The Ancient Child by N. Scott Momaday

First published: 1989

The Work

A complex and richly evocative work, N. Scott Momaday’s The Ancient Child is the story of two Native Americans—a middle-aged painter and a young woman—who come to a fuller understanding of themselves. Native American folklore and mythology are woven into their story, lending cultural and psychological depth to the two’s quests for, essentially, rebirth.

Locke Setman, called “Set” throughout the novel, is in many ways a representative Momaday protagonist because he is cut off from his past and therefore lives an unexamined life. Brought up in an orphanage by an embittered academic, Set’s connection to the Kiowa culture of his ancestors is tenuous. Because Set does not know his past “it was in Set’s nature to wonder, until the wonder became pain, who he was.” His quest to achieve a more profound sense of self begins when he receives a telegram begging him to attend the funeral of one Kope’ mah. Mystified by a past he has never known, Set goes to the funeral and meets Grey, who is training to become a medicine woman because she “never had . . . to quest after visions.”

Like Set, Grey has not achieved her true identity, largely because she rejects the modern world. After being raped by a white farmer, she goes to live in an abandoned sod house in a ghost town. She literally dwells in the past. She speaks Kiowan fluently, so she is befriended by Kope’ mah, and becomes the link between Set’s past and his future. When the two meet, Grey gives Set a medicine bag containing “the spirit of the bear.” The bear, Set’s unacknowledged totem animal, is as much a curse as a blessing, however, since the life that Set has lived must be stripped away before his true identity can be recognized. Set suffers a mental breakdown and his nightmares are dominated by “a dark, impending shape” that draws him into itself, into “the hot contamination of the beast.”

Eventually, when he is completely stripped of illusions, Set is drawn back to Kiowan tribal lands, and back to Grey. Set is healed and the two forge a relationship, one tied to an awareness of themselves and their culture. Grey teaches Set to speak the language of her people, and by the novel’s end, Set is profoundly aware of his place in their culture: “he knew . . . its definition in his mind’s eye, its awful silence in the current of his blood.” He belongs.

Bibliography

Coltelli, Laura. Winged Words. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990.

Meredith, Howard. “The Ancient Child.” World Literature Today 64 (Summer, 1990): 510-511. Discusses the structure of The Ancient Child and its relation to the novel’s themes. Notes the importance of art as “affirmation” and “resistance” for both the protagonists (Set and Grey). Focuses on the importance of the geometrical symbolism of the titles of the novel’s four sections and of cultural images as the framework of the story.

Rainwater, Catherine. “Planes, Lines, Shapes, and Shadows: N. Scott Momaday’s Iconological Imagination.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 37 (Winter, 1995): 376-393. Outlines Momaday’s thoughts about art and his theory of images. Offers an iconological metadiscourse of Momaday’s novels, examines the basis of Momaday’s vision of self, and provides in-depth background on The Ancient Child.

Roemer, Kenneth M. “The Ancient Child: A Novel.” The American Indian Quarterly 15 (Winter, 1991): 269-271. Places The Ancient Child in the context of Momaday’s other works. Identifies recurring themes and images and discusses how Momaday’s incorporation of existing material into this work typifies his aesthetic theory. Discusses the importance of structure and image in developing the novel’s themes and examines Momaday’s belief in the “transformative powers” of storytelling.

Schubnell, Matthias. “Locke Setman, Emil Nolde, and the Search for Expression in N. Scott Momaday’s The Ancient Child.” The American Indian Quarterly 18 (Fall, 1994): 468-480. Schubnell traces the connection between Set’s creativity and his search for a mythic identity to a similar artistic journey undertaken by German expressionistic painter Emil Nolde. Schubnell’s comparison between Set and Nolde illuminates Set’s self-discovery as an artist.

Vizenor, Gerald. Manifest Manners. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1994.

Woodard, Charles L. Ancestral Voice: Conversations with N. Scott Momaday. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. A lengthy interview in which Momaday discusses the relation between his life and works, his aesthetic theories, the legend of Billy the Kid, and Indian myths. He talks about the transformative power of stories and storytelling and discusses his personal connection to the Kiowa myth of the bear boy. The Ancient Child is discussed as a work in progress.