, a Cherokee, reveals legendaryNative Americans as believable peopleand offers her readers a comprehensive lookat historical Kiowa life and values."-Publishers Weekly "Her characters, white or Indian, are people...This is our history."-Don Coldsmith, award-winning author of Runestone "More than a mystery, Medawar's novel is a beautifully written, life-affirming, heartwarming story full of adventure, humor, and tears...a cunningly plotted story that is as devilishlyfunny as it is charmingly told."-ALA Booklist

Although highly regarded as a writer of fiction, nonfiction, and drama, N. Scott Momaday considers himself primarily a poet. This first book of his poems to be published in over a decade, Again the Far Morning comprises a varied selection of new work along with the best from his four earlier books of poems: Angle of Geese (1974), The Gourd Dancer (1976), In the Presence of the Sun (1992), and In the Bear’s House (1999). To read Momaday’s poems from the last forty years is to understand that his focus on Kiowa traditions and other American Indian myths is further evidence of his spectacular formal accomplishments. His early syllabic verse, his sonnets, and his mastery of iambic pentameter are echoed in more recent work, and prose poetry has been part of his oeuvre from the beginning. The new work includes the elegies and meditations on mortality that we expect from a writer whose career has been as long as Momaday’s, but it also includes light verse and sprightly translations of Kiowa songs.

A touching Christmas tale from Jemez Pueblo, illustrated in color by the author.

Seventeen marvelous essays introducing the habitats, ecology, plants, and animals of the Central and South American rainforest. A lively, lucid portrait of the tropics as seen by two uncommonly observant and thoughtful field biologists. Its seventeen marvelous essays introduce the habitats, ecology, plants, and animals of the Central and South American rainforest. Includes a lengthy appendix of practical advice for the tropical traveler.

“These are the poems of a master poet. . . . When you read these poems, you will learn to hear deeply the sound a soul makes as it sings about the mystery of dreaming and becoming.” — Joy Harjo, Mvskoke Nation, U.S. Poet Laureate Pulitzer Prize winner and celebrated American master N. Scott Momaday returns with a radiant collection of more than 200 new and selected poems rooted in Native American oral tradition. One of the most important and unique voices in American letters, distinguished poet, novelist, artist, teacher, and storyteller N. Scott Momaday was born into the Kiowa tribe and grew up on Indian reservations in the Southwest. The customs and traditions that influenced his upbringing—most notably the Native American oral tradition—are the centerpiece of his work. This luminous collection demonstrates Momaday’s mastery and love of language and the matters closest to his heart. To Momaday, words are sacred; language is power. Spanning nearly fifty years, the poems gathered here illuminate the human condition, Momaday’s connection to his Kiowa roots, and his spiritual relationship to the American landscape. The title poem, “The Death of Sitting Bear” is a celebration of heritage and a memorial to the great Kiowa warrior and chief. “I feel his presence close by in my blood and imagination,” Momaday writes, “and I sing him an honor song.” Here, too, are meditations on mortality, love, and loss, as well as reflections on the incomparable and holy landscape of the Southwest. The Death of Sitting Bear evokes the essence of human experience and speaks to us all.

When his first novel House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1969, N. Scott Momaday was virtually unknown. Today he is the most acclaimed Native American writer, working at the peak of his creative power and gaining stature also as an important painter. His first retrospective was held in 1993 at the Wheel-wright Museum in Santa Fe. The son of a Kiowa artist and a Cherokee-Anglo mother, Momaday synthesizes multiple cultural influences in his writing and painting. While much of his attention focuses on the challenging task of reconciling ancient traditions with modern reality, his work itself is an example of how the best of the Indian and non-Indian worlds can be arranged into a startling mosaic of seemingly contradictory cultural and artistic elements. Momaday sees his writings as one long, continuous story, a working out of his evolving identity as a modern Kiowa. It is a story grounded in the oral tradition of his ancestors and told in the modes of the traditional storyteller and the modern novelist-poet who is steeped in the best writings of American and European literature. The interviews in this volume span the period from 1970 to 1993. Momaday responds candidly to questions relating to his multicultural background, his views on the place of the Indian in American literature and society, his concern for conservation and an American land ethic, his theory of language and the imagination, the influences on his artistic and academic development, and his comments on specific works he has written. The reader who joins these conversations will meet in N. Scott Momaday a careful listener and an engaging, often humorous speaker whose commentaries provide a deeper vision for those interested in his life and work.