Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2023 -

Stories From Saddle Mountain : Autobiographies Of A Kiowa Family
 ISBN: 9781496228116Price: 40.00  
Volume: Dewey: 978.00497492Grade Min: Publication Date: 2021-11-01 
LCC: 2021-001172LCN: E99.K5T664 2021Grade Max: Version:  
Contributor: Tongkeamha, HenriettaSeries: American Indian Lives Ser.Publisher: University of Nebraska PressExtent: 222 
Contributor: Tongkeamha, RaymondReviewer: Michael F. McClureAffiliation: Virginia State UniversityIssue Date: January 2023 
Contributor: Kracht, Benjamin R.    

Edited by Kracht (Northeastern State Univ.), the autobiographies of Henrietta Tongkeamha and her son Raymond Tongkeamha offer a collage of Kiowa life in southwestern Oklahoma from the early 20th century to the present. This volume presents a portrait of the evolution and adaptation of the Tongkeamhas and of the Kiowa people and the interconnected Native Americans of the Southwest, tracing their practices from traditional to "modern." These changes testify to the Tongkeamhas' strength of character and determination to hold on to aspects of Kiowa culture while adopting some changes from the dominant culture, e.g., switching from traveling the "Peyote Road" to the "Jesus Road." The stories also represent the effects of loss--of hunting skills, language, and community. This is a telling companion to Native fiction in similar settings, such as N. Scott Momaday's The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969) and Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony (1977). The impact of the cultural stress central to those novels is evident in the Tongkeamhas' autobiographies, though conveyed in a matter-of-fact tone. Overall, these stories present strong people resolved to maintain their connections to one another, their community, and the land that shaped them.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates though professionals. General readers.