Answer:
"Yet it is within the reach of memory still…and …demands to be preserved for its own sake."
Step-by-step explanation:
N. Scott Momaday's book "The Way To Rainy Mountain" is a combination of history,tribal folklore, a memoir etc for the narrator/ author. This book follows the Kiowa people, the ancestors of Momaday in their journey from Montana to Oklahoma. This book also serves as a means of rediscovering of his ancestors and their background and identity.
One of the central idea that Momaday claims in his text is the importance of preserving the oral tradition of his ancestors, the Kiowa people. He even states that "The living memory and the verbal tradition which transcends it were brought together for me". This shows just how significant the tradition of orally passing the information and history/folklore of the people is to them.
The central idea of the surviving or sustenance of the oral tradition of the Kiowa people can be best seen in the lines where Momaday wrote
"Yet it is within the reach of memory still…and …demands to be preserved for its own sake."