Long ago, the Kiowa Indians began a journey from the headwaters of the Yellowstone River in what is now western Montana to their present home in the southern Plains. In the course of that migration a cultural and psychological revolution occurred.

The Way to Rainy Mountain recalls the journey of Tai-me, the sacred Sun Dance doll, and of Tai-me's people in three unique voices: the legendary, the historical, and the contemporary. It is also the personal journey of N. Scott Momaday, who on pilgrimage to the grave of his Kiowa grandmother, traversed the same route taken by his forebears and in so doing confronted his Kiowa heritage. It is an evocation of three things in particular: a landscape that is incomparable, a time that is gone forever, and the human spirit, which endures.