The Way to Rainy Mountain

One of the strangest places we've ever visited is Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming. Having taught N. Scott Momaday's The Way to Rainy Mountain in some of my literature courses, I was peripherally familiar with the Kiowa legend about Devils Tower. As Momaday's grandmother passes on the legend to him, eight children were there at play when the lone brother magically transformed into a bear. His seven sisters became fearful of their brother, and they took refuge on a tree stump that, out of a protective instinct, rose high into the sky so as to allow them refuge from the ferocity of the bear. Their brother-bear tried to reach the top of the stump, but he was not availed, and his claw marks left an indelible trace of desperation after he scraped down the side of the stump-cum-tower. The seven sisters were raised higher and higher up into the sky until they became the seven stars of the Big Dipper as we still see them today.

Illustration: N. Scott Momaday

The tower is inexplicable, weird, haunting, and seemingly primordial in its subdued gray-green-brown landscape. Climbing the base of the tower led our family into confusion and disorientation even as we followed the trail and maps. There were many times when Jason and I wondered if we were back-tracking or continuing forward on the trail to its outlet. "This is what happens when trekking monuments with toddlers" was our logical conclusion, but even so, there was something so odd about the weather, the light, the solitude, the monotony of the trail (didn't we just sit on that same rock? didn't we just pass that same tree? didn't we just see that same red dreamcatcher? didn't we just look out over that same view?)  that made us wonder if we would ever get to our car again… There is something spiritually liminal about the space, and its name "Devils Tower" makes me wonder too if we ought not to have visited such a site in the first place. Did you know that Devils Tower was the very first National Monument decreed by our nation? Why this natural monument? Why this place?


Momaday captures the atmosphere/mood/effect of Devils Tower much better than I ever could: "A dark mist lay over the Black Hills, and the land was like iron. At the top of a ridge I caught sight of Devil's Tower (sic) upthrust against the gray sky as if in the birth of time the core of the earth had broken through its crust and the motion of the world was begun. There are things in nature that engender an awful quiet in the heart of man; Devil's Tower is one of them."