SOURCE: "Imagination Man," in The New York Times Book Review, March 14, 1993, p. 15.

In the following review, Bode praises Momaday's descriptions of Kiowa culture and history as well as his use of voice and language in In the Presence of the Sun.

According to their mythology, the Kiowas entered the world through a hollow log and called themselves the "coming out" people (Kwuda). They were nomadic hunters who migrated from the headwaters of the Yellowstone River down through the Black Hills into the shadow of the Rocky Mountains and onto the Great Plains. Along the way they acquired many of the elements of Plains Indian culture: horses, the Sun Dance religion and a love for the open sky.

The Cheyennes and Sioux drove the Kiowas south, where for a hundred years, in alliance with the Comanches, they ruled the southern plains from the Arkansas River to the Rockies. "Centaurs...