Tayo's Journey In Ceremony By Leslie Marmon Silko

Ceremony by Leslie Mormon Silko is a work of Native American literature. The novel itself is a ceremony of healing for Tayo, a World War II veteran, who returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. Tayo turns to the tribe’s powerful ceremonies and stories for the healing process. Silko believes, to Native Americans, a story is part of a web that entangles all the ceremonies, beliefs, and traditions of their culture. By containing these ceremonies and rituals, stories have the power to heal.

The concepts of change and identity are problematic for the characters within Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony. Tayo’s hybridity represents all that the Laguna people fear. The coming of change and meshing of cultures has brought an impending threat of ruin to Native American traditions. Although they reject him for his mixed heritage, Tayo’s journey is not his own but a continuation of the storytelling tradition that embodies Native American culture. Through tradition he learns to use his white and Mexican heritage to identify himself without abandoning his Native American practices.

He gives up on recovering, and thinks his pain is all he has left. Robert, his uncle, finally persuades him to visit an old medicine man named Betonie. Most people do not trust Old Betonie because of his light Hazel eyes. (insert quote) Tayo did not trust him at first either, because he didn’t have faith that he would be able to help him. Betonie talks with Tayo about the loss and emotional pain he had to deal with. (insert quote) Old Betonie also performs a ceremony. In this ceremony, all of the evil, and pain that has gripped on to Tayo is being released. Tayo is able to think straight again and the sickness his body was overcome with has finally vanished. Old Betonie tells Tayo of a vision he had about a girl, the mountains, and the stars.( insert quote)Along with the vision, he also gives Tayo hope. Even though Tayo still has some issues, he finally feels he has a purpose as

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko is a novel written multidimensionally to portray the traditions and ceremonial practices of the Native American. Silko describes the rebuilding of the Native American culture by writing the real story and poems in the alternate story. The animal symbolism is an integral piece of the novel’s importance that reflects characters and the Native American culture with the use of them in metaphors. Silko respectfully depicts the animals, such as cattle, Fly and Hummingbird, and mountain lion that represent Tayo and the Laguna people, Betonie, and the cultural relationship with nature.

“This is where the white people and their promises had left the Indians.”Indians wake up every morning of their lives to see the land which was stolen… its theft being flaunted.” Tayo’s interaction with Betonie really set this theme in the novel into focus and as the novel progressed, further events and characters strengthened this idea.

Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel, Ceremony, reveals how the crossing of cultures was feared, ridiculed, and shunned in various Native American tribes. The fear of change is a common and overwhelming fear everyone faces at some point in their life. The fear of the unknown, the fear of letting go, and the fear of forgetting all play a part in why people struggle with change. In Ceremony the crossing of cultures creates “half-breeds,” usually bringing disgrace to their family’s name. In Jodi Lundgren’s discourse, “Being a Half-breed”, is about how a girl who struggles with understanding what cultural group she fits into since she is a “half-breed.” Elizabeth Evasdaughter’s essay, “Leslie Marmon Silko’s “Ceremony”: Healing Ethnic Hatred by

According to Nelson, in many ways these same stories are being told today but not as much. The elders that told these stories are beginning to pass on and the younger generations are not often hearing them, listening to them, or learning them (Nelson pg98). Because of this the stories are becoming endangered as well as the knowledge that is traditionally passed down through the stories. A lot of the modern day native stories revolve around the effects of colonization, experiences in the boarding schools, commodity foods,

“The Way of a Cherokee” by Foxxy is about her memories and experiences growing up as a young child with her sister, Sierra, and grandpa. She is a Native American that has lived in a world that is different from the world her grandpa grew up in. In addition, she learned to love and appreciate nature just like her grandpa did. I can relate to her relationship with her grandpa because I have created many memories with my grandpa. My grandpa told me stories about his childhood. In Foxxy’s essay she explores the relationship between identity and cultural history through physical location, family relationships, and language differences.

