Table of Contents
The Man Made of Words (excerpt) by N. Scott Momaday
N. Scott Momaday
February 27, 1934- January 24, 2024
Navarre Scotte Momaday was a Kiowa (tribe located in the Great Plains) and American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. His work, House Made of Dawn, is considered as the first significant work that would become part of the Native American Renaissance canon. From an early age, the arts had a particular place in Momaday's life, as his father Al Momaday was a painter and mother, Natachee Scott Momaday, was a writer (“N. Scott Momaday”). Momaday's parents were also an deeply involved in their respective native traditions. Al was a member of the Kiowa nation, while Natachee was of English and Cherokee descent- placing Momaday at even-eighths Indian blood (with the remaining one-eighth attributable to pioneer ancestry) per the blood quantum native laws (“N. Scott Momaday Biography”). Both of Momaday's parents taught on Indian reservations in Arizona and New Mexico when he was growing up, exposing him to the Navajo, Apache, and Pueblo Indian cultures of the Southwest, thus allowing for a unique blend of cross-cultural traditions and influences. 
Alongside the notable influences of his parents, their native traditions, and their love of languages, Momaday was also inspired by William Faulkner, whom he met during his time in Virginia, where he attended the University of Virginia for about a year (“Artists of Oklahoma”). After his time in Virginia, Momaday attended the University of New Mexico, where he received a degree in political science. Momaday was then accepted into Stanford University, where he completed his Master's and his Ph.D. in English. Eventually, Momaday was recognized for his contribution to literature as he became the first Native American to win a Pulitzer Prize when his first novel, House Made of Dawn in 1969 (Ziemba), paving the way for other authors and poets, such as Joy Harjo, to follow in the decades to come.
Momaday passed away in 2024, and in the aftermath of his death, former U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo thanked Momaday in her tribute in The Washington Post, “for making a door that wasn’t there in the generations that preceded him. It took bravery, imagination, listening to what isn’t always heard and, most of all, a great love of the word and how it can and will remake us.”
"The Man Made of Words"
The Momaday excerpt is from A Man Made of Words, which is a collection of essays, stories, and passages that explore themes of land, language, and identity, reflecting on his journey as a Native American writer and what that means for him. Interestingly, the book also is very much a reflection of what his success means as one of the first recognised Native American writers of his time. A Man Made of Words focuses on the relationships humanity has with the world- and much of it is influenced by his Kiowa heritage.
The excerpt centers on a story from Momaday's father, Al, about an arrowmaker and their connection to the natural and spiritual matters. According to Momaday's story, “If an arrow is well made, it will have tooth marks upon it. That is how you know. The Kiowas made fine arrows and straightened them in their teeth. Then they drew them to the bow to see that they were straight” (414). From there, Momaday interjects that the story's point is that the arrowmaker has a link to an ancient chain of language and literature and transcends time and space (414). The imagery of the arrow and the warrior is also very poignant for the story because like an arrow from a bow, it traverses distance, crossing from its point of origin to meet its mark. It is the same concept regarding literature and language as it crosses barriers, both great and small. The arrowmaker in the story can use language to identify friend or foe, which offers a sense of awareness and power that inspired Momaday in his writing and is a part of his journey.
Overall, for Momaday, the fact that language is power is the meaning, “The arrowmaker is pre-eminently the man made of words. He has consummate being in language; it is the world of his origin and of his posterity, and there is no other. But it is a world of definite reality and of infinite possibility” (Momaday 416).
Arrowmaker
Building on the idea of language being the reality of the arrowmaker, Momaday reflects on this on pages 415 and 416 as well as the sense of perspective drawn by observing the arrowmaker's actions through hearing or reading them. For the arrowmaker, he must use language because it is the only thing he knows: “language is the repository of his whole knowledge and experience.” (415) He may not possess or may not be able to perceive of other methods to deal with the threat outside the tepee. Language and the limits of it versus other experience is the barrier which separates the arrowmaker from other ideas. The arrowmaker cannot interact with our reality other than through us perceiving him and the power we give him or his story over us.
It is also a barrier which separates the audience from the arrowmaker. The audience does not know this person, nor when they come from since the tale has been around longer than any living person. “It is worth considering that he survives in our own time and that he has survived over a period of untold generations.” (416) So when we look at or hear this story of the arrowmaker, we are left with the context which is given, no more. “The storyteller is nameless and unlettered. From one point of view we know very little about him, except that he is somehow translated for us into the person of the arrowmaker. But, from another point of view that is all we need to know.” (416) Similarly to before, we cannot interact with the reality of the arrowmaker other than through us perceiving him and the details which were remembered and transferred from his encounter.
Language, then, is a limited two-way street in a world that knows no sidewalks. The audience and the arrowmaker are on different sides of the road, temporal and physical boundaries act as the yellow dividing line, oral history acts as the headlights and both the person telling the story to us and our imagining the tale as it is told act as us seeing the headlights and reacting to it (if we need to) The only thing that allows us to communicate with the arrowmaker (and vice versa) is our perception and continuation of the tale, similar to how headlights allow cars to communicate with limited input. Using headlights, similar to language as Momaday says on page 415, “involves elements of risk and responsibility”. We may misunderstand or mistranslate the tale (in our example, this would be misunderstanding the headlights and acting by turning up our high-beams instead of down), changing both the story (the other car in our scenario) and the language that we use to tell it (what the road signs and dividing yellow line look like, which are used, where they are placed, etc.) but the core interaction will be the same, through language (driving on the road) and this will always involve some sort of risk (similar to driving).
Intersecting with this, we could easily swap the arrowmaker here with any piece of literature or anybody and the language could convey any experience. I may have seen a sunset that you have not, and despite how many times I try to describe it to you, no matter how vivid my wording or how much detail I put into it, there is the risk of misunderstanding, misperception, and the real risk of experience alteration through forgetting details or misattributing words. The scene of the sunset can never be fully experienced by you through me telling you about it (regardless of whether I say it, write it, whatever method) and the responsibility we have is to give you as close an approximation to the experience as possible. The risk is that we fail to do so in some regard/s. This is the way of language and is a semiotics issue which is perfectly embodied through the tale of the arrowmaker and Momaday's further analysis in this article.
