[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Momaday swork arrived at about the same time that American Indian activism was stirred bythe founding of the American Indian Movement and other activities, such as pub-lication of Dee Brown s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.House Made of Dawnhelped to initiate a modern rebirth of American Indian literature.In addition toworking with words, Momaday often illustrates his books with sketches.His etch-ings and paintings also have been widely exhibited.Early LifeMomaday was born February 27, 1934, in Lawton, Oklahoma, to Alfred Momaday(a full-blooded Kiowa), a painter, and Natachee Scott Momaday, who was FrenchAmerican and Cherokee and a writer. I grew up in a creative household and fol-lowed in my mother s footsteps, to begin with.My father was a great storyteller andhe knew many stories from the Kiowa oral tradition, Momaday said during a PublicBroadcasting Service ( PBS) documentary about him that was aired during 2001. Hetold me many of these stories over and over because I loved them.But it was onlyafter I became an adult that I understood how fragile they are, because they exist onlyby word of mouth, always just one generation away from extinction.That s whenI began to write down the tales my father and others had told me ( Keeper, 2001). 194 | Momaday, N.ScottAt the age of six months, a Kiowastoryteller gave Momaday a Kiowaname, Tsoaitalee ( Rock-Tree Boy ),referring to a location near Devil sTower, in Wyoming.Within two yearsof his birth, Momaday s family movedto the Navajo reservation in NewMexico for seven years.In 1946, bothparents became teachers at a school onthe Jemez Pueblo in New Mexico.Lifein New Mexico later would fundamen-tally flavor Momaday s novels and po-etry.At Jemez, Momaday watched lifechange quickly following the return ofveterans from World War II.Its popu-lation increased as Anglo-Americanways of life became more common-place.Veterans returning from WorldWar II brought outside experienceshome. I grew up in two worlds andstraddle both those worlds even now, Momaday said. It has made for con-fusion and a richness in my life.I veN.Scott Momaday, professor and author,been able to deal with it reasonablywinner of a Guggenheim fellowship and awell, I think, and I value it ( Keeper, Pulitzer Prize for fiction.(AP/Wide World2001).Momaday developed a keenPhotos)eye for the impact of such changes onNative people, some of whom left the reservations for jobs.Others became sui-cidal as familiar signposts of traditional life vanished.Many turned to alcohol orother drugs.While Momaday became an acute student of personal identity crisesin his writing, he seemed to thrive from change himself.Education, Teaching, WritingMomaday earned a bachelor s degree in political science at the University of NewMexico (1958), then taught for a time on New Mexico s Jicarilla Apache Reserva-tion, where he began to write.His talents were recognized quickly; in 1959, hereceived a Wallace Stegner Creative Writing Scholarship for poetry.At StanfordUniversity, he worked with his mentor, poet Yvor Winters.Momaday earned amaster s degree at Stanford in 1960 and a PhD three years later, after which hebegan to teach at the University of California Santa Barbara.There, he began towork on House Made of Dawn, which captured the search for Native Americanidentity in a rapidly changing world that Momaday had observed at Jemez.Abel,the main character, leaves the reservation for World War II, then struggles withhis identity upon return.A Navajo and a Kiowa help Abel rediscover his Native Momaday, N.Scott | 195American heritage, an experience that resonated with many people on reservationsand in cities who were engaged in the same sort of struggle and change.Following House Made of Dawn, Momaday wrote several other books that ad-dress Native American people s attempts to maintain traditions in the 20th century,including The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969), a work that combines some of hisown past with Kiowa history and myth; a childhood memoir (The Names, 1976); abook of poems (The Gourd Dancer, also 1976); and The Ancient Child (1989).Heauthored In the Presence of the Sun (1991), Circle of Wonder: A Native AmericanChristmas Story (1993), and The Native Americans: Indian Country (1993), aswell as other, later titles.He also scripted a play, The Indolent Boys (2007).In addition to his work on Native American themes, Momaday is a scholarof Emily Dickinson and Frederick Goddard Tuckerman.He has been awardeda Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award, andthe Premio Letterario Internationale Mondello, Italy s highest literary award.Heis also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a foundingtrustee of the National Museum of the American Indian.Momaday has held tenured appointments at the Santa Barbara and Berkeleycampuses of the University of California, Stanford University, and the Universityof Arizona, where he was named regents professor.At Berkeley, Momaday wasProfessor of English and Comparative Literature.He also designed a graduate pro-gram of American Indian Studies.Momaday moved from Berkeley to Stanford in1973.In 1982, he moved again, to Tucson, at the University of Arizona.He has lectured at several other universities, including Princeton and Columbia.His teaching credits also include the University of Moscow, in Russia, where hewas the first to teach Native American literature.In 2007, Momaday received theNational Medal of Arts.Surveying Native American experience over the last century, Momaday seesreasons to be optimistic. The turn of the century was the lowest point for thedevastation of Indian culture by disease and persecution, and it s a wonder to methat they survived it and have not only maintained their identity, but are actuallygrowing stronger in some ways.The situation is still very bad, especially in certaingeographical areas, but there are more Indians going to school, more Indians be-coming professional people, more Indians assuming full responsibility in our soci-ety.We have a long way to go, but we re making great strides ( Keeper, 2001).Momaday is a member of the Kiowa Gourd Dance Society.He also visits sacredplaces such as Devil s Tower, which, he told PBS, are important to me, becausethey ve been made sacred by sacrifice, by the investment of blood and experienceand story.So I have a keen sense of that and a great appreciation of it.And I thinkthat the greatest deprivation that the Native American suffers today is the theft ofthe sacred ( Keeper, 2001).Further Reading Keeper of the Flame: N.Scott Momaday. New Perspectives on the West.Public Broad-casting System.2001.http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest /program /producers/momaday.htm. 196 | Montezuma, Carlos (Wassaja)Momaday, N.Scott.House Made of Dawn.New York: Harper & Row, 1968.Momaday, N.Scott.The Names.Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976.Schubnell, Matthias.N.Scott Momaday: The Cultural and Literary Background.Norman:University of Oklahoma Press, 1985.Schubnell, Matthias, ed.Conversations with N.Scott Momaday.Jackson: University Pressof Mississippi, 1997.MONTEZUMA, CARLOS (WASSAJA)C.1867 1923 YAVAPAINATIVE-RIGHTS LEADER AND PHYSICIANAmong the Yavapai, Carlos Montezuma was known as Wassaja, translated fromthe Yuman language as meaning Gesturing, or Beckoning, a name that laterwas taken as the title of a well-known Native American newspaper.Montezumacombined activism with a career as a surgeon
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]