A Story of Light When the leaves turn And the light of the forest deepens, I will remember a thousand words between us. Those that enclosed us, as i… - N. Scott Momaday

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A Story of Light

When the leaves turn
And the light of the forest deepens,
I will remember a thousand words between us.
Those that enclosed us, as in the pattern
Of shadows that shiver with the turning leaves,
Recount a story that was told about us by those
Who told stories in the caves. We danced
To the music of the words. On our tongues
Were shaped the names of our original being.
This is what the storyteller said: The leaves turn,
And in the light that emanates from the leaves
There is enchantment. There is wonder.

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About N. Scott Momaday

N. Scott Momaday (February 27, 1934 – January 24, 2024) was a Kiowa novelist, short story writer, essayist and poet. His novel House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969, and is considered the first major work of the Native American Renaissance. His follow-up work The Way to Rainy Mountain blended folklore with memoir. Momaday received the National Medal of Arts in 2007 for his work's celebration and preservation of indigenous oral and art traditions. He held twenty honorary degrees from colleges and universities and was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Birth Name: Navarre Scott Momaday
Alternative Names: Navarre Scott Mammedaty
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Additional quotes by N. Scott Momaday

At the heart of American Indian oral tradition is a deep and unconditional belief in the efficacy of language. Words are intrinsically powerful. They are magical. By means of words one can bring about physical change in the universe... one can quiet the raging weather, bring forth the harvest, ward off evil, rid the body of sickness and pain, subdue an enemy, capture the heart of a lover, live in the proper way, and venture beyond death. ...there is nothing more powerful. ...To be careless in the presence of words... is to violate a fundamental morality.

It is in human nature to pray. It is appropriate that we lay our words upon the earth. And so: Great Mystery, you who dwell in the endless beyond, you who spoke the first word and made of your breath the mountains and the waters, the trees and the grasses, the man and the woman and the child, hear me in my small voice. I am your thankful creature.

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The dullimer is... one of two known to exist, the second... unearthed... at Coatepec in 1958... Mine is... the better example of the armorer's art, especially with respect to the amulet, a leather bracelet to which the dullimer can be affixed and... activated with remarkable dispatch... used, according to oral tradition, to fell even the great beasts of the jungle. ...[O]ne day I laid the dullimer to rest once and for all. I had a dream in which it seemed to me that I could decipher the ancient markings on the amulet:
I, Chopetl, am grown weary of war;
I have been deadly even to the gods.

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