Transcendence: Constructing a Path
to Identity through Running, Stories, and Imagination
To
be nobody – but – yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and
day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle any
human can fight; and never to stop fighting.
- E.E. Cummings
As
E.E. Cummings aptly observed, being oneself, attaining a firm sense of
identity, can be a formidable task, for any person. For the Native
American, this task is doubly difficult. The Native American struggles
between two worlds – the world of the white man, and the traditional world
of his ancestors. Countless scholars have tried to establish exactly
what the difference is between these two worlds. N. Scott Momaday,
author of the Pulitzer prize-winning novel, House Made of Dawn,
understands the difference to be one of perspective. Native Americans
see the world in a different way. For example, the white man perceives
time as being linear, a moving entity, progressing. Conversely, the
Native American understands there to be only a “dimension of timelessness”
or “an extended present” (The Man Made of Words, Momaday, 53).
These two views of time are just one facet of the different perspectives
of the world.
Different perspectives often fuel antagonism and conflict. One need
only recall the history of United States policy and action toward Native
Americans to note this truth. With policies such as relocation and
termination, the United States government consistently tried to assimilate
Native Americans into the dominant culture. The government was “convinced
of [its] own superiority”, “dangerously ethnocentric” (Olson and Wilson,
23). Yet, Native Americans held onto their traditions and culture and today
strive to live in two worlds. Balancing two worlds is not easy, but
important. As Momaday states, “It is imperative that the Indian defines
himself, that he finds the strength to do so, that he refuses to let others
define him”(The Man Made of Words, 76). Only by attaining
a strong sense of identity can the Native American hope to survive in two
worlds.
It is not enough to know that a sense of identity is needed. One
must understand how it can be attained. In the phenomenal novel,
House Made of Dawn, Momaday details the loss and recovery of a Native
American character’s identity. In the biographical work, N. Scott Momaday,
Schubnell quotes Momaday as saying the following:
We are what we imagine. Our very existence consists in
our imagination of ourselves. Our best destiny is to imagine, at
least, completely, who and what, and that we are. The greatest tragedy
that can befall us is to go unimagined (100).
For Momaday, imagination is the key to identity, and it is this key that
he offers as a solution to the problem of identity. In House Made
of Dawn, the protagonist, Abel, cannot imagine who he is. John Keats
once noted that during the early years of life, one’s imagination is intact,
yet there often comes a period when “the soul is in a ferment, the character
undecided, the way of life uncertain…” (Selinger, par.3). It is this
period of uncertainty in Abel that Momaday chronicles in House Made
of Dawn, and thus reveals the methods of running and stories as a means
to regain certainty, the ability to imagine, a sense of identity.
Before delving into the issues of identity in House Made of Dawn, it is
important for one to understand certain elements of the traditional Native
world. As Owens remarks in Mixedblood Messages, prior to “discussing
any aspect of Native American literature, it is important to know what
literature we are talking about” (15). As stated earlier, running
and stories are the significant elements or methods that Momaday offers
as a means to gaining the ability to imagine, and thus to gaining a sense
of identity. Both running and stories have important historical and
traditional significance, which bear heavily in one’s understanding of
their presence in House Made of Dawn.
Running has a rich history and significance for Native peoples. In
the work Indian Running: Native American History and Tradition,
Peter Nabokov chronicles the importance of running in Native American cultures,
from the late 1600’s to the present. For example, among certain Californian
tribes, running was a “calling”, and those who became runners for their
tribe were called “newsboys” (16). These “newsboys” were able to
pass through enemy territories without fear of persecution or molestation,
to pass along vital information. Runners were messengers, skilled
at traversing large territories, on missions to spread news and perhaps
issue warnings to other communities. Nabokov says that runners were
“communicators of culture; their units were absorbed into social and religious
life. They were highly regarded as safekeepers of accurate information.
Their status was high for they helped keep their worlds intact and in touch”
(14). Runners were highly esteemed, essential to the survival of
culture and community.
In Other Destinies, Louis Owens also talks about the importance
of running. He says that for the people of the Jemez Pueblo, the
native community in which the novel, House Made of Dawn is set,
“running can have serious ceremonial applications” and that each season
there are running ceremonies (94). In House Made of Dawn,
Francisco, Abel’s grandfather remembers such a running ceremony, when he
remembers the winter races for good hunting.
