Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
"Ceremony" by Leslie Marmon Silko is a profound novel that explores the intersections of personal trauma, cultural identity, and the healing processes of Native American traditions. The story centers on Tayo, a mixed-race World War II veteran, who grapples with the psychological scars of war and the impact of colonial history on his identity. After returning to his homeland in Laguna, New Mexico, Tayo experiences deep emotional and physical turmoil, reflected in the barren landscape around him. As he seeks healing, he encounters various figures, including the tribal healer Ku'oosh and the innovative medicine man Betonie, who provide him with guidance through a new type of ceremony that incorporates both traditional and contemporary elements.
The narrative delves into themes of alienation, guilt, and the importance of nature and community in the healing process. Tayo's journey also involves a quest to find his uncle's speckled cattle, symbolizing a deeper search for belonging and connection to his heritage. Throughout his travels, Tayo learns about the interconnectedness of all beings and the destructive forces of "witchery" at play in the world, culminating in a recognition of shared struggles among different peoples. Ultimately, "Ceremony" highlights the significance of storytelling, ritual, and the enduring strength of cultural identity in the face of adversity. This novel is a crucial contribution to Native American literature and offers insights into the complexities of healing and resilience.
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Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
First published: 1977
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Social realism
Time of plot: Just after World War II
Locale: Laguna, New Mexico
Principal characters
Tayo , a Laguna Pueblo veteran of World War IIRocky , Tayo’s cousin and best friendJosiah , Tayo’s beloved uncleThe Night Swan , Josiah’s loverTs’eh , Tayo’s loverAuntie , Tayo’s aunt who raises himGrandma , Tayo’s grandmotherKu’oosh , a traditional Laguna healerBetonie , a nontraditional healer in GallupEmo , Tayo’s war buddy
The Story:
Tayo and Rocky join the Army because Rocky wants to join and because they both want to travel. However, the young men did not plan on seeing the Philippine jungle and the death that occurs there. Tayo cannot bring himself to shoot Japanese soldiers because they all resemble his uncle Josiah. Rocky is killed, and as the rain pours down incessantly, Tayo curses it and begs for it to stop.
Back at Laguna, New Mexico, Tayo sees the result of his curse. The land is dry, and nothing is growing. Tayo is as sick as the land. He keeps throwing up and cannot eat. Tayo’s family decides that he needs a healing ceremony, so the tribal healer, Ku’oosh, is called in to cure him. His ceremony, however, does not cure Tayo’s sickness. Ku’oosh, knowing that Tayo needs a special ceremony, sends him to a medicine man named Betonie.
Betonie cures with elements from contemporary culture, such as old magazines and telephone books, as well as with native ceremonies. He explains Tayo’s sickness to him. It is the witchery that is making Tayo sick, and it has the entire Native American population in its grip. The purpose of witchery is to prevent growth, and to grow is to survive. Betonie explains to Tayo that a new ceremony is needed and that he is a part of something much larger than his own sickness.
The Navajo medicine man makes a sand painting for Tayo to sit in to reorient him. When the ceremony is over, Betonie remarks that it is not yet complete. There are a pattern of stars, some speckled cattle, a mountain, and a woman whom Tayo has yet to encounter.
The speckled cattle are of Mexican origin, designed for the hard existence of northern New Mexico. Uncle Josiah bought them before he died, but when they were set loose to graze, they started south and kept moving, and neither Tayo nor Josiah can find them. Tayo realizes that part of his ceremony is to find these cattle.
He begins his search at the place where they last saw the cattle and soon meets a woman who lives in a nearby house. He ends up eating dinner and spending the night there. Later they make love. Tayo already had an experience like this one when, before the war, he went to the home of The Night Swan, Josiah’s lover, to tell her that Josiah could not make their appointment. After Tayo and The Night Swan made love, she said that he would remember this moment later.
