Momaday (Indian History)

A detailed Summary of Momaday (Indian History)

It is as hard to classify N. Scott Momaday's The Way To The Rainy Mountain as history, as it is hard to classify Momaday as a historian. According to Marius there are four main assertions to consider before making a decision.

The first assertion is that historians study sources that tell them about the past, and they write because they see something in these sources that needs to be explained. Momaday does not necessarily study the sources written down by scholars that tell him of the past. He is merely remembering oral stories told to him as a child. He is letting the outside world into the Kiowa history for our benefit not for him to study it. Also, Momaday writes these stories to preserve them so they may not be lost forever, they do not need to be explained.

The second assertion is that all historical wri

The last assertion Marius discusses is that history and writing are inseparable. We cannot know history well unless we write about it. Momaday would completely disagree with Marius here. He would say, what makes the stories special is the old generation telling them and passing them along to the new generations. The Kiowa history is all orally told. Writing down their history takes away from the actual story. The only reason Momaday writes down the stories is to preserve them for future generations of Kiowa and non-Kiowa alike.

By Marius's standards of history he would say that Momaday's stories are not actually history but fairy tales. He would say there are no actual facts to back up the stories. He would say they were just stories to explain why things are the way they are. Marius would also say Momaday is not a historian. Momaday does no

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Approximate Word count = 578
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)

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Momaday (Indian History)

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