Traditions and old teachings are essential to Native American culture; however growing up in the modern west creates a distance and ignorance about one’s identity. In the beginning, the narrator is in the hospital while as his father lies on his death bed, when he than encounters fellow Native Americans. One of these men talks about an elderly Indian Scholar who paradoxically discussed identity, “She had taken nostalgia as her false idol-her thin blanket-and it was murdering her” (6). The nostalgia represents the old Native American ways. The woman can’t seem to let go of the past, which in turn creates confusion for the man to why she can’t let it go because she was lecturing “…separate indigenous literary identity which was ironic considering that she was speaking English in a room full of white professors”(6). The man’s ignorance with the elderly woman’s message creates a further cultural identity struggle. Once more in the hospital, the narrator talks to another Native American man who similarly feels a divide with his culture. “The Indian world is filled with charlatan, men and women who pretend…”

After Tayo is able to escape from the farmers, he reunites with the Ts’eh and the cattle, thanks to the help of a hunter who he encountered in the mountain range. Ts’eh informs Tayo that the cattle have been tortured through Texas rodeo, one more showcasing Western culture treating the nonhuman as a mere object and not someone living (197). All these events that have taken place in the ceremony help Tayo realize that he was broken because he lost everything, but the land and love was always there and that he didn’t in fact lose anything

Self actualization is the key to the essence of Tayos character; a very important aspect in Native American culture. Native Americans have a large emphasis on knowing themselves. Self actuality is the highest point is Maslow's pyramid of needs, and in Native American culture it is very important to reach this height. One must become equal with nature and the spiritual realms. Tayo finds it troubling to find peace within himself. He suffers from the guilt of his cousin Rocky's death, and suffers with the fear from being in War World II. The novel explains that Tayo, "Was tired of fighting off the dreams and the voices; he was tired of guarding himself against places and things which evoked the memories” (Silko 39). Tayo suffers for so long and then he starts his spiritual journey. The dreams and the voices begin to stop, and he begins to return to his true self. He finds himself again and, "makes peace with his demons, becoming whole again in body, mind, and spirit" (Avila). In order to make peace Tayo has to find the cattle and become one with the land. Tayo realizes that the world is full of good and bad energy and that he must turn towards the good energy and eliminate the evil in order to move on from his past. When Emo is participating in witchcraft Tayo must turn towards positive energy and stay away from the evil deeds. Regardless of his half white race Tayo can now be accepted

Like a coin dropped between the cushions of a couch, traditional oral storytelling is a custom fading away in current American culture. For Native Americans, however, the practice of oral storytelling is still a tradition that carries culture and rich history over the course of generations. Three examples of traditional oral stories, “How Men and Women Got Together”, “Coyote’s Rabbit Chase”, and “Corn Mother”, demonstrate key differences in perspectives and values among diverse native tribes in America.

Everyone has obstacles in their lives that hinder them from living life to the fullest. In Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, the main character Tayo—a World War II veteran— has many obstacles in his way to a living a normal and productive life. He struggles on a daily basis with the guilt of surviving the war where his cousin tragically died, the guilt from leaving his elderly uncle behind, and the irrational guilt for “causing a drought”. Additionally, he does not improve the situation by trying to avoid his problems and drowning his memories in alcohol. However, the biggest obstacle that keeps him from a normal life is the very disorder that the aforementioned obstacles stem from, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. All of these obstacles contribute to hindering Tayo from living a normal life because they either fail to address his problem or constantly preoccupy his mind, causing him to live dysfunctionally and

Furthermore, Tayo’s issue with differentiating reality from his hallucinations was a great contribution to Tayo going mad as that would distort all of his actions and thoughts. After going through all of the scarring events he did in the war, it would be reasonable to suffer from PTSD and have the loss of his uncle weigh him down even more. Holding onto Josiah for so long after his death only brought greater misfortune to Tayo’s mental well-being, as he would not allow himself to move on. Tayo was unable to effectively move past the harder parts of his life because he hung on so tight to the idea of Josiah. The inability for Tayo to move on from Uncle Josiah’s death ultimately brought upon hallucinations that considered him to have gone mad.

In the novel, Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko writes about an Indian veteran and his struggle to deal with the stresses of war. Early in the novel Silko reveals some of the rituals that the Laguna Indians perform. One of these traditions is the ritual they go through after they have hunted in order to show their appreciation for the animal, in this case a deer. Some of the other Laguna traditions include the rain dances they perform during a draught and various other ceremonies. After returning from the war a traditional medicine man, Ku’oosh attempts to cure Tayo of his war-sickness but fails because his warrior ceremony is outdated. Therefore he refers him to another medicine man, Betonie, who may be more able to