The Journey of Tai-me

N. Scott Momaday

Illustrations by the author

"Tai-me" is a traditional medicine bundle used by the Kiowa in their Sun Dance. The bundle has been handed down from generation to generation, through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. N. Scott Momaday made this discovery when he began his journey to learn about the Kiowa and his paternal lineage.

Following the death of his beloved Kiowa grandmother, Aho, in 1963 Momaday set out on his quest to learn and document the Kiowa heritage, stories, and folklore. His Kiowa-speaking father, artist Al Momaday, served as translator when Scott visited tribal elders to ask about their memories and stories. Scott gathered these stories into The Journey of Tai-me.

Originally published only in a limited edition in 1967, The Journey of Tai-me is recognized as the basis from which Momaday's more popular The Way to Rainy Mountain grew. When compiling The Way to Rainy Mountain, published by the University of New Mexico Press, Momaday added his own memories and some poems.

"Beautifully illustrated with copies of the original etchings by the author, The Journey of Tai-me is a rich source of the Kiowa oral tradition 'enduring through indefinite time.' The Journey of Tai-me is a historic literary treasure, not to be missed."--The Midwest Book Review

N. Scott Momaday was born in 1934 in Lawton, in southwestern Oklahoma, to a Kiowa father and Cherokee mixed-blood mother. In his lifetime, he has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Academy of American Poets Prize, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for House Made of Dawn, and election into the Kiowa Gourd Clan. In a ceremony at the White House in 2007, Momaday was awarded the National Medal of Arts. He resides in Santa Fe.

7 x 8 88 pages 9 illustrations