On page 116 the old medicine man, Betonie, says to Tayo:
“But long ago when people were given these ceremonies, the changing began, if only in the aging of the yellow gourd rattle or the shrinking of the skin around the eagle’s claw, if only in the different voices from generation to generation singing the chants. You see, in many ways, the ceremonies have always been changing” — “things which don’t shift and grow are dead things.”
I found this quote really interesting and important. I think stereotypically ceremonies are viewed as stagnant things that must be performed the same exact way in order to achieve the goal. This way of thinking can present change as a bad thing, interfering with tradition. How should the balance between change and preservation of traditions be navigated? Are there any examples of this being done in a positive way in today’s world? What kind of change should be resisted and what should be accepted when it comes to the evolution of tradition?
Question 2:
On page 177 when Tayo is looking for Josiah’s cattle, he finds them on a private property owned by a white rancher. He thinks to himself:
“If he had seen the cattle on land-grant land or in some Acoma’s corral, he wouldn’t have hesitated to say “stolen”. But something inside him made him hesitate to say it now that the cattle were on a white man’s ranch. He had a crazy desire to believe that there had been some mistake, that Floyd Lee had gotten them innocently, maybe buying them from the real thieves. Why did he hesitate to accuse a white man of stealing but not a Mexican or an Indian?”
As a class, how would we respond to Tayo’s above question? Do we have any answers for him? Where and how does this internalized racism show up in society today? How does society go about combating this issue?
Ceremony Question: In Ceremony, Betonie makes the claim that “it was Indian witchery that made white people in the first place,” (p. 122), and this claim is followed by a poem in which this creation is story.
“Set in motion now
set in motion
To destroy
To kill
Objects to work for us
objects to act for us
Performing the witchery
for suffering
for torment
for the still born
the deformed
the sterile
the dead.
Whirling
whirling
whirling
whirling
set into motion now
set into motion,” (p.125).
Does this origin story take agency away from white people’s actions (i.e. they are only doing what is in their nature, as they were created by witchery)? For Betonie, the creation of white people through witchery is more of a good thing than a bad one- why do you think this is the case?
In the poem, the witches actually seemed quite hesitant for white people to be called into being, demanding “Call that story back,” (p. 128). What is the significance of this? Shouldn’t they want as much evil as possible?
What does this section of the book say about the power of a story?
Ceremony/Homelands Question: In Ceremony, Betonie states that “They think the ceremonies must be performed exactly as they have always been done…in many ways, ceremonies have always been changing,” (p. 116).
In Homelands, the Gwich’in called together their nation and held prayer and ceremony before making a decision regarding the oil companies that wanted to move into the reindeer calving grounds. How do we see the fluidity and flexibility of ceremonies play in here, keeping in mind that their problem was likely vastly different (and perhaps simultaneously similar) to problems of their past?
On pages 93-94 of Ceremony, Josiah tells Tayo a story from way back in “time immemorial” when the greenbottle fly saved the people by asking for forgiveness from the mother. Upon hearing this story, Tayo feels a sense of guilt for having taken pride in his pile of dead flies. However, Tayo’s feelings contradict one another when this sense of guilt is nowhere to be found. Silko writes:
But in the jungle he had not been able to endure the flies that had crawled over Rocky; they had enraged him. He had cursed their sticky feet and wet mouths, and when he could reach them he had smashed them between his hands. (Silko 94)
What brings about this lack of conscience in regard to the jungle flies’ lives? Is it simply because of the death of Rocky or is it representative of a deeper, generational pain? Is Tayo’s numbness to the flies symptomatic of colonial violence? Does he lose touch with that sensitivity for all living beings when colonial violence shows its true, cruel self in Rocky’s death?
Question 2:
On Tayo’s quest to retrieve the cattle from the white Texans, he comes to terms with a complex enraging feeling brought about by the theft inherent in settler colonialism. Not only does Tayo reckon with the feeling of having everything stolen from his people, but also the destruction this system brings to white people. Silko writes:
…only a few people knew that the lie was destroying the white people faster than it was destroying Indian people. But the effects were hidden, evident only in the sterility of their art, which continued to feed off the vitality of other cultures, and in the dissolution of their consciousness into dead objects: the plastic and neon, the concrete and steel. (Silko 190)
In the film Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action, this white destruction was evident in the coal and oil drilling being pursued on Native land, particularly under the Bush administration and in the Midwest. The affected indigenous people mentioned this temptation of the colonial governments to “take, take, and take until there is nothing left”. Where does this temptation come from that ultimately, as Tayo mentions, leads to our destruction? Where does the desire to “take, take, and take” originate? Is it symptomatic of global capitalist structures? Or does it help create said systems? Or both?
The second ceremony is performed by Betonie and they start by telling a story of how whites were invented by Native American witches and then went on to destroy the world. I find this story important because it explains whites as simply a creation of Native American culture, despite the power they express over Native Americans, they were not created the same way. How does this story of Native American witches creating white people give Native Americans power over white people? Do you think in this story that white people created with the intent to do harm or was that something they became?
The film Homeland was made in 2005 and shows how local Native American Leaders from all over the United States have fought against multinational energy companies. A member of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana explained that the land was tied to culture and language. She further explains the spiritual connection she has with the land and that her family has had with the land for generations. They also explain that these coal and oil drillers will take and take and take their land. Do you think that many white people experience these same connections with the land? As colonizers we have relationships with the land but I don’t see them as always positive. There is a drive to take more and more land in capitalism and make more and more money. If everyone could adapt and or was taught about making strong spiritual connections with the land would there be less taking of indigenous land?
On page 42 Tayo is thinking back to a time when Rocky was alive and when they were overlooking the canyon. Josiah is pointing his chin at the springs and around at the narrow canyon and says, “This is where we come from, see. This sand, this stone, these trees, the vines, all the wildflowers. This earth keeps us going … These dry years you hear people complaining, you know, about the dust and the wind, and how dry it is. But the wind and the dust, they are a part of life too, like the sun and the sky. You don’t swear at them. It’s people, see. They’re the ones. The old people used to say that droughts happen when people forget, when people misbehave.” It seems that Rocky’s character shows “people forgetting and misbehaving” in terms of culture. Rocky attended a boarding school in Albuquerque, “Tayo saw how Rocky deliberately avoided the old-time ways. Old Grandma shook her head at him, but he called it superstition, and he opened his textbooks to show her” (pg. 47). Rocky purposefully forgot his culture and his mother was supportive because she wanted Rocky to be a success and she felt as though breaking from tradition was the only way to be successful. However, this stripping away from culture is not Rocky’s fault, he attends a boarding school where his culture is not respected and he is told his people will hold him back. Similarly, in Homeland, peoples culture and way of life are stripped from them due to outside sources and contamination. Throughout all the cases shown in Homeland, native culture is not respected and is seen as lesser, which allows for contamination. which furthers the stripping of culture. As shown in Homeland, the contamination limits people’s ability to perform cultural acts. For example, in the Gwich’in Athabaskan tribe their traditions and culture are heavily aligned with the Porcupine Caribou. However, the planning to build an oil pipeline through the migration pattern posed a major threat to the tribe’s way of life. The contamination in these communities was purposeful as a way to strip natives from their ways of life, and Rocky’s character is an example of this.
My question is, Why is Auntie supportive of Rocky forgetting and ignoring his culture? Why does she think this is the only way for him to be successful? Why is Rocky seen as a golden boy when in reality he is untraditional, whereas Tayo is more traditional than Rocky but is seen as lesser because he is a “halfbreed?” How does the landscape of the Navajo reservation compare to the landscape that Rocky is describing?
After Tayo has cut a hole in the fence and is searching for you spotted cattle so he may lead them away, he is overcome with fear and fatigue. He lays down in the pine needles and damp earth until he spots a mountain lion moving through a clearing, their meeting is described as follows:
“The eyes caught twin reflections of the moon; the glittering yellow light penetrated his chest and he inhaled suddenly. Relentless motion was the Lion’s greatest beauty, moving like Mountain clouds with the wind, changing substance and color in rhythm with the contours of the mountain peaks: dark as lava rock, and suddenly as bright as a field of snow. When the mountain lion stopped in front of him, it was not hesitation, but a chance for the Moonlight to catch up with him.” p.183
Immediately afterward, Tayo refers to the mountain lion as the hunters helper, and follows the path the mountain lion took from the West, which eventually leads him to the herd of spotted cattle. What is the role of the mountain lion in this scene? Is this a display of Native American knowledge, retracing a predator’s tracks to find prey, or does the mountain lion have a greater symbolic meaning? Is the relentless motion of the mountain lion and it’s adaptation to the environment it moves through representative of an aspect of the Laguna people, or is it meant to extend to Native Americans at large?
On pages 122-128, Betonie the old medicine man, tells Tayo that “we can deal with white people, with their machines and their beliefs. We can because we invented white people, it was Indian witchery that made white people in the first place”. He then told Tayo a story about the witch people and their contest and how the white people came to be.
“Set in motion now
set in motion by our witchery
to work for us.
Caves across the ocean
in caves of dark hills
white skin people…
They see no life
When they look
they see only objects…
It’s already turned loose
It’s already coming
It can’t be called back.”
This creation story was very interesting and different from other Native American creation stories. What do you think is the significance of the white people coming from dark caves across the ocean, what is the meaning behind that? How could this be related to Tayo’s journey and experiences?
In Ceremony, Betonie claims that “it was Indian witchery that made white people in the first place” which suggests a shift in power dynamics in the creation stories. How does this origin story give Native Americans power over white people? How does this story imply that white people were created to do harm? How does this creation story relate to Tayo’s journey and experience throughout the novel? and how does this narrative connect with the struggles depicted in the film regarding land and environmental exploitation?
The themes of both Ceremony by Leslie Silko and the movie Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action explore the dynamics between white settler colonialism and native people. The exuberant and gross level of destruction that white activity, like the obsessive coal mining and oil drilling shown in the film, shows the differing relationship white people have with the land compared to native people. The Native American leaders from the film continuously battled the relentless energy companies that tore apart their land for profit. The land has cultural roots to the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana, and the power-hungry energy companies were stripping them of their ancestral right to their land with their activity. Another example of this can be seen in Ceremony. Tayo’s journey to find the cattle and bring them away from the Texans in the book highlights how settler colonialism is injected into white activity, and theft is a large theme in colonialism. There is an ancestral anger in Tayo and he realizes that white culture only feed(s) off the vitality of other cultures (Silko 190). The same theme follows in the film, it is always white people taking from other cultures to benefit themselves or gain power over others and their land. Since the culture of white people is stolen culture, what should these energy companies from the film, or even in the ranchers Tayo’s story, do to repay the debt of what they have stolen? If they restored their relationship with land, do you think it would help some of the relationships, communication, and understanding between land and different cultures of people?
This novel explores growing themes of cultural displacement, exploitation, and the struggle for identity within indigenous communities. Additionally, the desire for ceremony by Tayo who is on a journey of evolutionary vulnerability in healing and connecting back to healing has created the notion of how powerful and sacred traditional medicinal practices, especially in Native cultures are in contrast to the consistent push of the whitewashed influence of the West/America. One poignant moment in the text is when old Betonie challenges the notion of tradition and the necessity for adaptation in Native ceremonies, stating, “things which don’t shift and grow are dead things… Otherwise, we won’t make it. We won’t survive.” How does the tension between tradition and adaptation in indigenous ceremonies, as depicted in Ceremony, reflect broader narratives of indigenous resilience and sustainability, particularly in the context of voices for sustainable development? In Homeland, indigenous communities are portrayed as actively engaging in sustainable development initiatives rooted in their cultural heritage. How do the narratives of indigenous activism and resilience in the film intersect with the themes of tradition and adaptation in Ceremony by Leslie Silko? How do both sources contribute to our understanding of indigenous voices for sustainable development, and what lessons can be gleaned from these narratives in addressing contemporary environmental and socio-economic challenges faced by indigenous communities?
This poem is important because it helped make a connection between the perspective of white people through the lens of Betonie’s story and the perspective of Native American soldiers in the war. Similar to how the witch in the poem explains that these white people being created do not view the earth, animals, and other people as living, many soldiers in the war had to depersonalize and view the people they were killing as objects rather than humans. For example, towards the beginning of the book “Rocky pushed him toward the corpses and told him to look, look past the blood that was already dark like the jungle mud, with only flecks of bright red still shimmering in it. Rocky made him look at the corpse and said, ‘Tayo, this is a Jap! This is a Jap uniform!’ And then he rolled the body over with his boot…” (page 7). I believe this connection hints at the idea that the creation of white people through witchery led to things like destruction and war, which further led to Native American soldiers viewing people how white people do. Overall, Betonie and Tayo’s discussion of Native American Tradition allows Tayo to feel more included within his culture and gain a better understanding of his experiences in both his education and in the war. Furthermore, how does the poem and its view of the world as “dead” contribute to a larger theme in the book? What role does Betonie play in reshaping Tayo’s view of the world?