Nabokov goes into further detail about the running ceremonies of the people
of Jemez Pueblo, citing the “autumn harvest races on the second week of
September” as the most important running event (71). Younger Jemez
boys prepared for this ritual by fasting, singing, praying, and purifying
their bodies. There were “five to ten-mile training runs everyday”
for the runners, who also purified their bodies and sought the “appeasement”
of the spirits for safe running (71). One can appreciate the importance
of this running ceremony by noting these extensive preparations.
Running also plays an important part in the myths and legends of native
peoples. One woman interviewed by Nabokov, Anna Risser, says ‘there
is nothing that Indians like so well as to run races… [perhaps] because
the gods in the far past settled so many difficult questions by races’
(23). Nabokov also states that the Sinologist Steward Culin, in his
studies of Native American games, “found nuances and reflections of the
origin myths which gave the tribespeople their identity” (68). Running
can be traced even to the origin of Native peoples. It is found in
their legends, their stories of origination, their ceremonies, and their
social histories. In finding running in origin myths and ceremonies,
one can deduce that running is a means to transcend time, a way of connecting
to that which brought identity and meaning in the past with the present.
Just as running has traditional value and significance, stories too have
traditional value and importance. In his work Manifest Manners,
Gerald Vizenor states, “ Native American Indian identities bear the tribal
memories and solace of heard stories” (52). In another work, Fugitive
Poses, Vizenor states that “Native selves are stories…”(20).
These two statements by Vizenor illustrate the ‘connectedness’ of one’s
identity or sense of self and stories. Stories are an inherent part
of one’s self, of one’s identity. Vizenor’s remarks are perhaps made
clearer by Owens’s definition of a story’s responsibilities. Owens
states that in Native American oral tradition stories have responsibilities
“to tell us who we are and where we come from, make us whole and heal us,
to integrate us fully within the world in which we live and make that world
inhabitable, to compel order and reality” (93). Stories help us to
understand. They are healers.
Stories have a centering power essential in helping us define who we are.
In Man Made of Words, Momaday states that the “central function
of storytelling is to reflect the forces, within and without us, that govern
our lives, both good and bad” (169). Stories reflect that within
us, even showing us that which we would rather not notice. Terrance
Honvantewa of the Hopi tribe once said, “There are stories and stories…There
are the songs, also, that are taught. Some are whimsical. Some
are very intense. Some are documentary…Everything I have known is
through teachings, by word of mouth, either by song or by legends” (Cleary,
40). For Honvantewa, stories (for songs are but sung stories) were
his most prominent teacher. Honvantewa’s statement emphasizes the
importance of oral tradition, of passing down and telling the stories.
Stories help shape who one is, who one becomes.
In Surviving in Two Worlds, contemporary Native Americans, leaders,
healers, and prominent members of various tribes, present their views of
ways to maintain an identity while living in two worlds. One of these
ways is through stories. A psychotherapist Taos Pueblo, Taos Tafoya,
uses stories in psychotherapy as method of healing. Tafoya relates
the following about telling stories:
Every time we tell a story it’s a ceremony. In English,
we translate it that when you tell a story you ‘wet it with your breath.’
You give it life, just as when you give water to a seed and it blossoms
(135).
This quote illustrates the sacredness of stories and storytelling.
It shows the seriousness of invocation in a story. Traditionally,
stories are not trifling things to be taken lightly. They are powerful,
transforming, invoking healing and life.
Stories and identity are linked, just as stories and imagination are linked.
In defining the responsibilities of stories, Owens also gives a description
of the ‘identified individual’, one who has a strong sense of identity
and is fully self-imagined. The identified individual knows where
he is from and where he is going. He is not fragmented, and knows
his place within the world. He is within the order of the universe.
These characteristics are embodied in Momaday’s imagination of self.
The path to imagination and identity lies in those things that show us
who we are, that heal and make us whole, and that promote order and reality.
Throughout House Made of Dawn, two of Momaday’s methods to attaining
identity reveal themselves to be, on this same path, running and stories.
These methods are not separate, but intermingle and cross over one another
at different times. Ultimately, through the utilization of these
methods, one can gain a sense of identity and the ability to imagine oneself.
At the novel’s ending, this is exactly what Abel does.
