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 "One morning about 1920, Dragonfly set out for my grandfather's house. In the mystery and magic of the oral tradition, Dragonfly's voice becomes the voice of my father."
The speaker was N. Scott Momaday, poet and novelist, who sat in the middle of the campus concert hall's wide stage. To his right, the sign language interpreter formed dragonfly, magic, voice, and father with her hands.
The listeners were students as well as faculty, staff, and people from communities near and far, junior high school students as well as Native American elders.
During a magical hour in October, Momaday recreated stories of Dragonfly and his hunting horse, of an old woman who gave him the Kiowa sundance tradition, of a bear and God--Urset and Yahweh--talking about writing and stories. He read from Shakespeare, translations of Homer, and the writings of J. M. Coetzee. The listeners responded with laughter and awe.
The topic of the 2008 Ford Lecture was "Native American Oral Tradition--The Stories and Storytellers," and Momaday became the storyteller.
"Drama is as close as we come to oral tradition in this culture," he said. Then he showed how it's done.
Most intellectual life of the faculty takes place within specific departments and programs. One of the roles of the Graduate School is to build intellectual communty at the level of the broader university.
 Momaday--the first Native American to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for his novel House Made of Dawn--drew one of the largest audiences in the Ford Lecture's history. He joined a long line of renowned intellectuals in the series, including Stephen Ambrose, Margaret Atwood, David McCullough, Elaine Pagels, Billy Taylor, and Richard Leakey.
Leakey is one Momaday counts among his friends.
"We talk about origins," Momaday said. "Leakey's big on bipedalism, I'm big on language. We need to learn more about language--its magic and power. I'd like to talk more about discovering words and how words can be marshalled to create meaning and beauty."
The annual Guy Stanton Ford Lecture is a memorial to the man who was dean of the Graduate School from 1913 to 1938 and president of the University from 1938 to 1941. Ford's family, friends, and colleagues established an endowment after his death to bring to the University scholars from many different disciplines, reflecting Ford's own broad interests. Once again this year, his descendents gathered from across the country for the lecture.
Read more about Momaday and the Ford Lecture.
This feature first appeared in the 2008-09 issue of Discovery, published annually by the Graduate School for alumni and friends.
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