On page 116, Betonie says “The people nowadays have an idea about the ceremonies. They think the ceremonies must be performed exactly as they have always been done, maybe because one slip-up or mistake and the whole ceremony must be stopped and the sand painting destroyed. That much is true. They think that if a singer tampers with any part of the ritual, great harm can be done, great power unleashed…That much can be true also. But long ago when the people were given these ceremonies, the changing began, if only in the aging of the yellow gourd rattle or the shrinking of the skin around the eagle’s claw, if only in the different voices from generation to generation, singing the chants. You see, in many ways, the ceremonies have always been changing… At one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was then. But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies. I have made changes in the rituals. The people mistrust this greatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong.”
Is change a counter-intuitive necessity for the preservation of tradition? How does one find the proper balance between the two?
In the section where Harley and Tayo take a journey, at one point they drift into sleep and Tayo observes the burro. “Tayo watched the burro’s deliberate moves, but its stubbornness made it predictable, and every fifteen minutes Harley jerked the burro’s head sharply to the right, flicked its flanks with the horsehair quirt, and put them back on course again. So they traveled in wide arcs, moving gradually to the north. Tayo thought about animals then, horses and mules, and the way they drifted with the wind. Josiah said that humans had to endure anything, because only humans resisted what they saw outside themselves. Animals did not resist. But they persisted, because they became part of the wind. “Inside, Tayo, inside the belly of the wind.” In this passage I perceive that Tayo is feeling that he and the burro feel the same way. I think back to when Tayo was symbolizing himself as fog, now it seem there could be some likening between himself and the burro, as an animal who feels born to work and be guided around by the wind (outside forces/men). Do you think Tayo believes he wants to give in and let himself be a part of the wind like the animal?
In a story about a witch contest we read about one witch that had a story to tell. “Then they grow away from the earth then they grow away from the sun then they grow away from the plants and animals. They see no life When they look they see only objects. The world is a dead thing for them the trees and rivers are not alive the mountains and stones are not alive. The deer and bear are objects They see no life.
They fear They fear the world. They destroy what they fear. They fear themselves. The wind will blow them across the ocean thousands of them in giant boats swarming like larva out of a crushed ant hill.
They will carry objects which can shoot death faster than the eye can see. They will kill the things they fear all the animals the people will starve….”
This witch is telling the story of white peoples origin and lives. Witches are usually a sign of evil doing, but in this story the white people are the evil ones. Is there any significance of this story of evil coming from a witch?
Throughout Ceremony there is a theme of entanglement. On pg 69, the narrator is telling the story of Tayo’s being shunned by her community and by Auntie because of her actions drinking and going out regularly. The narrator writes about Aunties attempt to hold together the feelings that had become entangled with the family because of this judgement by the community. She struggles to reconcile the family with the people by gathering all the feelings and thoughts of the community “into a single prayer bundle” but the narrator writes, “but now the feelings were twisted, tangled roots, and all the names for the source of this growth were buried under English words, out of reach.” Earlier on page 35, Josiah explains the intricate web of all things that is fragile, where things easily become entangled. Here entanglement represents a good thing because of the intricacy involved in the web.
Reflecting on these notions of entanglement and Tayo’s own difficulty with his grief and sickness, what do you think entanglement represents for Tayo and his journey moving from inanimate to animate? Additionally, how has Tayo become tangled, or untangled, in the section (pgs 86-98) where he prays for rain and starts to regain some connection with the earth?
Is there a connection between entanglement and the difference between Laguna ceremonial medicine practices like the ones described on pages 122-128, and the white medicine practices that kept Tayo in a fog? Is the fog an example of entanglement or freedom?
A quote that stood out to me as I read, took place during a conversation between the old man and Tayo. Tayo expresses his doubt for ceremonies against the violence of white creation. “They want us to believe all evil resides with white people. Then we will look no further to see what is really happening. They want us to separate ourselves from white people, to be ignorant and helpless as we watch our own destruction. But white people are only the tools that the witchery manipulates; and I tell you, we can deal with white people with their machines and their beliefs. We can because we invented white people; it was Indian witchery that made white people in the first place” pg 122. This is followed by what seems to be a creation story of white people and their evilness told by a witch. My question is how does this story of white creation correlate to the story and the trauma in which Tayo has endured? What message is Silko trying to send with this section of the text, and what role does race play in that message?
Question 2
Another point of connection that I wanted to examine was the concept of reaching the sky, and the ways in which Tayo views the moon and stars. Early on in the book we get insight into a trip that Rocky and Tayo took when they climbed Bone Mesa, and the reader is able to get an insight into Tayos thoughts about the Earth. “He believed then that touching the sky had to with where you were standing and how the clouds were that day. He had believed that on certain nights when the moon rose full and wide as a corner of the sky, a person standing on a high sandstone cliff of that mesa could reach the moon. Distances and days existed in themselves then; they all had a story. They were not barriers” pg 17. At the end of this Tayo contemplates the significance of stories and their relation to understanding the Earth. Throughout the book we see pivotal moments happen that shift Tayos understanding of life, but as I was reading I began to see the full circle of his trauma as well as his healing. As Tayo and Betonie prepare for the second ceremony they stop at a stone hogan set back from the rimrock. Tayo begins to reflect on the place he is. “He smoothed his hand over the top of his head and felt the sun. The mountain wind was cool; it smelled like springs hidden deep in mossy black stone. He could see no signs of what had been set loose upon the earth: the highways, the towns, even the fences were gone. This was the highest point on the earth: he could feel it. It had nothing to do with measurements or height. It was a special place. He was smiling. He felt strong” pg 129. Now looking at these two interactions between Tayo and the earth, what kind of relationship is Silko drawing here. When she says ‘He could see no signs of what had been set loose upon the earth’ what does this indicate, what exactly was loose? Is this in reference to the witchery poem or something else? I am genuinely curious to here what others think because to me the parallels between these two interactions seem to be significant for Tayos healing.
In “Ceremony,” relationships and conflicts are focused on a lot, this can especially be seen through Auntie’s struggle with what others think. When Auntie tries to fix family problems caused by community judgment she gathers the community’s emotions into a prayer bundle, it shows how everyone’s emotions are tangled up together. The film being able to show a visual side, I think makes it easier to grasp the magnitude of this internal battle. It is easier to understand the main character’s inner battles while dealing with outside pressures.
Both the book and the movie talk about how traditions change over time, like Betonie’s thoughts on ceremonies. We can witness the protagonist’s endeavor to navigate the complexities of tradition and modernity. Through compelling character arcs and evocative visuals, the film adaptation delves into the tension between preserving cultural heritage and embracing change.
What role does nature play in “Ceremony,” and how is it depicted visually in the film?
How does the theme of cultural identity manifest in “Ceremony,” and how is it portrayed differently in the film adaptation?
While reading “Ceremony”, I was interested to read about Auntie and Tayo’s relationship and their deeper connection, especially when Tayo was trying to understand why his own mother left him. They had a special bond, something deeper than with the others in their family, Tayo was able to understand how she was feeling with just one look at her.
“Only Tayo could hear it, like fingernails scratching against bare rock, her terror at being trapped in one of the oldest ways. An old sensitivity had descended in her, surviving thousands of years from the oldest times when people shared a single clan name and they told each other who they were…” (62).
“When Little Sister had started drinking wine and riding in cars with white men and Mexicans, the people could not define their feeling about her. The Catholic priest shook his finger at the drunkenness and lust, but the people felt something deeper: they were losing her, they were losing part of themselves. The older sister had to act; she had to act for the people, to get this young girl back” (63).
I wonder if Auntie sees some of herself in Tayo, and maybe Tayo sees himself in her too? Both Rocky and Tayo’s mother were more interested in things outside of their family and traditions and were looking to find ways to uplift themselves in a western style of society. Potentially she’s coming to terms with the fact that she’s the one that has to stay behind, while others leave. Does Auntie crave the missing parts of her sister in Tayo, and similarly does Tayo crave his mother? Auntie seems to understand that it’s important for Tayo to stay close to home too, but is okay with Rocky engaging in other activities that push him further away. Is that because of her special connection with Tayo or does she feel the need to protect him more because of the history with his mother/her sister?
During the second ceremony performed by Betonie, Tayo starts to heal from his past. During the last part of the ceremony it’s almost like he’s being born again. One of my personal fair parts about the ceremony is how it seems like Tayo is walking away from his trauma both in the ceremony when he is walking in the bear tracks and with the wording that is used. My question is what else could this ceremony tell us about Tayo and would this ceremony help the other charters who fought in the war.
Pg 133-134
At the dark mountain born from the mountain walked along the mountain I will bring you through my hoop, I will bring you back.
Following my footprints walk home following my footprints come home happily return belonging to your home return to long life and happiness again return to long and happiness
At the Dark mountain born from the mountain moves his hand along the mountain I have left the zigzag lighting behind I have left the straight lighting behind
I have the dew a sunray falls from me I was born from the mountain I leave a path of wildflowers a raindrop falls from me I’m walking home Im walking back to belonging I’m walking home to happiness I’m walking back to long life
When he passed through the last hoop it wasn’t finished. They spun him around sunwise and he recovered. He stood up. The rainbows returned him to his home, but it wasn’t over. All kinds of evil were still on him.
In the movie Homeland, we got to see several different fights for environmental justice in the face of environmental racism perpetrauted against Native peoples around the United States. It raised several questions about the future of sustainability and green movements. It highlighted the need for better intersectionality in environmentalism and the importance of including local and minority voices in all decisions.
“In a consuming culture, which consumes a third of the world’s resources, it requires a constant intervention into other people’s terrories and constant violations of other people’s human rights. That is the reality if you consume more than you need and more than you can produce in any semblance of a relationship that is not only equitable but sustainable.”
Here, we are confronted with the fact that Western culture, particularly USAmerican culture is highly consumption based. This overcumption comes at the expense of someone’s life and land, all for the benefit of people who will never see the harm that it wrecks on the environment and its people.
Elsewhere in the movie, we learn of a village suffering from the effects of uranium mining, a key ingredient in nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is considered greener than coal or oil, and therefore is one of the options for future sustainability. But obviously, here we learn how it harms Indigeous communities for others’ benefits and to make up for Earth’s destruction they did not cause. Therefore, I wonder:
How can we pursue nuclear energy without disenfranchising already vulnerable communities? Can we? What are alternatives if not?
“At one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was then. But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies. I have made changes in the rituals. The People mistrust this greatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong. (pg 116)”
This quote explains that the arrival of white settlers brought on destructive elemental changes like cultural disruption and the degradation of their Native American heritage and their lands. Further, the quote describes that “it became necessary to create new ceremonies.” This quote, to my understanding, acknowledges that the ceremonies performed in the past were suited for a world before colonization. Then the ceremonies became insufficient for addressing new challenges faced by indigenous communities in a colonial world. Therefore, this quote asserts that it is necessary to modify and create new ceremonies to address the shifting realities of the world and, ultimately, adapt to the cultural changes brought on by the settlers without losing their indigenous heritage in the process.
What are the “elements that shifted,” and how do you think they affect and impact indigenous ceremonies and rituals? Also, how does this reflect broader themes of cultural preservation and resistance to colonialism within the story presented in Ceremony?
“Don’t confuse those who go to the bears with the witch people. Human beings who live with the bears do not wear bear skins. They are naked and not conscious of being different from their bear relatives. Witches crawl into skins of dead animals, but they can do nothing but play around with objects and bodies. Living animals are terrified of witches. They smell the death. That’s why witches can’t get close to them. That’s why people keep dogs around their hogans. Dogs howl with fear when witch animals come around.” (pg 98)
Bears represent a kind of awakening, supported by immense amounts of strength. While they can be deadly, they are revered as intelligent and lively creatures. The bear men are no different from the bears themselves and therefore hold the same power and weight. The witches are a foil to that, making clear the qualities that make a witch a witch as they wreak death. As the bears enjoy and respect their surroundings the witch only seeks to manipulate others. A lot of indigenous modes of thinking base themselves on identifying traits of culture and survival towards other biotic and abiotic factors. Witchery is an identifying feature of the white man. The story told from page 100 to 102, is an explanation of how this witchery came to be. Once it is summoned- it cannot be rescinded and the great trail that is colonization began altering everything.
