Three Plays: The Indolent Boys, Children of the Sun, and The Moon in Two Windows

Stories and Storytellers Series

by N. Scott Momaday

Long a leading figure in American literature, N. Scott Momaday is perhaps best known for his Pulitzer Prize–winning House Made of Dawn and his celebration of his Kiowa ancestry, The Way to Rainy Mountain . Momaday has also made his mark in theater through two plays and a screenplay. Published here for the first time, they display his signature talent for interweaving oral and literary traditions. The Indolent Boys recounts the 1891 tragedy of runaways from the Kiowa Boarding School who froze to death while trying to return to their families. The play explores the consequences, for Indian students and their white teachers, of the federal program to “kill the Indian and save the Man.” A joyous counterpoint to this tragedy, Children of the Sun is a short children’s play that explains the people’s relationship to the sun. The Moon in Two Windows , a screenplay set in the early 1900s, centers on the children of defeated Indian tribes, who are forced into assimilation at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where the U.S. government established the first off-reservation boarding school. Belonging with the best of Momaday’s classic writing, these plays are works of a mature craftsman that preserve the mythic and cultural tradition of unique tribal communities in the face of an increasingly homogeneous society.

Genres: Drama, Plays

192 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2007

About the author

N. Scott Momaday's baritone voice booms from any stage. The listener, whether at the United Nations in New York City or next to the radio at home, is transported through time, known as 'kairos"and space to Oklahoma near Carnegie, to the "sacred, red earth" of Momaday's tribe.

Born Feb. 27, 1934, Momaday's most famous book remains 1969's House Made of Dawn, the story of a Pueblo boy torn between the modern and traditional worlds, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize and was honored by his tribe. He is a member of the Kiowa Gourd Dance Society. He is also a Regents Professor of Humanities at the University of Arizona, and has published other novels, memoir, plays and poetry. He's been called the dean of American Indian writers, and he has influenced other contemporary Native American writers from Paula Gunn Allen to Louise Erdrich.

Momaday views his writings, published in various books over the years, as one continuous story. Influences on his writing include literature of America and Europe and the stories of the Kiowa and other tribal peoples.

"Native Americans have a unique identity," Momaday told Native Peoples Magazine in 1998. "It was acquired over many thousands of years, and it is the most valuable thing they have. It is their essence and it must not be lost."

Momaday founded The Buffalo Trust in the 1990s to keep the conversations about Native American traditions going. He especially wanted to give Native American children the chance to getting to know elders, and he wanted the elders to teach the children the little details of their lives that make them uniquely Native American. Once the Buffalo Trust arranged for Pueblo children to have lesson from their elders in washing their hair with yucca root as their ancestors did for as long as anyone can remember.

"In the oral tradition," Momaday has said, "stories are not told merely to entertain or instruct. They are told to be believed. Stories are realities lived and believed."

Reviews

[Betty · Rating 4 out of 5]

These plays deal with Native American children stolen from their families in the early 1900s. The children were taken to schools that tried to remove the "Indian" from them and make them "normal" Americans. The book is not easy to read because it tells of this tragedy, but we need to learn about this experiment and the problems it caused.

[giuliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Momaday tells the untold with three plays that share unifying themes of oral tradition, assimilation, and America's shrouded history of violence against Native Americans.

[Aniek Verheul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a great collection of plays! Momaday is a gifted playwright and his ability to deal with such difficult topics in fairly short plays is really admirable. The dialogue feels very realistic, as do the characters, and I appreciated the pictures and artwork shown in this edition. Of the three plays, I was already familiar with The Indolent Boys and found this one very much worth revisiting. Children of the Sun was my least favourite, as I was rather confused throughout, but I can imagine this one works very well if you are a bit more familiar with its context and everything. Finally, The Moon in Two Windows is probably my favourite of this collection. The screenplay is so detailed that I could picture everything and it tells the tragic story of those children, and the disrespect shown to Indian culture, very well. All in all, it's always a delight to read well-written drama, and this did not disappoint.

[Kim Schouwenaar · Rating 4 out of 5]

should not have taken me five days to finish. four brilliant, heartbreaking plays about Native American children. one of the reasons I really enjoyed my world literature class last year!

[Abby Jacob Harrison]

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