Native American and Indigenous Studies

N. SCOTT MOMADAY, TSOAI-TALEE, published The Way to Rainy Mountain fifty-two years ago. The Kiowa migration story had a profound impact on my thinking about the Earth. My connection to the book remains strong. Now, Momaday has gifted humanity with a new book entitled Earth Keeper. It is an elder's perspective on the state of our planet that weaves stories, personal experiences, and art into what might be called a geophilosophy. Earth Keeper is yet another one of Momaday's multidimensional creations, inviting readers to travel back and forth across space and time and, most importantly, use our imaginations. The book is an exquisite example of Indigenous geographic writing and much more. Readers should not expect an atomistic and classified account of the physical world. Earth Keeper reaches out to the reader through storytelling in a humanistic and Kiowa way.

Momaday challenges readers, from dawn to dusk, to look around, use our senses, dream, engage, and embrace our rootedness to places on Earth. Readers are invited to find their ancestors embedded in the prose, making the book relatable on a personal level. At dawn, "There was a tree at Rainy Mountain. It was Dragonfly's tree. Beneath this tree Dragonfly spoke to Daw-kee, the Great Mystery." Old man Dragonfly's responsibility involved praying, witnessing the sunrise, and seeing "to it that the sun was borne into the sky" (10). From a personal perspective, old man Dragonfly becomes my great grandfather Henry Thè:nédáu: who climbed the mountain just east of Saddle Mountain Creek to pray and assure that the sun would rise each morning. Thè:nédáu: was a holy man and Earth Keeper. Do you recognize the power of the sun? At dusk, we reflect. In the Kiowa way, time is ambiguous. Do we reflect on the day as 24 hours, 100 sun cycles, or 100,000 sun cycles? Momaday leaves this position up to the reader. At the most basic level, Tsoai-talee wrestles with the idea that we are not improving the planet for our children and grandchildren. Perhaps we humans have forgotten the lessons of our ancestors, living (un)comfortably inside our colonized minds, while the Earth toils under the weight of our burdensome tracks and general apathy. Accordingly, "we have suffered a poverty of the imagination, a [End Page 185] loss of innocence" (57). Dusk reflections give us hope for the future, a call for renewal in the spirit of taking chances.

Earth Keeper invites readers to embrace their immutable Earth relations as only a poet can do. The Earth is a living being, and humans are a part of the planet's relatedness. Although not directly mentioned in the book, Momaday's idea of reciprocal appropriation is deeply engrained throughout the narrative. For example, "If we treat earth with kindness, it will treat us kindly. If we give our belief to the earth, it will believe in us" (11). Ideas of reciprocity and relatedness can challenge students, teachers, and scholars to use their imagination in the classroom. After studying the book, someone might ask: if the human body is over 70 percent water and we are part of the water cycle, how have pollution and other contaminants shaped our being? Another Earth Keeper might argue that trees have existed on Earth far longer than humans. Trees are more evolved than humans. They know how to live on the planet. What can we learn from trees? Some attentive readers will hear the voice of our Earth Mother in Earth Keeper. Momaday would like us to listen to her songs.

All in all, the book is a must read for secondary and undergraduate students and will become a staple in my own classroom book rotations. Momaday passes on elder wisdom and what he has learned over the past half century. Earth Keeper documents the personal and the profound in a world where traditions are respected but not limiting factors. At a time when elders are traveling to "farther camps" and illness...