Everything in the world is dead and an object.
Everything is feared.
Each other. The World.
Everything that is feared is killed.
The world dead.
They are dead.
If you ask the average person today what witchery is they’ll tell you it is magic and done is secret. Maybe they’ll even say indigenous peoples have witchery-style practices. When you think of witchery, what do you visualize? And why do we not consider a great many of our practices today witchery? We see everything as dead, objects. Everything is to be manipulated and formulaic. Do you consider the life we live full of witchery?
Homeland:
In the Navajo tribe, there are a large number of people who have uranium poisoning and issues about NRC mining operations leaving chemicals that have been shot into the ground. To pacify how horrific these issues are there are measures taken by the companies to ease to sound of how dangerous these practices are. One man says that bicarbonate water aka club soda, something so harmless and unthreatening allows for seepage of itself and other harmful chemicals into streams and drinking sources. Using such phrasing makes it appear that the practices for fossil fuel extraction are safer than they are. The average person may not know how corrosive it is by itself and that it will help move other harmful compounds. How do you combat such pacification of clearly harmful practices?
The Homeland film and the book Ceremony both seem to surround indigenous people. In the Homeland film, the indigenous tribes face many challenges against the industrial colonized world they try to separate themselves from. Many different tribes around the United States are being faced with issues occurring on their lands or adjacent to them that happen to come along with health concerns. Issues such as the effects from methane gas wells, oil drills/wells, uranium mining sites, and paper plants. All of these issues tend to affect the water quality in these areas, making most of the current drinking water non potable and contaminated to a point where human health is of concern. The indigenous people survive off of the natural water source near them and the issues being faced could nearly end the communities in total. With the indigenous peoples being where the concentration of problems occur, while thinking about environmental injustice, why is the indigenous people’s “backyard” the point of interest? They fight back against issues in their area and will even travel to help fellow tribes that are in situations, but the big industry companies often pay their way through, what could be implemented for better results in the indigenous peoples favor?
In the reading of Ceremony where the discussion of how people are separated, there is a quote that looks towards making all people, no matter what characteristics one may have, come together and be seen as one altogether. The quote also refers to how it used to be and now it needs to become that once again. It states that “the old instinct had always been to gather the feelings and opinions that were scattered through the village, to gather them like willow twigs and tie them into a single prayer bundle that would bring peace to all of them. But now the feelings were twisted, tangled roots, and all the names for the source of this growth were buried under English words, out of reach. And there would be no peace and the people would have no rest until the entanglement had been unwound to the source.” In Ceremony it is described that having people create a community within their area, that does not leave anybody out from the count, allows the opportunity for all the individuals to become seen as one together. The people having equal human rights establishes that no person shall be left unaccounted for, and in today’s world this is a dream of a better future shown in Ceremony through Tayo’s character. How can we move towards an inclusive future? Would the actions need to be just local, or would it need more actions from the government?
Considering both the film Homeland and the book Ceremony, there is a hope and faith that issues will not arise and end up hurting the people. Is faith and hope from the people important to keep the people’s land in Homeland and to unite the people as one in Ceremony?
One of the things that struck me most about our readings from this week was Betonie’s thoughts about ceremonies and necessary change. In the earlier pages of the book, one of Tayo’s greatest struggles regarding the ceremony with old man Ku’oosh is that Tayo doesn’t feel that Ku’oosh can help him because Ku’oosh cannot comprehend the severity of the violence that Tayo has experienced in the war. On p. 33 it is stated, “But the old man would not have believed white warfare,–killing across great distances without knowing who or how many had died.” I think Tayo feels stuck between two identities, his cultural identity and his trauma, and though he understands that reconnecting with his culture may help him in some ways, he is hesitant to accept that he will ever heal because of this new kind of violence he has witnessed, and the medicine man’s unawareness of such violence. Alternatively, Betonie approaches ceremony as a living, growing thing that evolves and changes with the world. On p. 116 Betonie says to Tayo, “At one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was then. But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies… The people mistrust this greatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong.” Betonie’s emphasis that growth is necessary for survival perfectly illustrates the climate crisis that we are all facing today. Adapting to changes and assessing our places in the world allows us to more clearly analyze what our struggles are and what we can do about them. For me this part of the text really resonates with me regarding climate anxiety, something I am sure many of us have felt. Change can be extremely scary, especially when it encompasses your entire future, however it is necessary to continue on with our lives. Time doesn’t stop, it’s up to us to decide how the future plays out. As depicted in the film Homeland, indigenous groups have been unjustly subjected to the changes and effects of climate change and colonization, but yet these communities continue to share their stories with younger generations and keep their ceremonies and traditions alive. “Things which don’t shift and grow are dead things. They are things the witchery people want. Witchery works to scare people, to make them fear growth. But it has always been necessary, and more now than ever” (p. 116). How can we apply the idea of changing ceremonies for the purpose of adapting to our circumstances to issues like the climate crisis? How can we reframe our view of climate change to see this crisis as an opportunity to adjust our lifestyles and focus our emotions rather than viewing climate change as a wall of impending doom? Furthermore, how can we use the concept of ceremony to reconnect with the earth in today’s society as Tayo does throughout the book and how could this reconnection contribute to climate action?
For this week’s questions, I want to weave together the varying ideas of ceremonies from Ceremony and Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action. So far in Ceremony, there have been three primary ceremonies mentioned: the Scalp Ceremony, Rain Ceremony, and Gallup Ceremonial. Each of these ceremonies has a specific, complex context that explores the themes of colonialism, racism, and land relations that the novel is saturated with.
Beginning with the Scalp Ceremony, we are initially informed that this ceremony functions as a way for warriors and soldiers “who killed or touched dead enemies” to process these traumatic events (34). However, later, we learn that the Scalp Ceremony also “satisfied the female giant who fed on the dreams of warriors” (156). With this new understanding, we can see how the United States (“the female giant”) exploits its soldiers, especially Black and Brown soldiers, and forces them into “defending the land they had already lost” (157).
This exploitation is carried over into the Gallup Ceremonial, in which the white people of Gallup, NM ‘celebrate’ Indigenous culture through appropriation (107). Although I don’t think I’d consider this an actual ceremony, it does provide an interesting contrast to the other ceremonies in the book. Whereas the other ceremonies are by and for Indigenous folks and mark a significant event or process, the Gallup Ceremonial is purely aesthetic and serves as a way for white people to fetishize and romanticize Indigenous people while ignoring their lived realities. I thought Silko’s choice to put the description of the Ceremonial right after her explanation of the terrible living conditions of Tayo’s childhood provided a strong juxtaposition. Through this comparison, we see how colonialism continues to reward white people at the expense of Indigenous people.
The final ceremony that I want to discuss is the Rain Ceremony. Tayo performs this ceremony before he heads off to war as a way to try to overcome the drought (86-88). While Tayo is in the canyon, he notes that “as long as the hummingbird had not abandoned the land, somewhere there were still flowers, and they could all go on” (88). This reminded me of Gwich’in people’s relationship with the caribou from Homeland. After the federal government’s attempts to establish drilling rights in the Alaskan Arctic, the Gwich’in people held a ceremony to figure out what to do to combat the legislation. As one speaker said, “when we’re making an important decision, we hold prayer. We have ceremony. And then we decide” (34:34). With these two examples, we can see how the effects of colonialism impact keystone and culturally important species and, therefore, impact the livelihoods of Indigenous communities.
My question this week is what do you think Silko’s purpose was in comparing all of these different ceremonies? How does she use ceremony to explore the balance between resistance and acquiescence in regard to colonialism?
Caitlin Langley In Ceremony and the film Homeland, there are many common themes. The most prevalent one being the exploitation of the native people and the reservation land for Western progress. In Ceremony, Tayo is constantly fighting with his own wounds from the “white man’s war” and he’s fighting the damage they have done, and continue to do to his reservation land. Fencing it in, using it as their own and also making them struggle daily just to keep what is already theirs. In the film Homeland the same themes are present. There are reservations and tribes that stretch from Montana to Alaska and they all tell a similar story. Their struggle is with the energy companies and the oil industry. Moving in and destroying land that is not theirs to advance an agenda that benefits them only. They are ruining the land, displacing families and repeatedly committing hate crimes against the people of the reservation. The irony that I found in Homeland was that the people of the reservation had to leave their homes, leave behind their tradition temporarily and learn the “white man’s” way of doing things simply to keep what is already owned. To make advances to the only piece of land that they still have after all else was taken from them. My question is will it be possible for the native people to continue their fight for their homeland while still being able to preserve their tradition and protect their goals?
“When he turned away from the sun to mount the mare, he saw the spotted cattle, grazing in dry lake flat below the ridge. They were facing southeast, grazing in a herd. They had smelled the horse and the rider and were looking up at the ridge; his motion sent them running, with grass still hanging from wet lips. They ran as Robert said they did, wilder than antelope, smarter than elk about human beings. Their memory of people endured long after all other traces of domestication were gone; and he was counting on another instinct: the dim memory of direction which lured them always south, to the Mexican desert where they were born.” Page 182-183
Tayo does not fear the sporadic nature of the herd despite acknowledging it and compares them to antelope. he recognizes how smart they are as they quickly recognize his presence. Tayo does not get angered when the herd runs but rather hopes that they will continue to follow their instincts and move south. This lack of emotion makes Tayo stronger because he is able to keep a level head while dealing with the chaos of nature and specifically the tracking of loose cattle. At this moment Tayo is not concerned with his heritage or his often misbehaving stomach as he is dead focused on his long journey with the goal of steering the cattle home.
“From the corner of his eye, he saw them, at first mistaking them for a strand of his own hair caught by the wind. But when he turned there were two riders approaching from the north. He whipped the mare into a dead run, crouching low over her neck, trying to guide her over the rocky, uneven terrain, down the steep slope of the ridge. They were about a mile away when he first saw them, so he would try to find a deep grove of pine where he could stay until they passed. He strained to see if the cattle were still in sight, wondering if the riders had seen them. The bill of sale in his pocket would mean very little to armed patrolmen chasing a tresspasser. He pressed his heels into the mare’s sides to make her run faster, but the lava rock was already scattering from under her feet, and she was fighting to keep her balance. He looked over to see if they were on the hilltop behind him yet; they weren’t, so he reined the mare in, to save some of her strength. He wiped the tears that the wind whipped in his eyes onto the sleave of his jacket and tried to focus on the ridges and flats ahead, searching for lava-rock knob and the lightning-struck pine that marked the hole in the fence.” Page 184
Unlike the sporadic cattle, Tayo fears the seemingly calm patrolmen. Knowing that the land he is on is owned by Texans he does not hesitate to hide from them and put forth great effort to try and avoid being spotted. Tayo never mentions his fear of being caught but he acknowledges that his bill of sale would be useless and his actions of running away to hide make me feel that he does not trust these men despite having a valid reason and proof of his reason for trespassing.
Should Tayo have been as scared as he was?
Could Tayo have asked for help?
Why is he comfortable with the chaos of cattle but afraid of confrontation with these men?
In Leslie Silko’s Ceremony, the encounter between Tayo and the mountain lion symbolizes the blending of practical knowledge and spiritual guidance in Native American culture. The mountain lion’s role as a guide reflects the deep connection between humans and nature, highlighting the Laguna people’s resilience and adaptability. This theme of tradition and adaptation is further explored in the tension between maintaining traditional ceremonies and adapting them to modern challenges. Similarly, the film Homeland portrays indigenous communities engaging in sustainable development initiatives rooted in their cultural heritage, emphasizing the importance of including indigenous voices in environmental discussions.
How do Ceremony and Homeland challenge mainstream narratives of sustainability and environmentalism by highlighting the importance of indigenous knowledge and practices in addressing environmental challenges? How can these narratives inform more inclusive and intersectional approaches to sustainable development that prioritize the voices and needs of indigenous communities?
“He dreamed about the speckled cattle. They had seen him and they were scattering between juniper trees, through tall yellow grass, below the mesas near the dripping spring. Some of them had spotted calves that ran behind them, their bony rumps flashing white and disappearing into the trees. He tried to run after them, but it was no use without a horse. They were gone, running southwest again, toward the high, lone-standing mesa the people called Pa’to’ch” (134).
