Ceremony Summary/Analysis

• Summary: Tayo returns to Laguna from a veteran's hospital after partially recovering from post-traumatic stress after WWII. His trauma was brought on by the death of his brother Rocky when they were overseas, his visions of Josiah's death during the war, and the draught he brought upon his people while cursing the rains in the Philippines. He socializes with his old friends who are also veterans; they bury their emotions with drink and reminisce about the war most of the time. As Tayo's condition begins to deteriorate after he gets home, his Grandma sends for Ku'oosh, a Native American medicine man who performs an ancient ceremony for those who have killed others in battle. However, Tayo's situation is very different from anything the Native American culture has ever experienced, due to the white people's involvement in WWII, and the ceremony does not completely cure Tayo. Ku'oosh then sends Tayo to another medicine man in Gallup, a nearby town where racism against Native Americans is very prevalent, named Betonie. Betonie in a way encompasses the collective consciousness embraced by the Native Americans in that his home is filled with collected calendars, phone books, and other various objects. Betonie creates a new ceremony for Tayo, but the ceremony is not all the way complete when Tayo leaves Gallup. Tayo must find the cattle that his late uncle Josiah was encouraged to buy by Night Swan, an older cantina dancer both Josiah and Tayo slept with. Finding these wild cattle was integral to the completion of Tayo's ceremony. Before he begins his journey to find the cattle, however, Tayo momentarily lapses back into the drunken lifestyles of his friends, Harley and Leroy. He then travels to the ranch in search of the cattle, but instead he finds Ts'eh. After a night spent with her, Tayo is able to find his cattle on a white man's ranch and free them. When Tayo collects his cattle and returns home, the drought still harasses his land, and he knows the ceremony is not over. He goes back to his family's ranch and finds, Ts'eh; they spend the summer together. At the end of the summer, Ts'eh warns Tayo that Emo is coming for him, and Tayo is able to escape in time. He hides in an abandoned mine, and it is there that he realizes this is where his ceremony is completed. He must endure the torture of Harley by Emo in order to complete his ceremony. Afterwards, Tayo returns home and Ku'oosh, after hearing about his ceremony, declares Tayo cured.
• Basics:
• Author: Leslie Marmon Silko
• Setting: jungles of south Pacific, American Southwest (Laguna Pueblo)
• Plot:
• rising action: Tayo's search for cattle, his ceremony
• climax: night at the uranium mine, Harley's torture
• falling action: return home, death of many of his friends
• Significant Characters: Tayo (WWII veteran, struggles with inner demons, requires Native American ceremony), Ku'oosh (medicine man of Tayo's village, unable to cure him using traditional ceremonies), Betonie (medicine man of Gallup, creates new ceremony to cure Tayo), Ts'eh (mysterious woman highly associated with nature, not necessarily a single being, but rather someone from Native American belief incarnated as her), Emo (Native American greatly influenced by white evil from the war, kills many of Tayo's "friends")
• Narritive Voice:
• POV: Ceremony is told from a third person POV. The narrator is limited in its omniscience, however, and really focuses on Tayo's inner thoughts and emotions.
• Tone: Silko takes a cultural approach to this story, structuring it with poems from the Native American culture as the backbone of this story. Therefore, the tone conveys the image of sitting with people of Silko's community, sharing stories as part of their tradition.
• Imagery: Silko has filled this book with imagery of nature. She describes every nook and cranny of the arroyos and mountains, and this contributes to the importance of nature in the book and to the Native American culture as a whole. It helps to highlight the theme of the destruction white people bring to the earth.
• Symbolism:
• yellow: important color, symbolizes life in its entirety; can be representing something at the beginning of its lifecycle, or at the end
• hazel eyes: Tayo, Betonie, and Night Swan all have hazel eyes, which seem to represent the mixing of cultures, these characters are the ones who veer away from the very traditional Native American culture, they also seek to be accepted completely by the people of the tribe
• the cattle: show the persistent wild spirit of nature, even though white culture is seeking to destroy it
• stories: show the resilience of the Native American culture, very important for keeping the culture reminded of earlier events; war stories, which infuriate Tayo, are like Native American stories, but mutated by white violence and destruction
• cardinal directions: these directions are associated with almost every natural process or story in the Pueblo culture: weather, seasons, colors, supernatural worlds, ect.
• southwest: direction cattle run, trying to return to roots
• west: associated with the white war (Tayo returns from east Asia/ west coast hospital)
• Quotes:
• " "We've been gathering these things for a long time- hundreds of years. She was doing it before I was born, and he was working before she came. And on and on back down in time." " (111)
• This quote shows the importance of history to the Native American culture. Here, history is collected as stories as well as objects, like calendars and phonebooks. Betonie uses these things to help create a ceremony for Tayo.
• "The old GMC pickup was crushed around them like the shiny metal coffin the Veterans Office bought for each of them." (240)
• Here the destruction of white culture can be seen. The use of "crushed" in reference to the car as well as the coffin suggests the effect of white culture on Native American culture.
• Theme: Ceremony shows us that while there are many powerful evils in the world, adherence to traditional conventions can be used as a guide to return safely to one's roots. While Tayo doesn't use the ceremony that was used in the past, he is able to find one that works for him. This is able to solve the problems that the Native American culture had never experienced. By adding this knowledge to their collective consciousness, they will be flexible enough to withstand the onslaught of white culture. Failure to use traditional conventions is evidenced in death of several of Tayo's friends. Emo is truly evil and actually tortures and kills Harley, which can be seen as a parallel of the destruction of white culture. Leroy dies in a car crash; note the elements of white culture that are used in describing his death (quote above).

*This version takes into account the peer comment.