Calling for a Blanket Dance

Oscar Hokeah begins Calling for a Blanket Dance with an epigraph from Kiowa writer N. Scott Momaday’s novel House Made of Dawn, and he makes additional references to Momaday within the narrative. House Made of Dawn won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969, and ushered in an era of heightened literary production in Indigenous communities that would come to be known as the Native American Renaissance. During this period, Indigenous authors experienced an unprecedented readership boom, and Indigenous writing rose to new prominence in the United States. One of the Native American Renaissance’s most pervasive common themes was the relationship between traditional Indigenous practices and healing. Although the idea of generational trauma would not emerge until much later, this generation of texts evidenced an interest in the impact of personal tragedy, the loss of traditional culture, and the post-traumatic stress disorder experienced by many returning soldiers. Many writers, N. Scott Momaday included, asserted that the individual could heal through reconnection with their family, their community, and through participation in Indigenous culture and ceremony.

N. Scott Momaday is a Kiowa writer, born in Lawton, Oklahoma, where much of Calling for a Blanket Dance takes place. As a young man, his family moved around and ultimately settled in the Southwest, first in Arizona and then in New Mexico, on the Jemez Pueblo. He attended the University of New Mexico and then Stanford University, and he has been one of the most prolific Indigenous American authors of the 20th and 21st centuries. Momaday’s texts explore traditional, Indigenous cultures and are particularly interested in the way that Indigenous people and communities can find strength, resilience, and healing through connection with traditional beliefs, practices, and values. Although House Made of Dawn is his best known text, The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969) and The Man Made of Words: Essays, Stories, Passages (1997) have also received considerable acclaim, and he has recently published two poetry collections: Earth Keeper: Reflections on the American Land (2020) and Dream Drawings: Configurations of a Timeless Kind (2022).

House Made of Dawn focuses on protagonist Abel as he returns to his pueblo in New Mexico (based on the Jemez Pueblo, which has been inhabited since about 1200 CE) after fighting in World War II. Abel is emotionally scarred from his experiences as a soldier and self-medicates with alcohol. Although he is not initially able to reconnect with his culture and leaves the Pueblo for Los Angeles, he returns to care for his dying grandfather and learns from the man a newfound respect for their traditions. He begins running, a sacred practice on the Pueblo, and it is understood that through connection to his grandfather and through re-engaging with his Indigenous heritage, Abel will find strength and healing.

Many of these themes reverberate within Calling for a Blanket Dance, and in addition to using a quotation from House Made of Dawn as an epigraph, Hokeah inserts a (very Hokeah-like) character into the narrative who is seen coming out of a bookstore with a collection of Momaday’s books under his arms. Although its depiction of generational trauma and systemic inequality root this text firmly within a contemporary generation of Indigenous authors, Hokeah is deliberately creating a connection to a figure who is arguably the most famous Kiowa author of the 20th century. Calling for a Blanket Dance should be understood to be in dialogue with House Made of Dawn.