The imagery of the speckled cattle roaming freely amidst the juniper trees, tall yellow grass, and mesas could possibly correlate to a deep sense of connection to the land and the indigenous culture it represents. Tayos dream captures the essence of his identity and heritage, as well as his longing to reclaim a lost connection to his people and their traditional way of life. I believe the speckled cattle could symbolize not only the resilience and beauty of nature but also serve as a reminder of the protagonist’s cultural roots. As they scatter and disappear into the landscape, they represent the elusive nature of memory and tradition, slipping away from the protagonist’s grasp like the passage of time itself. Silko also mentions of the spotted calves running behind their mothers suggests the cyclical nature of life and the importance of preserving cultural heritage for future generations. The protagonist’s futile attempt to chase after the cattle without a horse underscores the challenges he faces in reconnecting with his culture and reclaiming his sense of belonging.
How does this passage illustrate the intersection of culture, memory, and the natural world in the novel?
“He wanted to yell at the medicine man, to yell the things the white doctors had yelled at him—that he had to think only of himself, and not about the others, that he would never get well as long as he used words like “we” and “us.” But he had known the answer all along, even while the white doctors were telling him he could get well and he was trying to believe them: medicine didn’t work that way, because the world didn’t work that way. His sickness was only part of something larger, and his cure would be found only in something great and inclusive of everything”
This interaction between Tayo and Betonie seemed really important to me because of the way Tayo begins to realize the differences in teachings between white culture and native culture what he needs from these cultures to heal himself. Mostly taking into account his mixed background it seemed like there’s a lot of instances throughout the book where Tayo is either grappling with his native side or his white side and mostly ending frustrated.
When Tayo references his cure to be “inclusive of everything” could this holistic approach to health be comparable to recent movements in society towards mental health.
Is western medicine something that can be practiced in collaboration with holistic, native, or any other non-western forms of medicines.
Many aspects of Homeland showed some very real instances of white cultural establishments putting down and harming indigenous populations. Some of the ones I remember include the uranium mining corporations polluting Navajo reservations or the arctic wildlife refuge in jeopardy due to oil drilling threatening the local ecosystem and peoples way of life. These institutions that reap the rewards of native abuse have been in place for a long time and are still very present today.
In Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, it initially seems as if the main antagonists in the book are the white people. They are the most obvious choice as they are the ones who have stolen the land from the natives and with it, their culture and traditions. Yet, throughout the book, there are mentions of other forces at hand. For instance, it is explained on page 177 that “The liars had fooled everyone, white people and Indians alike… [the white people] would never be able to understand how they had been used by the witchery… The destroyers had only to set it into motion and sit back to count the casualties (Silko 177). Then, on page 189 it is said that “The destroyers had tricked the white people as completely as they had fooled the Indians” (Silko 189). Finally, it is explained on page 231 that “The witchery would work so that the people would be fooled into blaming only the whites and not the witchery” (Silko 231). While these are the most memorable quotes, they are by no means the only mention of the destroyers and the witchery. My question is, who are these destroyers and who is the witchery? What are these forces, above both the natives and the white people, that are supposedly causing the conflicts? Are they meant to represent something in the real world? Lastly, what is the significance of taking away the blame from the white people and placing it on these mysterious forces instead?
Question 2
The question of stolen land is spoken about often in Ceremony. For instance, the narrator explains how the white ranchers, loggers, and hunters came in and began to not only destroy the land, but also to hunt the animals. It is said that “It was then the Laguna people understood that the land had been taken because they couldn’t stop these white people from coming to destroy the animals and the land” (Silko 172). Despite the obvious fact that the land was stolen from the natives by the white people, the white people still display clear entitlement. When Tayo was trying to get his cattle back he ran into white cowboys patrolling the fenceline. Though the cowboys took Tayo captive for a while, they eventually let him go so that they could go and try to hunt a mountain lion. Before they go, one of the cowboys says “These goddamn Indians got to learn whose property this is” (Silko 188). This is extremely ironic, as it was the natives’ land first, not the white people’s. My question is, are the men so disillusioned that they actually think it is their land? Do they not recognize the irony in this? Or are they choosing to rewrite the story, knowing fully that it is not truly their land?
Homeland [00:39:29.33]: “For thousands of years, our land had no borders. Now, we have to cross an imaginary line into what is called Canada.”
Ceremony p. 174: “The Texans who bought the land posted signs in English and Spanish to keep trespassers out. But the people from the land grants and the people from Laguna and Acoma ignored the signs and hunted deer; occasionally, the Mexicans took a cow. So later on, the ranchers hired men to patrol on horseback, carrying .30-30s in saddle scabbards.”
“He rode miles across dry lake flats and rocky cerros until he came to a high fence of heavy-gauge steel mesh with three strands of barbed wire across the top. It was a fence that could hold the spotted cattle. The white man, Floyd Lee, called it a wolf-proof fence; but he had poisoned and shot all the wolves in the hills, and the people knew what the fence was for: a thousand dollars a mile to keep the Indians and Mexicans out; a thousand dollars a mile to lock the mountain in steel wire, to make the land his.”
p. 175: “Next to a rope the most important tool a rider could carry was a pair of fencing pliers… Josiah taught him to watch for loose strands of wire and breaks in the fence… he helped Tayo stitch a leather holster for the pliers one evening after supper, and he reminded him that you never knew when you might be traveling someplace and a fence might get in your way. Josiah had nodded toward Mount Taylor when he said it.”
These passages demonstrate the difference between owning land and belonging to land. The white colonizers create boundaries with fences, set up patrols, and use violence to make the land “theirs.” But the land does not really belong to them because they do not belong to the land. They do not care for it; in fact, they do the complete opposite, wiping out native animal species, exploiting and degrading natural resources, and using the land only for commercial gain. The colonizers’ boundaries mean little to people who have lived on the land for millennia, who really care for it and understand it, and therefore truly belong to it. All the fences and armed guards in the world cannot take that belonging away.
This dispossession of land and degradation of land and culture reminds me of what is happening in Palestine. For example, in the process of making way for settlements, the Israeli government has uprooted and burned over 800,000 olive trees since 1967 (source). Olive trees are native to the region and are an important cultural symbol and source of agricultural income for Palestinians. Their destruction has had environmental ramifications such as soil degradation and the removal of a vital carbon sink. The destruction of olive trees is representative of land dispossession and destruction of culture (and I would be remiss not to mention the literal genocide happening, with over 33,000 Palestinians murdered as of the latest death count source), and I see a parallel here to the dispossession of Native land and genocide of Native people that has happened in this country. Do you see a parallel between what has happened/is happening to Indigenous people in the Americas and what has happened/is happening to Palestinians? Why or why not?
“‘The people nowadays have an idea about the ceremonies. They think the ceremonies must be performed exactly as they have always been done, maybe because one slip-up or mistake and the whole ceremony must be stopped and the sand painting destroyed. That much is true. They think that if a singer tampers with any part of the ritual, great harm can be done, great power unleashed’ He was quiet for a while, looking up at the sky through the smoke hole. ‘That much can be true also. But long ago when the people were given these ceremonies, the changing began, if only in the aging of the yellow gourd rattle or the shrinking of the skin around the eagle’s claw, if only in the different voices from generation to generation, singing the chants. You see, in many ways, the ceremonies have always been changing.’
Tayo nodded; he looked at the medicine pouches hanging from the ceiling and tried to imagine the objects they contained.
‘At one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was then. But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies. I ahve made changes in the rituals. The people mistrust this greatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong.
She taught me this above all else: things which don’t shift and grow are dead things. They are things the witchery people want. Witchery works to scare people, to make them fear growth. But it has always been necessary, and more than ever now, it is. Otherwise we wont make it.'” (p 126)
In this passage, Silko is using Bentonie to highlight the ways in which change can be helpful, and that staying stuck in your ways can be harmful to growth. How can this symbolism of change and growth vs tradition and rigidity be seen throughout the novel? Does it have a deeper meaning?
“There were three calves born when they corralled them, and two of the cows looked as if they would calve within a few days. The little calves reminded tayo of new shoes, bright white with light brown speckles, silky and untouched by mud and sand. It was difficult to see how these calves would grow according to Josiah’s theories. They were the same color as their mothers’ and they had the same wild eyes. But Robert had to admit that the cales were stocky through the shoulder and hip, showing at least some trace of the fine registered Hereford bull that Ulibrarri had insisted and sworn was their sire. They still ran like antelope in the big corral, bawling to escape the men with ropes. But Josiah said they would grow u heavy and covered with meat like the Herefords, but toug too, like the Mexican cows, able to withstand hard winters and many dry years. That was his plan.” p. 80
Josiah’s hope for the cattle was that their mixed breed of hardy and wild Mexican cattle mixed with the prized Hereford cattle would bring about the necessary change to make a strong breed of cattle that could withstand the harsh climate of New Mexico. Here we see the theme of change and also the theme of mixed breeds, as with Bentonie and his half Mexican heritage.
Do you think the cattle and Josiah’s plan for the cattle represent this hardiness and willingness to change and adapt that Bentonie says is necessary later in the book?
I noticed many similarities of finding difficulty in navigating their cultural identity and their relationship to their land. On p. 33 of Ceremony, the quote says “Human beings were no different. But the old man would not have believed white warfare,–killing across great distances without knowing who or how many had died.” this quote relates to Homeland in the way that white warfare closely relates to the “white mans way of war” or modern warfare–killing from a distance.
question: how are indigenous communities in Homeland such as the Gwich’in Indians made to suffer from “white warfare”?
I have been fascinated with the way that language shapes human relationships and changes how something is perceived. Part of the colonization efforts by white people was renaming culturally significant aspects of Indigenous peoples lives. It is just another act of violence done by white colonizers in stealing something that does not belong to them. In Homeland, members of Indigenous groups share their spiritual connection with the land and how it has created life for generations but has been stolen and destroyed by white people. In Ceremony, we are often reminded of this in relation to Tayo and the Laguna people.
“But the fifth world had become entangled with European names; the names of the rivers, the hills the names of the animals and plants — all of creation suddenly had two names: an Indian name and a white name.” 62
“And there would be no peace and the people would have no rest until the entanglement had been unwound at the source” 64
In the scenes where Tayo is trying to find the cattle, he reflects on his hesitation to say his cattle were stolen by a white man. The cattle seemed to be in the white mans possession, protected by fences and borders, and for a brief moment, he perceived the cattle to possibly be rightfully the white mans. The renaming of indigenous names is directly connected to the taking of their lands and feeds into the dominant culture and way of relating to the world.
“The mountain had been named for the swirling views of clouds, the membranes of foggy mist clinging to the peaks, then leaving them covered with snow… The white ranchers called this place North Top, but he remembered it by the story Josiah had told him…” 171-72
The power that simply renaming things has to contribute to the erasure of different worlds is like that of directly taking land and kicking natives out. It produces more lies, more violence, more injustice and genocidal behavior.
How does this scene between Tayo, the cattle, and the white cowboys speak to the everyday genocidal tendencies of white settler colonialism in North America? Not only that, but how it also effects the human-nature relationship in the dominant culture?
The realization and events that Tayo experiences at the uranium mine are a climactic section of the book that unlocks many realizations and completes the ceremony. This passage in particular stands out in reference to the development of the atomic bomb and the connectedness of all people:
“From that time on, human beings were one clan again, united by the fate the destroyers planned for all of them, for all living things; united by a circle of death that devoured people in cities twelve thousand miles away, victims who has never known these mesas, who had never seen the delicate colors of the rocks which boiled up their slaughter.” (Silk 228)
I believe this passage has great weight that can be applied to today’s context. We often think of things that will destroy all of us (humanity) such as severe climate change and other anthropogenic causes similar to a nuclear fallout.
How does Silko’s ceremony show us the power of story telling to combat this form of violence and unite humanity?
This story telling also reminds me a lot of Rob Nixon’s ideas of dealing with “slow violence” and how to make people aware that there is a fate planned by the destroyers and that we are all in this together.
How can the idea of the atomic bomb and humanity united be applied to a fate that faces humanity today? Whether that be slow violence or anything else?
He found two quarters and tossed them into the man’s outstretched hands, swaying above his head, and both the man and the woman dropped to their knees in the sand to find them. Robert walked away, but Tayo stood there, remembering the little bridge in a park in San Diego where all the soldiers took their dates the night before they shipped out to the South Pacific and stood throwing coinsinto the shallow pond.
This quote from page 109 shows tayo is experiencing a closeness more than his brother, robert, with the beggars. Despite robert being the star child in tayo’s family, he experiences a disconnect with a person that he once would have remembered and shared with Tayo. Does roberts success have to do with his separation from his past, while Tayo’s shortcomings have to do with his connections with his precious life?