In now undertaking the task to reveal the path to identity in House
Made of Dawn, we begin with the prologue, which itself begins with
the word ‘Dypaloh’. This word signals a shift into the Native American
oral tradition, a tradition that, as noted earlier, places heavy responsibility
on the story. It is also prudent to note that in the oral tradition,
the prologue reveals how the story will end (Owens, 96). The prologue of
House Made of Dawn, in mythic time and place, begins with Abel running
“easily and well” and ends with Abel running (1). Thus, we, the reader,
know that Abel with find himself by the novel’s end. Also, in finding
running at the beginning and ending of the prologue, one can infer that
running must be important to identity, because only when Abel has his sense
of identity does he run. The portion of the novel following the prologue
proves this to be true throughout.
As has already been noted, when Abel has a sense of identity, he is running.
However, it is important to note that, in the prologue, Abel never stops
running. Even when the sun goes into eclipse and “a dark and certain
shadow came upon the land”, Abel still runs. Yet, Abel does not run
in the main portion of the novel until the end, when he has regained his
identity. Again, the prologue is to be seen as mythic in time and
place. Thus, we do not necessarily have to abandon the claim that
running correlates with a strong identity. The fact the Abel never
stops running might suggest that he never gives up. He never stops
striving to find himself, to regain what he has lost. At times, Abel
does slow down. He waits at certain times, but he never gives up
the ‘race’. He never refuses to continue on, or completely stops.
It is the waiting that is Abel’s undoing. In the novel, whenever
Abel is in dire straits, or in an unenviable position or situation, he
is waiting. He is in limbo, neither forsaking his purpose nor continuing
on. Before Abel kills the albino, there is a two word sentence: “He
waited” (82). Abel waits, and then he commits murder. The albino
represents evil, and Abel does not understand that evil must exist along
with the good, so he tries to extinguish the evil. Earlier, when
Abel’s grandfather, Francisco feels the presence of the albino, embodiment
of evil, he blesses his corn and leaves the presence. Francisco’s
own “acknowledgment of the unknown was nothing more that a dull, intrinsic
sadness, a vague desire to weep…(Momaday, 66). While Francisco knows
that evil exists, he also knows there must be a balance, and to destroy
the evil would also destroy the balance. Francisco is self-imagined.
He knows his place, and understands the order and reality of the world.
Conversely, Abel’s killing of the albino shows that he does not understand,
and that he is not self-imagined. When Abel “waited”, he ceased running,
stopped actively striving to achieve identity, and his waiting was detrimental.
He was sent to prison for the murder, and evil triumphed because it cannot
be destroyed in such a manner.
At the lowest point in Abel’s life, he is again waiting. After Abel
is released from prison, he is sent to Los Angeles as part of the relocation
effort. In Los Angeles, Abel slowly sinks deeper into the abyss of
confusion. He has no idea who he is, and has not even the land or
his grandfather to act as guides of reference points. Toward the
end of his stay in LA, Abel is brutally beaten by a corrupt policeman.
The policeman’s name is Martinez, but those who know him call him ‘culebra’.
Culebra means snake. A snake is a symbol of evil.
Abel is beaten by evil, and it lays him extremely low. He ends up
lying on the beach, blind, beaten, and drunk. Abel is like the silversided
fish that are mentioned at the beginning of the second volume. These fish
throw themselves upon the beach to spawn after high tide. They are
“among the most helpless creatures on the face of the earth” (Momaday,
89). These fish are a picture of Abel. Abel too is lying on
the beach, helpless. He has again stopped running, and this time
he is, for the moment, incapable of moving, of continuing on. While
lying on the beach, Abel thinks of many things, and he is afraid. On page
116 it states: “He had always been afraid. Forever at the margin
of his mind there was something to be afraid of, something to fear.
He did not know what it was, but is was always there, real, imminent, unimaginable.”
Abel cannot even imagine of what he is afraid. The fear is in many
ways paralyzing, counterproductive to running. Abel uses alcohol
to try to escape the fear, but it too is ultimately paralyzing.
Abel does not die on the beach. He realizes he must get up or perish.
He is quite disoriented and tired, and when he occasionally stops to rest,
“a dizziness [would come] over him and he had to go on” (126). Abel
cannot afford to wait anymore. When Abel reaches his friend Benally,
Benally takes him to the hospital. Benally calls Angela and tells
her Abel is in the hospital. Angela is a white woman who once came
to Jemez for the healing of the mineral baths. Abel chops wood for
her during her stay in Jemez, and she plays an important role in healing
Abel. She comes to the hospital and tells Abel a story. By
this time, Angela has gained her own sense of identity, and she can pass
on her knowledge through her story. The story is about a bear.
