FICTIVE TRANSFORMATION AND RESTORATION OF ORATURE IN N. SCOTT MOMADAY’S THE ANCIENT CHILD

Abstract

Art not only emerges out of particular historical and material conditions but also negotiates with these conditions either to promote them or to resist them. An artist is always a man of social, cultural, ideological, racial, economic and political belongingness and cannot assume impartiality. N. Scott Momaday’s The Ancient Child demonstrates its author’s belongingness to his cultural heritage of Native American tribalism, myth and orature. Momaday transforms orature into literature to restore the mythic oral tradition that was assaulted, suppressed, marginalized and discarded by Eurocentric project of annihilating assimilation. This paper studies the transformation of orature into literature in juxtaposition to the transformation of Setman; the westernized Native American painter and the protagonist of the novel, explores the relationship between art and culture and establishes that artist like a traditional Medicine Man can heal the wounded consciousness of his people by restoring their cultural heritage. The characters of Grey and Kope’mah, the two medicine woman in the Ancient Child are primarily focused to create a link between an artist and a Medicine Man. Throughout the paper, the term of ‘Native American’ instead of ‘Indian’ is consciously used because Columbus had not discovered India but America and he confronted Natives instead of Indians.