He repeated the words as he remembered them, not sure if they were the right ones, but feeling they were right, feeling the instant of the dawn was an event which in a single moment gathered all things together—the last stars, the mountaintops, the clouds, and the winds —celebrating this coming. The power of each day spilled over the hills in great silence. Sunrise. He ended the prayer with “sunrise” because he knew the Dawn people began and ended all their words with “sunrise.” . . . Maybe the dawn woke the instinct in the dim memory of the blood when horses had been as wild as the deer and at sunrise went into the trees and thickets to hide
The symbolism in this book in the poems and prose is always used as a connection to the story as a foreshadowing event. Specifically with the word sunrise, which should mean a new beginning and dawn for Tayo. Do the horses have symbolic meaning as well, being wild and free? Is this what Tayo wishes he had? This could also link with his dreams about desire…
“He pointed his chin at the springs and around at the narrow canyon. ‘This is where we come from, see. This sand, this stone, these trees, the vines all the wildflowers. This earth keeps us going. (47)” Part of indigenous culture involves a deeper more profound relation to the land and where they come form. They often think of themselves as in relation to the land, and that has implications for how they treat it and certain practices of conservation and protection. Land practices and relations are culturally embedded. How could this profound relationship to the land and sense of identity that is rooted in land be used in pursuit of sustainable development. What sort of paradigm changes could we use, with indigenous communities as a model, to result in more sustainable practices?
SD 3800 Voices in Sustainable Development 
Alena Dastur
Question 1:
On page 116 the old medicine man, Betonie, says to Tayo:
“But long ago when people were given these ceremonies, the changing began, if only in the aging of the yellow gourd rattle or the shrinking of the skin around the eagle’s claw, if only in the different voices from generation to generation singing the chants. You see, in many ways, the ceremonies have always been changing” — “things which don’t shift and grow are dead things.”
I found this quote really interesting and important. I think stereotypically ceremonies are viewed as stagnant things that must be performed the same exact way in order to achieve the goal. This way of thinking can present change as a bad thing, interfering with tradition. How should the balance between change and preservation of traditions be navigated? Are there any examples of this being done in a positive way in today’s world? What kind of change should be resisted and what should be accepted when it comes to the evolution of tradition?
Question 2:
On page 177 when Tayo is looking for Josiah’s cattle, he finds them on a private property owned by a white rancher. He thinks to himself:
“If he had seen the cattle on land-grant land or in some Acoma’s corral, he wouldn’t have hesitated to say “stolen”. But something inside him made him hesitate to say it now that the cattle were on a white man’s ranch. He had a crazy desire to believe that there had been some mistake, that Floyd Lee had gotten them innocently, maybe buying them from the real thieves. Why did he hesitate to accuse a white man of stealing but not a Mexican or an Indian?”
As a class, how would we respond to Tayo’s above question? Do we have any answers for him? Where and how does this internalized racism show up in society today? How does society go about combating this issue?
Opal Napier
Ceremony Question: In Ceremony, Betonie makes the claim that “it was Indian witchery that made white people in the first place,” (p. 122), and this claim is followed by a poem in which this creation is story.
“Set in motion now
set in motion
To destroy
To kill
Objects to work for us
objects to act for us
Performing the witchery
for suffering
for torment
for the still born
the deformed
the sterile
the dead.
Whirling
whirling
whirling
whirling
set into motion now
set into motion,” (p.125).
Does this origin story take agency away from white people’s actions (i.e. they are only doing what is in their nature, as they were created by witchery)? For Betonie, the creation of white people through witchery is more of a good thing than a bad one- why do you think this is the case?
In the poem, the witches actually seemed quite hesitant for white people to be called into being, demanding “Call that story back,” (p. 128). What is the significance of this? Shouldn’t they want as much evil as possible?
What does this section of the book say about the power of a story?
Ceremony/Homelands Question: In Ceremony, Betonie states that “They think the ceremonies must be performed exactly as they have always been done…in many ways, ceremonies have always been changing,” (p. 116).
In Homelands, the Gwich’in called together their nation and held prayer and ceremony before making a decision regarding the oil companies that wanted to move into the reindeer calving grounds. How do we see the fluidity and flexibility of ceremonies play in here, keeping in mind that their problem was likely vastly different (and perhaps simultaneously similar) to problems of their past?
Ellen Kraai
Question 1:
On pages 93-94 of Ceremony, Josiah tells Tayo a story from way back in “time immemorial” when the greenbottle fly saved the people by asking for forgiveness from the mother. Upon hearing this story, Tayo feels a sense of guilt for having taken pride in his pile of dead flies. However, Tayo’s feelings contradict one another when this sense of guilt is nowhere to be found. Silko writes:
But in the jungle he had not been able to endure the flies that had crawled over Rocky; they had enraged him. He had cursed their sticky feet and wet mouths, and when he could reach them he had smashed them between his hands. (Silko 94)
What brings about this lack of conscience in regard to the jungle flies’ lives? Is it simply because of the death of Rocky or is it representative of a deeper, generational pain? Is Tayo’s numbness to the flies symptomatic of colonial violence? Does he lose touch with that sensitivity for all living beings when colonial violence shows its true, cruel self in Rocky’s death?
Question 2:
On Tayo’s quest to retrieve the cattle from the white Texans, he comes to terms with a complex enraging feeling brought about by the theft inherent in settler colonialism. Not only does Tayo reckon with the feeling of having everything stolen from his people, but also the destruction this system brings to white people. Silko writes:
…only a few people knew that the lie was destroying the white people faster than it was destroying Indian people. But the effects were hidden, evident only in the sterility of their art, which continued to feed off the vitality of other cultures, and in the dissolution of their consciousness into dead objects: the plastic and neon, the concrete and steel. (Silko 190)
In the film Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action, this white destruction was evident in the coal and oil drilling being pursued on Native land, particularly under the Bush administration and in the Midwest. The affected indigenous people mentioned this temptation of the colonial governments to “take, take, and take until there is nothing left”. Where does this temptation come from that ultimately, as Tayo mentions, leads to our destruction? Where does the desire to “take, take, and take” originate? Is it symptomatic of global capitalist structures? Or does it help create said systems? Or both?
The second ceremony is performed by Betonie and they start by telling a story of how whites were invented by Native American witches and then went on to destroy the world. I find this story important because it explains whites as simply a creation of Native American culture, despite the power they express over Native Americans, they were not created the same way. How does this story of Native American witches creating white people give Native Americans power over white people? Do you think in this story that white people created with the intent to do harm or was that something they became?
The film Homeland was made in 2005 and shows how local Native American Leaders from all over the United States have fought against multinational energy companies. A member of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana explained that the land was tied to culture and language. She further explains the spiritual connection she has with the land and that her family has had with the land for generations. They also explain that these coal and oil drillers will take and take and take their land. Do you think that many white people experience these same connections with the land? As colonizers we have relationships with the land but I don’t see them as always positive. There is a drive to take more and more land in capitalism and make more and more money. If everyone could adapt and or was taught about making strong spiritual connections with the land would there be less taking of indigenous land?
Ella Harris
Winifred Rhea-Unruh
On page 42 Tayo is thinking back to a time when Rocky was alive and when they were overlooking the canyon. Josiah is pointing his chin at the springs and around at the narrow canyon and says, “This is where we come from, see. This sand, this stone, these trees, the vines, all the wildflowers. This earth keeps us going … These dry years you hear people complaining, you know, about the dust and the wind, and how dry it is. But the wind and the dust, they are a part of life too, like the sun and the sky. You don’t swear at them. It’s people, see. They’re the ones. The old people used to say that droughts happen when people forget, when people misbehave.” It seems that Rocky’s character shows “people forgetting and misbehaving” in terms of culture. Rocky attended a boarding school in Albuquerque, “Tayo saw how Rocky deliberately avoided the old-time ways. Old Grandma shook her head at him, but he called it superstition, and he opened his textbooks to show her” (pg. 47). Rocky purposefully forgot his culture and his mother was supportive because she wanted Rocky to be a success and she felt as though breaking from tradition was the only way to be successful. However, this stripping away from culture is not Rocky’s fault, he attends a boarding school where his culture is not respected and he is told his people will hold him back. Similarly, in Homeland, peoples culture and way of life are stripped from them due to outside sources and contamination. Throughout all the cases shown in Homeland, native culture is not respected and is seen as lesser, which allows for contamination. which furthers the stripping of culture. As shown in Homeland, the contamination limits people’s ability to perform cultural acts. For example, in the Gwich’in Athabaskan tribe their traditions and culture are heavily aligned with the Porcupine Caribou. However, the planning to build an oil pipeline through the migration pattern posed a major threat to the tribe’s way of life. The contamination in these communities was purposeful as a way to strip natives from their ways of life, and Rocky’s character is an example of this.
My question is, Why is Auntie supportive of Rocky forgetting and ignoring his culture? Why does she think this is the only way for him to be successful? Why is Rocky seen as a golden boy when in reality he is untraditional, whereas Tayo is more traditional than Rocky but is seen as lesser because he is a “halfbreed?” How does the landscape of the Navajo reservation compare to the landscape that Rocky is describing?
Jason Schlachtun
After Tayo has cut a hole in the fence and is searching for you spotted cattle so he may lead them away, he is overcome with fear and fatigue. He lays down in the pine needles and damp earth until he spots a mountain lion moving through a clearing, their meeting is described as follows:
“The eyes caught twin reflections of the moon; the glittering yellow light penetrated his chest and he inhaled suddenly. Relentless motion was the Lion’s greatest beauty, moving like Mountain clouds with the wind, changing substance and color in rhythm with the contours of the mountain peaks: dark as lava rock, and suddenly as bright as a field of snow. When the mountain lion stopped in front of him, it was not hesitation, but a chance for the Moonlight to catch up with him.” p.183
Immediately afterward, Tayo refers to the mountain lion as the hunters helper, and follows the path the mountain lion took from the West, which eventually leads him to the herd of spotted cattle. What is the role of the mountain lion in this scene? Is this a display of Native American knowledge, retracing a predator’s tracks to find prey, or does the mountain lion have a greater symbolic meaning? Is the relentless motion of the mountain lion and it’s adaptation to the environment it moves through representative of an aspect of the Laguna people, or is it meant to extend to Native Americans at large?
Karissa Scott
On pages 122-128, Betonie the old medicine man, tells Tayo that “we can deal with white people, with their machines and their beliefs. We can because we invented white people, it was Indian witchery that made white people in the first place”. He then told Tayo a story about the witch people and their contest and how the white people came to be.
“Set in motion now
set in motion by our witchery
to work for us.
Caves across the ocean
in caves of dark hills
white skin people…
They see no life
When they look
they see only objects…
It’s already turned loose
It’s already coming
It can’t be called back.”
This creation story was very interesting and different from other Native American creation stories. What do you think is the significance of the white people coming from dark caves across the ocean, what is the meaning behind that? How could this be related to Tayo’s journey and experiences?
Emily Duhon
In Ceremony, Betonie claims that “it was Indian witchery that made white people in the first place” which suggests a shift in power dynamics in the creation stories. How does this origin story give Native Americans power over white people? How does this story imply that white people were created to do harm? How does this creation story relate to Tayo’s journey and experience throughout the novel? and how does this narrative connect with the struggles depicted in the film regarding land and environmental exploitation?
Shae Schmalzbauer
The themes of both Ceremony by Leslie Silko and the movie Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action explore the dynamics between white settler colonialism and native people. The exuberant and gross level of destruction that white activity, like the obsessive coal mining and oil drilling shown in the film, shows the differing relationship white people have with the land compared to native people. The Native American leaders from the film continuously battled the relentless energy companies that tore apart their land for profit. The land has cultural roots to the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana, and the power-hungry energy companies were stripping them of their ancestral right to their land with their activity. Another example of this can be seen in Ceremony. Tayo’s journey to find the cattle and bring them away from the Texans in the book highlights how settler colonialism is injected into white activity, and theft is a large theme in colonialism. There is an ancestral anger in Tayo and he realizes that white culture only feed(s) off the vitality of other cultures (Silko 190). The same theme follows in the film, it is always white people taking from other cultures to benefit themselves or gain power over others and their land. Since the culture of white people is stolen culture, what should these energy companies from the film, or even in the ranchers Tayo’s story, do to repay the debt of what they have stolen? If they restored their relationship with land, do you think it would help some of the relationships, communication, and understanding between land and different cultures of people?