While he is staying with the woman, he sees a pattern of stars in the north and decides to follow it. The search takes him to a mountain named for the swirling veils of clouds that cling to the peaks. On the mountain Tayo comes across the barbed wire of a ranch and finds the speckled cattle. He cuts the fence so they can escape toward Laguna. Two ranch hands catch Tayo but do not see the cattle in the distance. They are going to take him in but leave him when they see the tracks of a mountain lion. Still in search of the cattle, Tayo comes across a hunter with a freshly killed buck across his shoulders. The hunter suggests that Tayo’s cattle are probably down in the draw by his house. Tayo follows the hunter down to the house and meets the hunter’s wife, who is the same woman with whom he slept at the beginning of the search. The cattle are held in the woman’s corral; they came down off the mountain the previous day. Tayo says good-bye to the woman and takes the cattle back to Laguna.
Upon returning, Tayo tells his grandmother that he is all right; the ceremony worked. He decides to stay with the cattle at the ranch rather than live among other people. There he again meets the woman, who this time calls herself Ts’eh, claiming that her Indian name is too long. They spend much time together, making love and talking. She teaches Tayo about plants and rain, and he is immersed in her love.
Ts’eh leaves and tells Tayo to remember everything she taught him. He takes a long walk and finds himself at the uranium mine. There he realizes the connection among all things of which Betonie spoke. He sees the mining and use of uranium as a sand painting created by witchery and used for destruction. In the production and release of the atomic bomb, from the first test explosion at Trinity site to the southeast to the top-secret laboratories in Los Alamos, the witchery joins everyone—Japanese, American, and Native American—into one clan united by one horrific fate. Tayo finally sees the pattern, the way all the stories fit together, and realizes that he is not crazy but is simply seeing things the way they truly are.
Bibliography
Allen, Paula Gunn. “The Feminine Landscape of Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony.” In Studies in American Indian Literature: Critical Essays and Course Designs, edited by Allen. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1983. A foundational essay, written by a Laguna Pueblo writer and critic, that articulates the importance of the feminine in Tayo’s healing.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992. Collection of seventeen essays that range from discussions of myths and symbols to contemporary literature, and from traditional family structure to American Indian feminism. Of particular interest is the essay devoted to Ceremony.
Chavkin, Allan, ed. Leslie Marmon Silko’s “Ceremony”: A Casebook. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Collection of essays interpreting Silko’s novel from a variety of theoretical perspectives and providing background information on Native American culture. Some of the essays discuss animals and theme, circular design, and the function of landscape in the novel, while another compares Silko’s work with that of Rudolfo Anaya. Includes an interview with Silko.
Coltelli, Laura. Winged Words: American Indian Writers Speak. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. A useful collection of interviews with major American Indian writers, including Silko. Includes a substantial discussion of Ceremony.
Fitz, Brewster E. Silko: Writing Storyteller and Medicine Woman. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004. An analysis of Silko’s writing that focuses on the relationship between the written word and the oral storytelling tradition of her family and of Laguna culture.
Lincoln, Kenneth. Native American Renaissance. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. An excellent introduction to the writing of American Indians. Provides necessary background to understand key works. A thorough discussion of Silko’s Storyteller and Ceremony is included.
Nelson, Robert M. Leslie Marmon Silko’s “Ceremony”: The Recovery of Tradition. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. Focuses on the Navajo and other Native American texts that form the backbone of Silko’s novel, describing how she adapts and relates these texts to her narrative.
Salyer, Gregory. Leslie Marmon Silko. New York: Twayne, 1997. A critical study of Silko’s work, describing how her fiction has been influenced by her Laguna background and by Native American stories. Includes a bibliography and an index.
Swan, Edith. “Laguna Symbolic Geography and Silko’s Ceremony.” American Indian Quarterly 12, no. 3 (Summer, 1988): 229-249. A thorough discussion of Laguna spiritual beliefs and symbols. Colors, animals, myths, and landscape are all explained in detail.
Teuton, Sean Kicummah. “Learning to Feel: Tribal Experience in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony.” In Red Land, Red Power: Grounding Knowledge in the American Indian Novel. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2008. Analyzes how Ceremony and other works of Native American literature from the late 1960’s and the 1970’s use historical memory and oral tradition to create a more “enabling knowledge” of the lives and possibilities of American Indians.