The Journey of Tai-me

N. Scott Momaday

• Publisher: UNM Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780826348210
• eBook ISBN: 9780826348234
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Folklore & Mythology
• Index: Social Sciences

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.

To the Old Woman Ko-SahnTHE JOURNEY OF TAI-MEYou know, everything had to begin, and this is how it was: The Kiowas came one by one into the world through a hollow log. They were many more than now, but not all of them got out. There was a woman whose body was swollen up with child, and she got stuck in the log. After that, no one could get through, and that is why the Kiowas are a small tribe. They looked all around and saw the world. It made them glad to see so many things. They called themselves Kwuda, “coming out.”They lived at first in the mountains. They did not yet know of Tai-me, but this is what they knew: There was a man and his wife. They had a beautiful child, a little girl whom they would not allow to go out of their sight. But one day a close friend of the family came and asked if she might take the child outside to play. The mother guessed that would be all right, but she told her friend to leave the child in its cradle and to place the cradle in a tree. While the child was in the tree, a redbird came among the branches. It was not like any bird that you have seen; it was very beautiful, and it didn’t fly away. It kept still upon a limb, close to the child. Then the child got out of its cradle and began to climb after the redbird. At the same time the tree began to grow taller, and the child was borne up into the sky. She was then a woman, and she found herself in a strange place. Instead of a redbird, there was a young man standing before her. The man spoke to her and said: “I have held my eyes upon you for a long time, and I have known that I would find a way to bring you here. I have brought you here to be my wife.” The woman looked around; she saw that he was the only living man there. She saw that he was the sun.After that the woman grew lonely. She thought about her people, and she wondered how they were getting on. One day she had a quarrel with the sun, and the sun went away. In her anger she dug up the roots of a bush which the sun had warned her never to go near. A piece of the earth fell from the roots, and she could see her people far below. By then she had given birth; she had a child—a boy by the sun. She made a rope of sinew and took her child upon her back; she climbed down upon the rope, but when she came to the end her people were still a long way off, and there she waited with the child upon her back. It was evening; the sun came home and found his woman gone. He thought of the bush and went to the place where it had grown. There he saw the woman and the child, hanging by the rope half way down to the ground. He was very angry, and he took up a ring in his hand. He told the ring to follow the rope and strike the woman dead; then he threw the ring and it did what he told it to do. It struck the woman and killed her, and then the sun’s child was left alone.

The sun’s child was big enough to walk around, and he saw a camp nearby. He made his way to it and saw that a black widow spider—that which is called a grandmother—lived there. She spoke Kiowa to the sun’s child, and the child was afraid. The grandmother was full of resentment; she was jealous, you see, for the child had not yet been weaned from its mother’s breasts. She wondered whether the child were a boy or a girl. She therefore made two things: a pretty ball and a bow and arrows; these things she left alone with the child all the next day. When she returned she saw that the ball was full of arrows, and she knew then that the child was a boy and that he would be hard to raise. Time and again the grandmother tried to capture the child, but he always ran away. Then one day she made a snare out of rope. The child was caught up in the snare and cried, but the grandmother sang to him and ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Preface
• Preface to the Original
• Dedication