Kendall Wilson
This novel explores growing themes of cultural displacement, exploitation, and the struggle for identity within indigenous communities. Additionally, the desire for ceremony by Tayo who is on a journey of evolutionary vulnerability in healing and connecting back to healing has created the notion of how powerful and sacred traditional medicinal practices, especially in Native cultures are in contrast to the consistent push of the whitewashed influence of the West/America. One poignant moment in the text is when old Betonie challenges the notion of tradition and the necessity for adaptation in Native ceremonies, stating, “things which don’t shift and grow are dead things… Otherwise, we won’t make it. We won’t survive.” How does the tension between tradition and adaptation in indigenous ceremonies, as depicted in Ceremony, reflect broader narratives of indigenous resilience and sustainability, particularly in the context of voices for sustainable development? In Homeland, indigenous communities are portrayed as actively engaging in sustainable development initiatives rooted in their cultural heritage. How do the narratives of indigenous activism and resilience in the film intersect with the themes of tradition and adaptation in Ceremony by Leslie Silko? How do both sources contribute to our understanding of indigenous voices for sustainable development, and what lessons can be gleaned from these narratives in addressing contemporary environmental and socio-economic challenges faced by indigenous communities?
Alissa Odom
“Then they grow away from the earth
then they grow away from the sun
then they grow away from the plants and animals.
They see no life
When they look
they see only objects.
The world is a dead thing to them
the trees and rivers are not alive
the mountains and stones are not alive.
The deer and bear are objects.
They see no life”
(page 125).
This poem is important because it helped make a connection between the perspective of white people through the lens of Betonie’s story and the perspective of Native American soldiers in the war. Similar to how the witch in the poem explains that these white people being created do not view the earth, animals, and other people as living, many soldiers in the war had to depersonalize and view the people they were killing as objects rather than humans. For example, towards the beginning of the book “Rocky pushed him toward the corpses and told him to look, look past the blood that was already dark like the jungle mud, with only flecks of bright red still shimmering in it. Rocky made him look at the corpse and said, ‘Tayo, this is a Jap! This is a Jap uniform!’ And then he rolled the body over with his boot…” (page 7). I believe this connection hints at the idea that the creation of white people through witchery led to things like destruction and war, which further led to Native American soldiers viewing people how white people do. Overall, Betonie and Tayo’s discussion of Native American Tradition allows Tayo to feel more included within his culture and gain a better understanding of his experiences in both his education and in the war. Furthermore, how does the poem and its view of the world as “dead” contribute to a larger theme in the book? What role does Betonie play in reshaping Tayo’s view of the world?
On page 116, Betonie says “The people nowadays have an idea about the ceremonies. They think the ceremonies must be performed exactly as they have always been done, maybe because one slip-up or mistake and the whole ceremony must be stopped and the sand painting destroyed. That much is true. They think that if a singer tampers with any part of the ritual, great harm can be done, great power unleashed…That much can be true also. But long ago when the people were given these ceremonies, the changing began, if only in the aging of the yellow gourd rattle or the shrinking of the skin around the eagle’s claw, if only in the different voices from generation to generation, singing the chants. You see, in many ways, the ceremonies have always been changing… At one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was then. But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies. I have made changes in the rituals. The people mistrust this greatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong.”
Is change a counter-intuitive necessity for the preservation of tradition? How does one find the proper balance between the two?
Shea Adair
Mary Quinn Fullwood
In the section where Harley and Tayo take a journey, at one point they drift into sleep and Tayo observes the burro. “Tayo watched the burro’s deliberate moves, but its stubbornness made it predictable, and every fifteen minutes Harley jerked the burro’s head sharply to the right, flicked its flanks with the horsehair quirt, and put them back on course again. So they traveled in wide arcs, moving gradually to the north. Tayo thought about animals then, horses and mules, and the way they drifted with the wind. Josiah said that humans had to endure anything, because only humans resisted what they saw outside themselves. Animals did not resist. But they persisted, because they became part of the wind. “Inside, Tayo, inside the belly of the wind.” In this passage I perceive that Tayo is feeling that he and the burro feel the same way. I think back to when Tayo was symbolizing himself as fog, now it seem there could be some likening between himself and the burro, as an animal who feels born to work and be guided around by the wind (outside forces/men). Do you think Tayo believes he wants to give in and let himself be a part of the wind like the animal?
In a story about a witch contest we read about one witch that had a story to tell. “Then they grow away from the earth then they grow away from the sun then they grow away from the plants and animals. They see no life When they look they see only objects. The world is a dead thing for them the trees and rivers are not alive the mountains and stones are not alive. The deer and bear are objects They see no life.
They fear They fear the world. They destroy what they fear. They fear themselves. The wind will blow them across the ocean thousands of them in giant boats swarming like larva out of a crushed ant hill.
They will carry objects which can shoot death faster than the eye can see. They will kill the things they fear all the animals the people will starve….”
This witch is telling the story of white peoples origin and lives. Witches are usually a sign of evil doing, but in this story the white people are the evil ones. Is there any significance of this story of evil coming from a witch?
Throughout Ceremony there is a theme of entanglement. On pg 69, the narrator is telling the story of Tayo’s being shunned by her community and by Auntie because of her actions drinking and going out regularly. The narrator writes about Aunties attempt to hold together the feelings that had become entangled with the family because of this judgement by the community. She struggles to reconcile the family with the people by gathering all the feelings and thoughts of the community “into a single prayer bundle” but the narrator writes, “but now the feelings were twisted, tangled roots, and all the names for the source of this growth were buried under English words, out of reach.” Earlier on page 35, Josiah explains the intricate web of all things that is fragile, where things easily become entangled. Here entanglement represents a good thing because of the intricacy involved in the web.
Reflecting on these notions of entanglement and Tayo’s own difficulty with his grief and sickness, what do you think entanglement represents for Tayo and his journey moving from inanimate to animate? Additionally, how has Tayo become tangled, or untangled, in the section (pgs 86-98) where he prays for rain and starts to regain some connection with the earth?
Is there a connection between entanglement and the difference between Laguna ceremonial medicine practices like the ones described on pages 122-128, and the white medicine practices that kept Tayo in a fog? Is the fog an example of entanglement or freedom?
Malcolm^
Ren Pommarane
Question 1
A quote that stood out to me as I read, took place during a conversation between the old man and Tayo. Tayo expresses his doubt for ceremonies against the violence of white creation. “They want us to believe all evil resides with white people. Then we will look no further to see what is really happening. They want us to separate ourselves from white people, to be ignorant and helpless as we watch our own destruction. But white people are only the tools that the witchery manipulates; and I tell you, we can deal with white people with their machines and their beliefs. We can because we invented white people; it was Indian witchery that made white people in the first place” pg 122. This is followed by what seems to be a creation story of white people and their evilness told by a witch. My question is how does this story of white creation correlate to the story and the trauma in which Tayo has endured? What message is Silko trying to send with this section of the text, and what role does race play in that message?
Question 2
Another point of connection that I wanted to examine was the concept of reaching the sky, and the ways in which Tayo views the moon and stars. Early on in the book we get insight into a trip that Rocky and Tayo took when they climbed Bone Mesa, and the reader is able to get an insight into Tayos thoughts about the Earth. “He believed then that touching the sky had to with where you were standing and how the clouds were that day. He had believed that on certain nights when the moon rose full and wide as a corner of the sky, a person standing on a high sandstone cliff of that mesa could reach the moon. Distances and days existed in themselves then; they all had a story. They were not barriers” pg 17. At the end of this Tayo contemplates the significance of stories and their relation to understanding the Earth. Throughout the book we see pivotal moments happen that shift Tayos understanding of life, but as I was reading I began to see the full circle of his trauma as well as his healing. As Tayo and Betonie prepare for the second ceremony they stop at a stone hogan set back from the rimrock. Tayo begins to reflect on the place he is. “He smoothed his hand over the top of his head and felt the sun. The mountain wind was cool; it smelled like springs hidden deep in mossy black stone. He could see no signs of what had been set loose upon the earth: the highways, the towns, even the fences were gone. This was the highest point on the earth: he could feel it. It had nothing to do with measurements or height. It was a special place. He was smiling. He felt strong” pg 129. Now looking at these two interactions between Tayo and the earth, what kind of relationship is Silko drawing here. When she says ‘He could see no signs of what had been set loose upon the earth’ what does this indicate, what exactly was loose? Is this in reference to the witchery poem or something else? I am genuinely curious to here what others think because to me the parallels between these two interactions seem to be significant for Tayos healing.
In “Ceremony,” relationships and conflicts are focused on a lot, this can especially be seen through Auntie’s struggle with what others think. When Auntie tries to fix family problems caused by community judgment she gathers the community’s emotions into a prayer bundle, it shows how everyone’s emotions are tangled up together. The film being able to show a visual side, I think makes it easier to grasp the magnitude of this internal battle. It is easier to understand the main character’s inner battles while dealing with outside pressures.
Both the book and the movie talk about how traditions change over time, like Betonie’s thoughts on ceremonies. We can witness the protagonist’s endeavor to navigate the complexities of tradition and modernity. Through compelling character arcs and evocative visuals, the film adaptation delves into the tension between preserving cultural heritage and embracing change.
What role does nature play in “Ceremony,” and how is it depicted visually in the film?
How does the theme of cultural identity manifest in “Ceremony,” and how is it portrayed differently in the film adaptation?
Grady Vardeman
Sophie Griengl-Schott
While reading “Ceremony”, I was interested to read about Auntie and Tayo’s relationship and their deeper connection, especially when Tayo was trying to understand why his own mother left him. They had a special bond, something deeper than with the others in their family, Tayo was able to understand how she was feeling with just one look at her.
“Only Tayo could hear it, like fingernails scratching against bare rock, her terror at being trapped in one of the oldest ways. An old sensitivity had descended in her, surviving thousands of years from the oldest times when people shared a single clan name and they told each other who they were…” (62).
“When Little Sister had started drinking wine and riding in cars with white men and Mexicans, the people could not define their feeling about her. The Catholic priest shook his finger at the drunkenness and lust, but the people felt something deeper: they were losing her, they were losing part of themselves. The older sister had to act; she had to act for the people, to get this young girl back” (63).
I wonder if Auntie sees some of herself in Tayo, and maybe Tayo sees himself in her too? Both Rocky and Tayo’s mother were more interested in things outside of their family and traditions and were looking to find ways to uplift themselves in a western style of society. Potentially she’s coming to terms with the fact that she’s the one that has to stay behind, while others leave. Does Auntie crave the missing parts of her sister in Tayo, and similarly does Tayo crave his mother? Auntie seems to understand that it’s important for Tayo to stay close to home too, but is okay with Rocky engaging in other activities that push him further away. Is that because of her special connection with Tayo or does she feel the need to protect him more because of the history with his mother/her sister?
Alex Smith
During the second ceremony performed by Betonie, Tayo starts to heal from his past. During the last part of the ceremony it’s almost like he’s being born again. One of my personal fair parts about the ceremony is how it seems like Tayo is walking away from his trauma both in the ceremony when he is walking in the bear tracks and with the wording that is used. My question is what else could this ceremony tell us about Tayo and would this ceremony help the other charters who fought in the war.
Pg 133-134
At the dark mountain born from the mountain walked along the mountain I will bring you through my hoop, I will bring you back.
Following my footprints walk home following my footprints come home happily return belonging to your home return to long life and happiness again return to long and happiness
At the Dark mountain born from the mountain moves his hand along the mountain I have left the zigzag lighting behind I have left the straight lighting behind
I have the dew a sunray falls from me I was born from the mountain I leave a path of wildflowers a raindrop falls from me I’m walking home Im walking back to belonging I’m walking home to happiness I’m walking back to long life
When he passed through the last hoop it wasn’t finished. They spun him around sunwise and he recovered. He stood up. The rainbows returned him to his home, but it wasn’t over. All kinds of evil were still on him.
In the movie Homeland, we got to see several different fights for environmental justice in the face of environmental racism perpetrauted against Native peoples around the United States. It raised several questions about the future of sustainability and green movements. It highlighted the need for better intersectionality in environmentalism and the importance of including local and minority voices in all decisions.
“In a consuming culture, which consumes a third of the world’s resources, it requires a constant intervention into other people’s terrories and constant violations of other people’s human rights. That is the reality if you consume more than you need and more than you can produce in any semblance of a relationship that is not only equitable but sustainable.”
Here, we are confronted with the fact that Western culture, particularly USAmerican culture is highly consumption based. This overcumption comes at the expense of someone’s life and land, all for the benefit of people who will never see the harm that it wrecks on the environment and its people.
