<P> According to one historian, the novel is highly accurate in its portrayal of a peyote service, though in southern California such services normally take place in the desert, not the city . </P> <P> House Made of Dawn begins with the protagonist, Abel, returning to his reservation in New Mexico after fighting in World War II . The war has left him emotionally devastated and he arrives too drunk to recognize his grandfather, Francisco . Now an old man with a lame leg, Francisco had earlier been a respected hunter and participant in the village's religious ceremonies . He raised Abel after the death of Abel's mother and older brother, Vidal . Francisco instilled in Abel a sense of native traditions and values, but the war and other events severed Abel's connections to that world of spiritual and physical wholeness and connectedness to the land and its people, a world known as a "house made of dawn ." </P> <P> After arriving in the village, Abel attains a job through Father Olguin chopping wood for Angela St. John, a rich white woman who is visiting the area to bathe in the mineral waters . Angela seduces Abel to distract herself from her own unhappiness, but also because she senses an animal - like quality in Abel . She promises to help him leave the reservation to find better means of employment . Possibly as a result of this affair, Abel realizes that his return to the reservation has been unsuccessful . He no longer feels at home and he is confused . His turmoil becomes clearer when he is beaten in a game of horsemanship by a local albino Indian named Juan Reyes, described as "the white man ." Deciding Juan is a witch, Abel stabs him to death outside of a bar . Abel is then found guilty of murder and sent to jail . </P> <P> Part II takes place in Los Angeles, California six and a half years later . Abel has been released from prison and unites with a local group of Indians . The leader of the group, Reverend John Big Bluff Tosamah, Priest of the Sun, teases Abel as a "longhair" who is unable to assimilate to the demands of the modern world . However, Abel befriends a man named Ben Benally from a reservation in New Mexico and develops an intimate relationship with Milly, a kind, blonde social worker . However, his overall situation has not improved and Abel ends up drunk on the beach with his hands, head, and upper body beaten and broken . Memories run through his mind of the reservation, the war, jail, and Milly . Abel eventually finds the strength to pick himself up and he stumbles across town to the apartment he shares with Ben . </P>

N scott momaday house made of dawn summary