Ceremony

The author of Ceremony is Leslie Marmon Silko. She is a Native American of Laguna Pueblo ancestry. The majority of this novel takes place in the Laguna reservation in the Southwestern United States, right after the Second World War.

Tayo- Half Laguna Half white main character. Undergoes a series of ceremonies to rid himself of sickness.

Betonie- The medicine man who shows Tayo how to do the ceremonies.

Auntie- Tayo’s aunt. Never lets him forget about his mother. She is fervently Christian.

Josiah-  Tayo’s uncle. His role model. Dies while Tayo is in the Philippines.

Rocky- Tayo’s cousin. Dies in WWII. He was supposed to be perfect.

                Tayo returns from the war with an incredible mental and physical sickness. It was sparked by his insistence that he saw his uncle’s face among dead Japanese soldiers. It turns out that his uncle is dead. He believes a prayer to end the rain in the Philippines caused a drought on his reservation. He turns to drinking, with all of his childhood friends who were also at war. They reminisce about how good they had it with the white culture during the war.

                Josiah buys some Mexican cattle, at the urging of the Night swan, A babe that later seduces Tayo too. After that Tayo first meets Betonie, after a recommendation from another medicine man. Betonie tells tayo that whites are the result of Native American witchery, and they are causing the destruction that Tayo is witnessing. Tayo then begans the journey to find Josiah’s cattle, in the process finds Ts’eh, who becomes his lady friend nommsayyin. He finds out the cattle are in a white man’s fences and is almost caught trying to free them, but a mountain lion appears and distracts his would be captors. He then honors the kitty. Returning the cattle home made him feel better, but not healed. After spending lots of time with Ts’eh he finds out one of his old friends, Emo, has been spreading rumors about him and the white police are after him. He gets pursued by his old friends, who try to draw him out by torturing his best friend at the time, but he doesn’t leave the safety of his hiding spot because he knows that will only continue the cycle of witchery in his life, thus the ceremony is complete.

                Leslie Marmon Silko utilizes her native American ancestry.  She weaves the stories of her people into her narrative, making use of her knowledge of the American southwest. The images in her books are thought provoking, and she is particularly fond of using color for everything. Every color in the novel has a meaning and she is consistent with it. She uses the whole Native American subset of images and symbols, so in order to fully understand her novels you need to understand those. She also adds variance to the work by frequently including poems that add meaning to the work through traditional stories.

“White smoke had no consciousness of itself”- Narrator

When Tayo was at the height of his sickness Silko described him as white smoke. This was commentary on the clash of culture going on in his head. He would soon discover that he didn’t get the same treatment from whites that he got during the war, and it was incredibly frustrating for him. This quote establishes that the ceremony is necessary for Tayo to gain “consciousness” of himself.

“It seems like I already heard these stories before, only thing is the names sound different.”- Grandma

This quote comments on how change is never really change, that things cycle, and all the things Tayo has experienced, and the Native people have experienced, will be experienced again by another generation.

Theme: The most important thing in life is tradition.

This is fairly straightforward. Tayo, and the Native American people, are sick when they don’t understand the traditions of their ancestors. The stories told throughout the the novel are not just stories, they offer all Native americans a guide for making it through adversity. They teach younger generations how to interact with the world, even if it means integrating parts of other cultures. They highlight what is important.