Elsewhere in the movie, we learn of a village suffering from the effects of uranium mining, a key ingredient in nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is considered greener than coal or oil, and therefore is one of the options for future sustainability. But obviously, here we learn how it harms Indigeous communities for others’ benefits and to make up for Earth’s destruction they did not cause. Therefore, I wonder:
How can we pursue nuclear energy without disenfranchising already vulnerable communities? Can we? What are alternatives if not?
“At one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was then. But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies. I have made changes in the rituals. The People mistrust this greatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong. (pg 116)”
This quote explains that the arrival of white settlers brought on destructive elemental changes like cultural disruption and the degradation of their Native American heritage and their lands. Further, the quote describes that “it became necessary to create new ceremonies.” This quote, to my understanding, acknowledges that the ceremonies performed in the past were suited for a world before colonization. Then the ceremonies became insufficient for addressing new challenges faced by indigenous communities in a colonial world. Therefore, this quote asserts that it is necessary to modify and create new ceremonies to address the shifting realities of the world and, ultimately, adapt to the cultural changes brought on by the settlers without losing their indigenous heritage in the process.
What are the “elements that shifted,” and how do you think they affect and impact indigenous ceremonies and rituals? Also, how does this reflect broader themes of cultural preservation and resistance to colonialism within the story presented in Ceremony?
-Margaux LePine
Kobe: Ceremony
“Don’t confuse those who go to the bears with the witch people.
Human beings who live with the bears do not wear bear skins. They
are naked and not conscious of being different from their bear
relatives. Witches crawl into skins of dead animals, but they can do
nothing but play around with objects and bodies. Living animals are
terrified of witches. They smell the death. That’s why witches can’t
get close to them. That’s why people keep dogs around their hogans.
Dogs howl with fear when witch animals come around.” (pg 98)
Bears represent a kind of awakening, supported by immense amounts of strength. While they can be deadly, they are revered as intelligent and lively creatures. The bear men are no different from the bears themselves and therefore hold the same power and weight. The witches are a foil to that, making clear the qualities that make a witch a witch as they wreak death. As the bears enjoy and respect their surroundings the witch only seeks to manipulate others. A lot of indigenous modes of thinking base themselves on identifying traits of culture and survival towards other biotic and abiotic factors. Witchery is an identifying feature of the white man. The story told from page 100 to 102, is an explanation of how this witchery came to be. Once it is summoned- it cannot be rescinded and the great trail that is colonization began altering everything.
Everything in the world is dead and an object.
Everything is feared.
Each other. The World.
Everything that is feared is killed.
The world dead.
They are dead.
If you ask the average person today what witchery is they’ll tell you it is magic and done is secret. Maybe they’ll even say indigenous peoples have witchery-style practices. When you think of witchery, what do you visualize? And why do we not consider a great many of our practices today witchery? We see everything as dead, objects. Everything is to be manipulated and formulaic. Do you consider the life we live full of witchery?
Homeland:
In the Navajo tribe, there are a large number of people who have uranium poisoning and issues about NRC mining operations leaving chemicals that have been shot into the ground. To pacify how horrific these issues are there are measures taken by the companies to ease to sound of how dangerous these practices are. One man says that bicarbonate water aka club soda, something so harmless and unthreatening allows for seepage of itself and other harmful chemicals into streams and drinking sources. Using such phrasing makes it appear that the practices for fossil fuel extraction are safer than they are. The average person may not know how corrosive it is by itself and that it will help move other harmful compounds. How do you combat such pacification of clearly harmful practices?
Sam Platt
The Homeland film and the book Ceremony both seem to surround indigenous people. In the Homeland film, the indigenous tribes face many challenges against the industrial colonized world they try to separate themselves from. Many different tribes around the United States are being faced with issues occurring on their lands or adjacent to them that happen to come along with health concerns. Issues such as the effects from methane gas wells, oil drills/wells, uranium mining sites, and paper plants. All of these issues tend to affect the water quality in these areas, making most of the current drinking water non potable and contaminated to a point where human health is of concern. The indigenous people survive off of the natural water source near them and the issues being faced could nearly end the communities in total. With the indigenous peoples being where the concentration of problems occur, while thinking about environmental injustice, why is the indigenous people’s “backyard” the point of interest? They fight back against issues in their area and will even travel to help fellow tribes that are in situations, but the big industry companies often pay their way through, what could be implemented for better results in the indigenous peoples favor?
In the reading of Ceremony where the discussion of how people are separated, there is a quote that looks towards making all people, no matter what characteristics one may have, come together and be seen as one altogether. The quote also refers to how it used to be and now it needs to become that once again. It states that “the old instinct had always been to gather the feelings and opinions that were scattered through the village, to gather them like willow twigs and tie them into a single prayer bundle that would bring peace to all of them. But now the feelings were twisted, tangled roots, and all the names for the source of this growth were buried under English words, out of reach. And there would be no peace and the people would have no rest until the entanglement had been unwound to the source.” In Ceremony it is described that having people create a community within their area, that does not leave anybody out from the count, allows the opportunity for all the individuals to become seen as one together. The people having equal human rights establishes that no person shall be left unaccounted for, and in today’s world this is a dream of a better future shown in Ceremony through Tayo’s character. How can we move towards an inclusive future? Would the actions need to be just local, or would it need more actions from the government?
Considering both the film Homeland and the book Ceremony, there is a hope and faith that issues will not arise and end up hurting the people. Is faith and hope from the people important to keep the people’s land in Homeland and to unite the people as one in Ceremony?
One of the things that struck me most about our readings from this week was Betonie’s thoughts about ceremonies and necessary change. In the earlier pages of the book, one of Tayo’s greatest struggles regarding the ceremony with old man Ku’oosh is that Tayo doesn’t feel that Ku’oosh can help him because Ku’oosh cannot comprehend the severity of the violence that Tayo has experienced in the war. On p. 33 it is stated, “But the old man would not have believed white warfare,–killing across great distances without knowing who or how many had died.” I think Tayo feels stuck between two identities, his cultural identity and his trauma, and though he understands that reconnecting with his culture may help him in some ways, he is hesitant to accept that he will ever heal because of this new kind of violence he has witnessed, and the medicine man’s unawareness of such violence. Alternatively, Betonie approaches ceremony as a living, growing thing that evolves and changes with the world. On p. 116 Betonie says to Tayo, “At one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was then. But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies… The people mistrust this greatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong.” Betonie’s emphasis that growth is necessary for survival perfectly illustrates the climate crisis that we are all facing today. Adapting to changes and assessing our places in the world allows us to more clearly analyze what our struggles are and what we can do about them. For me this part of the text really resonates with me regarding climate anxiety, something I am sure many of us have felt. Change can be extremely scary, especially when it encompasses your entire future, however it is necessary to continue on with our lives. Time doesn’t stop, it’s up to us to decide how the future plays out. As depicted in the film Homeland, indigenous groups have been unjustly subjected to the changes and effects of climate change and colonization, but yet these communities continue to share their stories with younger generations and keep their ceremonies and traditions alive. “Things which don’t shift and grow are dead things. They are things the witchery people want. Witchery works to scare people, to make them fear growth. But it has always been necessary, and more now than ever” (p. 116). How can we apply the idea of changing ceremonies for the purpose of adapting to our circumstances to issues like the climate crisis? How can we reframe our view of climate change to see this crisis as an opportunity to adjust our lifestyles and focus our emotions rather than viewing climate change as a wall of impending doom? Furthermore, how can we use the concept of ceremony to reconnect with the earth in today’s society as Tayo does throughout the book and how could this reconnection contribute to climate action?
Carlye Durham
Anne Elise Russell
For this week’s questions, I want to weave together the varying ideas of ceremonies from Ceremony and Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action. So far in Ceremony, there have been three primary ceremonies mentioned: the Scalp Ceremony, Rain Ceremony, and Gallup Ceremonial. Each of these ceremonies has a specific, complex context that explores the themes of colonialism, racism, and land relations that the novel is saturated with.
Beginning with the Scalp Ceremony, we are initially informed that this ceremony functions as a way for warriors and soldiers “who killed or touched dead enemies” to process these traumatic events (34). However, later, we learn that the Scalp Ceremony also “satisfied the female giant who fed on the dreams of warriors” (156). With this new understanding, we can see how the United States (“the female giant”) exploits its soldiers, especially Black and Brown soldiers, and forces them into “defending the land they had already lost” (157).
This exploitation is carried over into the Gallup Ceremonial, in which the white people of Gallup, NM ‘celebrate’ Indigenous culture through appropriation (107). Although I don’t think I’d consider this an actual ceremony, it does provide an interesting contrast to the other ceremonies in the book. Whereas the other ceremonies are by and for Indigenous folks and mark a significant event or process, the Gallup Ceremonial is purely aesthetic and serves as a way for white people to fetishize and romanticize Indigenous people while ignoring their lived realities. I thought Silko’s choice to put the description of the Ceremonial right after her explanation of the terrible living conditions of Tayo’s childhood provided a strong juxtaposition. Through this comparison, we see how colonialism continues to reward white people at the expense of Indigenous people.
The final ceremony that I want to discuss is the Rain Ceremony. Tayo performs this ceremony before he heads off to war as a way to try to overcome the drought (86-88). While Tayo is in the canyon, he notes that “as long as the hummingbird had not abandoned the land, somewhere there were still flowers, and they could all go on” (88). This reminded me of Gwich’in people’s relationship with the caribou from Homeland. After the federal government’s attempts to establish drilling rights in the Alaskan Arctic, the Gwich’in people held a ceremony to figure out what to do to combat the legislation. As one speaker said, “when we’re making an important decision, we hold prayer. We have ceremony. And then we decide” (34:34). With these two examples, we can see how the effects of colonialism impact keystone and culturally important species and, therefore, impact the livelihoods of Indigenous communities.
My question this week is what do you think Silko’s purpose was in comparing all of these different ceremonies? How does she use ceremony to explore the balance between resistance and acquiescence in regard to colonialism?
Caitlin Langley
In Ceremony and the film Homeland, there are many common themes. The most prevalent one being the exploitation of the native people and the reservation land for Western progress. In Ceremony, Tayo is constantly fighting with his own wounds from the “white man’s war” and he’s fighting the damage they have done, and continue to do to his reservation land. Fencing it in, using it as their own and also making them struggle daily just to keep what is already theirs. In the film Homeland the same themes are present. There are reservations and tribes that stretch from Montana to Alaska and they all tell a similar story. Their struggle is with the energy companies and the oil industry. Moving in and destroying land that is not theirs to advance an agenda that benefits them only. They are ruining the land, displacing families and repeatedly committing hate crimes against the people of the reservation. The irony that I found in Homeland was that the people of the reservation had to leave their homes, leave behind their tradition temporarily and learn the “white man’s” way of doing things simply to keep what is already owned. To make advances to the only piece of land that they still have after all else was taken from them. My question is will it be possible for the native people to continue their fight for their homeland while still being able to preserve their tradition and protect their goals?
Ceremony: Kadin
“When he turned away from the sun to mount the mare, he saw the spotted cattle, grazing in dry lake flat below the ridge. They were facing southeast, grazing in a herd. They had smelled the horse and the rider and were looking up at the ridge; his motion sent them running, with grass still hanging from wet lips. They ran as Robert said they did, wilder than antelope, smarter than elk about human beings. Their memory of people endured long after all other traces of domestication were gone; and he was counting on another instinct: the dim memory of direction which lured them always south, to the Mexican desert where they were born.” Page 182-183
Tayo does not fear the sporadic nature of the herd despite acknowledging it and compares them to antelope. he recognizes how smart they are as they quickly recognize his presence. Tayo does not get angered when the herd runs but rather hopes that they will continue to follow their instincts and move south. This lack of emotion makes Tayo stronger because he is able to keep a level head while dealing with the chaos of nature and specifically the tracking of loose cattle. At this moment Tayo is not concerned with his heritage or his often misbehaving stomach as he is dead focused on his long journey with the goal of steering the cattle home.