It is a story that Angela has made up, but it reminds Benally of another
bear story passed down from his grandfather. Benally says he can
tell that Angela’s story is “secret and important”, and it is, and it is
healing.
Abel returns home shortly after leaving the hospital, and there he finishes
his race. Upon returning, he finds his grandfather dying.
Out of the last seven days of Francisco’s life, Francisco wakes at dawn
six days to tell Abel stories, “and the voice of his memory was whole and
clear and growing like the dawn” (197). Francisco knows who he is,
and he is trying to pass down knowledge to Abel through his stories.
Owens says that storytellers, like Francisco, are “the bearers of identity
and order that are so fragile they may perish in a single generation if
unarticulated (Other Destinies, 223). It is extremely important
for Francisco to pass down the stories. During one dawn session,
Francisco remembers telling his grandsons that “they must live according
to the sun appearing, for only then could they reckon where they were,
where all things were, in time” (197). These stories are essential
in conveying order, in passing on Francisco’s own journey to identity.
These stories are the final healers for Abel. When Francisco dies,
Abel takes the body to be buried. Then he finds the ‘dawn runners’.
Abel runs; “He was running and there was no reason to run but the running
itself and the land and the dawn appearing” (211). Abel is healed.
Running and stories are important methods to attaining identity.
These are only two elements that are found in House Made of Dawn.
Each element or method is important, and each work together with the others
to achieve the same goal. When Abel is running, he knows who he is,
yet running is also important is attaining this knowledge. Running
is motion. In running, one falls into a certain rhythm, a consistent
cadence that seems to put all else into its proper order and place, because
you, the runner, are keeping the proper tempo. A runner is in touch
with his or her own beat, the beat of the heart, the beat of the consistent
touching of the ground. A person in harmony with himself is at harmony
with that which surrounds him. Running is a means of transcending
the confusions of reality and finding that place where all beats are to
in perfect time. It is a way to meld everything into one pulsing
force, and thus become completely still and free in that connection and
melding.
Running is perseverance. Running is believing that identity can be
recovered. If Abel did not believe it possible to find his proper
place, he would already by lost, stagnant, still waiting. Running
is action. Stories are also action. They are inherently active
in passing on crucial knowledge. A story that is not told, that is
not related, can have no meaning. Stories show the proper order of
reality. Stories invoke the essence and being of the storyteller
and transposes that essence to the listener, bestowing all the knowledge
and understanding that begat that same essence onto the listener.
Both running and stories are crucial elements in Abel’s recovering his
identity. They represent, motion, perseverance, order, and knowledge,
and are crucial in anyone’s quest for identity, not just Native peoples,
but the people of the human race. Running and stories are transcendent
elements, just as the imagination transcends all conceivable entities and
barriers. To retain such an identity that is maintained by strong
imagination, running, and stories, is to retain the means to transcend
and overcome all the struggles that life or any world may ever hope to
put forth.
Works Cited:
Cleary, Kristen., ed. Native American Wisdom. Barnes
and Nobles Books, 1996.
Crozier-Hogle, Lois and Wilson, Darryl. Surviving in Two Worlds:
Contemporary Native American Voices. University of
Texas Press: Norman, 1997.
Momaday, N. Scott. House Made of Dawn. Harper & Row: New
York, 1968.
The Man Made of Words. St. Martin's Press: New York, 1997.
Nabokov, Peter. Indian Running: Native American History and Tradition.
Ancient City Press: Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1981.
Olson, James S. and Wilson, Raymond. Native Americans in the
Twentieth Century. University of Illinois Press: Urbana
and Chicago, 1986.
Owens, Louis. Mixedblood Messages: Literature, Film, Family, Place.
University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 1998.
Other Destinies: Understanding the American Indian Novel. University
of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 1992.
Schubnell, Mattias. N. Scott Momaday, the Cultural and Literary
Background. University of Oklahoma Press: Norman,
1985
Selinger, Bernard. "House Made of Dawn: A Positively Ambivalent Bildungsroman"
Modern Fiction Studies. West Lafayette,
IN. 1999 Spring, 45:1, 38-68.
Vizenor, Gerald. Fugitive Poses: Native American Scenes of Absence
and Presence. University of Nebraska Press: Lincoln
and London, 1998
.
Manifest Manners: Postindian Warriors of Survivance. University
of New England: Hanover and London, 1994.