What happens in Chapter 13 of House Made of Dawn?
In this final chapter, Abel returns to Walatowa—the Jemez Pueblo where he was born—just before sunrise. His grandfather Francisco is dying, and Abel stays by his side during those last hours, listening to the old man as he shares fragmented memories: the race against the albino, the bear hunt, the fields he cultivated, and the ceremonial duties that have defined his life. After Francisco passes away, Abel prepares his body following tradition. Then, in the chilly darkness before dawn, he removes his clothes, smears ash on his arms and face, and joins the other runners on the dirt road at the village’s edge. This race is the same dawn run that began the novel—a ritual circuit that honors the land and its people as they welcome the returning light. At first, Abel stumbles, his body still aching from the violence he experienced in Los Angeles. But soon he finds his rhythm, and as the sun rises above the horizon, he runs with full voice, singing the words his grandfather taught him. The novel concludes not with a sense of arrival but with the essence of movement: Abel running, the dawn emerging, and the song starting.
Analysis
N. Scott Momaday wraps up House Made of Dawn with a choice that feels almost musical in its simplicity: he brings the story back to its opening image—the dawn run—and allows the circular structure to convey the themes without additional commentary. This chapter works on two timelines at once. Francisco's dying monologue, presented in italicized fragments of memory, moves backward through time to reclaim the ceremonial knowledge he has held onto; meanwhile, Abel's run moves forward into the light. Momaday intertwines these two movements so that Francisco's death is seen not as a loss but as a passing of wisdom—the words flow from the dying man into Abel's lungs, transforming into breath, then into song.
The shift in prose style here is more striking than anywhere else in the novel. The sections focused on Francisco are slow, vowel-rich, and almost liturgical; in contrast, the final running passage quickens the sentences to match the rhythm of footsteps. This change in tone signals that Abel has crossed a significant threshold: he is no longer disconnected from language but has become language itself—specifically, the oral tradition his grandfather represented.
The ash on Abel's arms reflects the novel's ongoing theme of land as body and body as land. By running in ash, Abel embodies the Pueblo belief that individuals are not separate from the earth but rather a temporary and essential part of it. The ending's ambiguity—we don't know if Abel will survive, only that he is running—is not a way to avoid resolution but a deliberate choice: Momaday emphasizes that the ceremony itself holds the meaning, not the result.
Key quotes from Chapter 13
“He was running, and under his breath he began to sing. There was no sound, and he had no voice; he had only the words of a song.”
Abel crosses the threshold from physical motion into ceremony in the novel's final lines, the distinction between silence and song deliberately collapsed.
“All of his being was concentrated in the sheer motion of running on, and he was past caring about the pain.”
Momaday marks the moment Abel's broken body is subsumed by ritual purpose, pain becoming irrelevant to the act of becoming.
“Francisco had told him many things, and he knew. He knew about the running.”
The spare declarative rhythm here signals Abel's recovered inheritance—knowledge passed not through explanation but through presence and memory.