N. Scott Momaday, Pulitzer Prize winner and giant of Native American literature, dead at 89

Jan. 29—N. Scott Momaday, the Pulitzer Prize-winning storyteller, poet and educator has died.

He was 89.

Momaday's debut novel, "House Made of Dawn," is credited as the starting point for contemporary Native American literature.

He died in Santa Fe last week with family by his side.

"Even though (my father) always said he wasn't a spokesman for Native America and that he was a writer and poet, he was able to gift the world his writing," said his daughter, Jill Momaday. "With the writing, he could bridge together so many non-Native people to understand what the Native heart and spirit is all about. He taught us about what the land means to the Native people. He was able to do that on such a huge scale."

Momaday was in his mid-30s when the 1968 novel "House Made of Dawn" was awarded the Pulitzer Price for fiction in 1969.

"Dawn" is the story of Abel, a Pueblo man ripped from the spiritual and physical roots of his culture by combat service during World War II.

The Pulitzer cemented Momaday's place in the world of literature as a promising novelist, a trailblazer in a renaissance of American Indian fiction.

But Momaday had written only one subsequent novel, 1989's "The Ancient Child," about Set, an American Indian man raised away from his native culture but drawn irresistibly to it.

In "House Made of Dawn," Abel tries to find his way back to the culture he grew up in but has lost. In "The Ancient Child," Set tries to find himself in a culture from which he has been estranged.

"I think I would rather be known as a poet," Momaday told the Journal in 2020. His own poetry had been shaped both by American Indian oral traditions and by great poets of the American canon.

Jill Momaday, a filmmaker, said her father was one-of-a-kind and unique.

"He was this literary and cultural giant," she said. "He was my dad, our dad. We're so blessed to have him as a father because he taught us how to use our voice."

Momaday became the first Native American to win the fiction Pulitzer, and his novel helped launch a generation of authors, including Leslie Marmon Silko, James Welch and Louise Erdrich.

His admirers would range from poet Joy Harjo, the country's first Native to be named poet laureate, to film stars Robert Redford and Jeff Bridges.

In 2017, it was Redford who awarded Momaday the Lifetime Achievement award at the Santa Fe International Film Festival.

"We tried to get Robert Redford at the festival for years," said Liesette Bailey, SFiFF executive director. "It was N. Scott who actually got him here. Robert Redford attended to give N. Scott the award and spoke of how his writing influenced him."

Bailey grew up knowing not only Momaday's work, but knew him personally.

"We had him at the festival when Jill premiered 'Return to Rainy Mountain,' and we presented him with the award at the Lensic," Bailey said. "In 2019, we had N. Scott for 'Words from a Bear,' which premiered at Sundance to amazing reviews."

Bailey said for those growing up in New Mexico, Momaday was a driving force for Native narratives.

"He was a voice for so many people," Bailey said. "He was born in Oklahoma, but called New Mexico home for so long. His impact is so major and you could listen to him talk for hours."

David Heska Wanbli Weiden, professor of American Indian Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver, said "House Made of Dawn," along with Welch's 1974 novel, "Winter in the Blood," and Silko's 1977 novel, "Ceremony," are the three most important works of Native literature.

"If you haven't read those books, you can't be conversant about American Indian literature," said Weiden, an enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota Nation.

He said he was a senior at the University of Colorado when he started reading "House Made of Dawn" in the university's Norlin Library. He was still reading, enthralled, when they started shutting down the library for the night.

"I didn't want to stop reading," Weiden said. "'House Made of Dawn' blew me away. I was not prepared for the emotional power of the story."

Weiden himself is an accomplished writer. His 2020 suspense novel "Winter Counts," a thriller set on South Dakota's Rosebud Reservation, won the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for best first novel, the Western Writers of America Spur Award, and many other accolades.

He was a student in a masters of fine arts program in creative writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe in 2011, when he met Momaday for the only time.

"He was there for about a week of a two-week residency," he said. "He spoke to us all in his big, beautiful booming voice. I was intimidated by him at first. But he was friendly, he was funny, he was encouraging to me. He asked me questions about myself. I gushed over 'House Made of Dawn.' I told him how much it meant to me. He took compliments very well. He thanked me."

Weiden said Momaday's legacy is clear.

"He showed that Native Americans can write about the Indigenous experience, and he did so in a beautifully transcendent and powerful way," he said.

Momaday was married twice, most recently to Regina Heitzer. He had four daughters, one of whom, Cael, died in 2017.

He was born Navarre Scott Mammedaty, in Lawton, Oklahoma, and was a member of the Kiowa Nation.

After spending his teens in New Mexico, he studied political science at the University of New Mexico and received a master's and Ph.D. in English from Stanford University.

Momaday began as a poet, his favorite art form, but his early reputation as a novelist was a result of the publication of "House Made of Dawn."

In 2007, President George W. Bush presented Momaday with a National Medal of Arts "for his writings and his work that celebrate and preserve Native American art and oral tradition."

Besides his Pulitzer, his honors include an Academy of American Poets prize and, in 2019, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

"Scott was an extraordinary person and an extraordinary poet and writer. He was a singular voice in American literature, and it was an honor and a privilege to work with him," Momaday's editor, Jennifer Civiletto, said in a statement. "His Kiowa heritage was deeply meaningful to him and he devoted much of his life to celebrating and preserving Native American culture, especially the oral tradition."

Jill Momaday said her father moved back to Santa Fe in 2007 full time and found that New Mexico was always his home.

"He grew up on this land," Jill Momaday said. "He went to the Indian School and St. Mary's in Bernalillo. He spent a lot of time on Jemez Pueblo. Six months ago, he welcomed a brand new great-granddaughter. To be in the room with four generations was magical. He was proud of his family. Proud of his Kiowa heritage. And he was proud of each word he was able to write because he defied the odds. It was a long, rough journey for him to be heard, and he blew the doors wide open for the next generation."

Journal staff writer Ollie Reed Jr. contributed to this report. The Associated Press also contributed.