“From the corner of his eye, he saw them, at first mistaking them for a strand of his own hair caught by the wind. But when he turned there were two riders approaching from the north. He whipped the mare into a dead run, crouching low over her neck, trying to guide her over the rocky, uneven terrain, down the steep slope of the ridge. They were about a mile away when he first saw them, so he would try to find a deep grove of pine where he could stay until they passed. He strained to see if the cattle were still in sight, wondering if the riders had seen them. The bill of sale in his pocket would mean very little to armed patrolmen chasing a tresspasser. He pressed his heels into the mare’s sides to make her run faster, but the lava rock was already scattering from under her feet, and she was fighting to keep her balance. He looked over to see if they were on the hilltop behind him yet; they weren’t, so he reined the mare in, to save some of her strength. He wiped the tears that the wind whipped in his eyes onto the sleave of his jacket and tried to focus on the ridges and flats ahead, searching for lava-rock knob and the lightning-struck pine that marked the hole in the fence.” Page 184
Unlike the sporadic cattle, Tayo fears the seemingly calm patrolmen. Knowing that the land he is on is owned by Texans he does not hesitate to hide from them and put forth great effort to try and avoid being spotted. Tayo never mentions his fear of being caught but he acknowledges that his bill of sale would be useless and his actions of running away to hide make me feel that he does not trust these men despite having a valid reason and proof of his reason for trespassing.
Should Tayo have been as scared as he was?
Could Tayo have asked for help?
Why is he comfortable with the chaos of cattle but afraid of confrontation with these men?
Elizabeth Cassam
In Leslie Silko’s Ceremony, the encounter between Tayo and the mountain lion symbolizes the blending of practical knowledge and spiritual guidance in Native American culture. The mountain lion’s role as a guide reflects the deep connection between humans and nature, highlighting the Laguna people’s resilience and adaptability. This theme of tradition and adaptation is further explored in the tension between maintaining traditional ceremonies and adapting them to modern challenges. Similarly, the film Homeland portrays indigenous communities engaging in sustainable development initiatives rooted in their cultural heritage, emphasizing the importance of including indigenous voices in environmental discussions.
How do Ceremony and Homeland challenge mainstream narratives of sustainability and environmentalism by highlighting the importance of indigenous knowledge and practices in addressing environmental challenges? How can these narratives inform more inclusive and intersectional approaches to sustainable development that prioritize the voices and needs of indigenous communities?
“He dreamed about the speckled cattle. They had seen him and they were scattering between juniper trees, through tall yellow grass, below the mesas near the dripping spring. Some of them had spotted calves that ran behind them, their bony rumps flashing white and disappearing into the trees. He tried to run after them, but it was no use without a horse. They were gone, running southwest again, toward the high, lone-standing mesa the people called Pa’to’ch” (134).
The imagery of the speckled cattle roaming freely amidst the juniper trees, tall yellow grass, and mesas could possibly correlate to a deep sense of connection to the land and the indigenous culture it represents. Tayos dream captures the essence of his identity and heritage, as well as his longing to reclaim a lost connection to his people and their traditional way of life. I believe the speckled cattle could symbolize not only the resilience and beauty of nature but also serve as a reminder of the protagonist’s cultural roots. As they scatter and disappear into the landscape, they represent the elusive nature of memory and tradition, slipping away from the protagonist’s grasp like the passage of time itself. Silko also mentions of the spotted calves running behind their mothers suggests the cyclical nature of life and the importance of preserving cultural heritage for future generations. The protagonist’s futile attempt to chase after the cattle without a horse underscores the challenges he faces in reconnecting with his culture and reclaiming his sense of belonging.
How does this passage illustrate the intersection of culture, memory, and the natural world in the novel?
Abby Henderson
“He wanted to yell at the medicine man, to yell the
things the white doctors had yelled at him—that he had to think only
of himself, and not about the others, that he would never get well as
long as he used words like “we” and “us.” But he had known the
answer all along, even while the white doctors were telling him he
could get well and he was trying to believe them: medicine didn’t
work that way, because the world didn’t work that way. His sickness
was only part of something larger, and his cure would be found only
in something great and inclusive of everything”
This interaction between Tayo and Betonie seemed really important to me because of the way Tayo begins to realize the differences in teachings between white culture and native culture what he needs from these cultures to heal himself. Mostly taking into account his mixed background it seemed like there’s a lot of instances throughout the book where Tayo is either grappling with his native side or his white side and mostly ending frustrated.
When Tayo references his cure to be “inclusive of everything” could this holistic approach to health be comparable to recent movements in society towards mental health.
Is western medicine something that can be practiced in collaboration with holistic, native, or any other non-western forms of medicines.
Carlos Carmona
Many aspects of Homeland showed some very real instances of white cultural establishments putting down and harming indigenous populations. Some of the ones I remember include the uranium mining corporations polluting Navajo reservations or the arctic wildlife refuge in jeopardy due to oil drilling threatening the local ecosystem and peoples way of life. These institutions that reap the rewards of native abuse have been in place for a long time and are still very present today.
^^Carlos Carmona
Nicole Travers
Question 1
In Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, it initially seems as if the main antagonists in the book are the white people. They are the most obvious choice as they are the ones who have stolen the land from the natives and with it, their culture and traditions. Yet, throughout the book, there are mentions of other forces at hand. For instance, it is explained on page 177 that “The liars had fooled everyone, white people and Indians alike… [the white people] would never be able to understand how they had been used by the witchery… The destroyers had only to set it into motion and sit back to count the casualties (Silko 177). Then, on page 189 it is said that “The destroyers had tricked the white people as completely as they had fooled the Indians” (Silko 189). Finally, it is explained on page 231 that “The witchery would work so that the people would be fooled into blaming only the whites and not the witchery” (Silko 231). While these are the most memorable quotes, they are by no means the only mention of the destroyers and the witchery. My question is, who are these destroyers and who is the witchery? What are these forces, above both the natives and the white people, that are supposedly causing the conflicts? Are they meant to represent something in the real world? Lastly, what is the significance of taking away the blame from the white people and placing it on these mysterious forces instead?
Question 2
The question of stolen land is spoken about often in Ceremony. For instance, the narrator explains how the white ranchers, loggers, and hunters came in and began to not only destroy the land, but also to hunt the animals. It is said that “It was then the Laguna people understood that the land had been taken because they couldn’t stop these white people from coming to destroy the animals and the land” (Silko 172). Despite the obvious fact that the land was stolen from the natives by the white people, the white people still display clear entitlement. When Tayo was trying to get his cattle back he ran into white cowboys patrolling the fenceline. Though the cowboys took Tayo captive for a while, they eventually let him go so that they could go and try to hunt a mountain lion. Before they go, one of the cowboys says “These goddamn Indians got to learn whose property this is” (Silko 188). This is extremely ironic, as it was the natives’ land first, not the white people’s. My question is, are the men so disillusioned that they actually think it is their land? Do they not recognize the irony in this? Or are they choosing to rewrite the story, knowing fully that it is not truly their land?
Faye Guarino
Homeland [00:39:29.33]: “For thousands of years, our land had no borders. Now, we have to cross an imaginary line into what is called Canada.”
Ceremony p. 174: “The Texans who bought the land posted signs in English and Spanish to keep trespassers out. But the people from the land grants and the people from Laguna and Acoma ignored the signs and hunted deer; occasionally, the Mexicans took a cow. So later on, the ranchers hired men to patrol on horseback, carrying .30-30s in saddle scabbards.”
“He rode miles across dry lake flats and rocky cerros until he came to a high fence of heavy-gauge steel mesh with three strands of barbed wire across the top. It was a fence that could hold the spotted cattle. The white man, Floyd Lee, called it a wolf-proof fence; but he had poisoned and shot all the wolves in the hills, and the people knew what the fence was for: a thousand dollars a mile to keep the Indians and Mexicans out; a thousand dollars a mile to lock the mountain in steel wire, to make the land his.”
p. 175: “Next to a rope the most important tool a rider could carry was a pair of fencing pliers… Josiah taught him to watch for loose strands of wire and breaks in the fence… he helped Tayo stitch a leather holster for the pliers one evening after supper, and he reminded him that you never knew when you might be traveling someplace and a fence might get in your way. Josiah had nodded toward Mount Taylor when he said it.”
These passages demonstrate the difference between owning land and belonging to land. The white colonizers create boundaries with fences, set up patrols, and use violence to make the land “theirs.” But the land does not really belong to them because they do not belong to the land. They do not care for it; in fact, they do the complete opposite, wiping out native animal species, exploiting and degrading natural resources, and using the land only for commercial gain. The colonizers’ boundaries mean little to people who have lived on the land for millennia, who really care for it and understand it, and therefore truly belong to it. All the fences and armed guards in the world cannot take that belonging away.
This dispossession of land and degradation of land and culture reminds me of what is happening in Palestine. For example, in the process of making way for settlements, the Israeli government has uprooted and burned over 800,000 olive trees since 1967 (source). Olive trees are native to the region and are an important cultural symbol and source of agricultural income for Palestinians. Their destruction has had environmental ramifications such as soil degradation and the removal of a vital carbon sink. The destruction of olive trees is representative of land dispossession and destruction of culture (and I would be remiss not to mention the literal genocide happening, with over 33,000 Palestinians murdered as of the latest death count source), and I see a parallel here to the dispossession of Native land and genocide of Native people that has happened in this country. Do you see a parallel between what has happened/is happening to Indigenous people in the Americas and what has happened/is happening to Palestinians? Why or why not?
Heather Fraser
“‘The people nowadays have an idea about the ceremonies. They think the ceremonies must be performed exactly as they have always been done, maybe because one slip-up or mistake and the whole ceremony must be stopped and the sand painting destroyed. That much is true. They think that if a singer tampers with any part of the ritual, great harm can be done, great power unleashed’ He was quiet for a while, looking up at the sky through the smoke hole. ‘That much can be true also. But long ago when the people were given these ceremonies, the changing began, if only in the aging of the yellow gourd rattle or the shrinking of the skin around the eagle’s claw, if only in the different voices from generation to generation, singing the chants. You see, in many ways, the ceremonies have always been changing.’
Tayo nodded; he looked at the medicine pouches hanging from the ceiling and tried to imagine the objects they contained.
‘At one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was then. But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies. I ahve made changes in the rituals. The people mistrust this greatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong.
She taught me this above all else: things which don’t shift and grow are dead things. They are things the witchery people want. Witchery works to scare people, to make them fear growth. But it has always been necessary, and more than ever now, it is. Otherwise we wont make it.'” (p 126)
In this passage, Silko is using Bentonie to highlight the ways in which change can be helpful, and that staying stuck in your ways can be harmful to growth. How can this symbolism of change and growth vs tradition and rigidity be seen throughout the novel? Does it have a deeper meaning?
Heather Fraser
Question 2
“There were three calves born when they corralled them, and two of the cows looked as if they would calve within a few days. The little calves reminded tayo of new shoes, bright white with light brown speckles, silky and untouched by mud and sand. It was difficult to see how these calves would grow according to Josiah’s theories. They were the same color as their mothers’ and they had the same wild eyes. But Robert had to admit that the cales were stocky through the shoulder and hip, showing at least some trace of the fine registered Hereford bull that Ulibrarri had insisted and sworn was their sire. They still ran like antelope in the big corral, bawling to escape the men with ropes. But Josiah said they would grow u heavy and covered with meat like the Herefords, but toug too, like the Mexican cows, able to withstand hard winters and many dry years. That was his plan.” p. 80
Josiah’s hope for the cattle was that their mixed breed of hardy and wild Mexican cattle mixed with the prized Hereford cattle would bring about the necessary change to make a strong breed of cattle that could withstand the harsh climate of New Mexico. Here we see the theme of change and also the theme of mixed breeds, as with Bentonie and his half Mexican heritage.
Do you think the cattle and Josiah’s plan for the cattle represent this hardiness and willingness to change and adapt that Bentonie says is necessary later in the book?
Colby Kitts
I noticed many similarities of finding difficulty in navigating their cultural identity and their relationship to their land. On p. 33 of Ceremony, the quote says “Human beings were no different. But the old man would not have believed white warfare,–killing across great distances without knowing who or how many had died.” this quote relates to Homeland in the way that white warfare closely relates to the “white mans way of war” or modern warfare–killing from a distance.
question: how are indigenous communities in Homeland such as the Gwich’in Indians made to suffer from “white warfare”?
I have been fascinated with the way that language shapes human relationships and changes how something is perceived. Part of the colonization efforts by white people was renaming culturally significant aspects of Indigenous peoples lives. It is just another act of violence done by white colonizers in stealing something that does not belong to them. In Homeland, members of Indigenous groups share their spiritual connection with the land and how it has created life for generations but has been stolen and destroyed by white people. In Ceremony, we are often reminded of this in relation to Tayo and the Laguna people.
“But the fifth world had become entangled with European names; the names of the rivers, the hills the names of the animals and plants — all of creation suddenly had two names: an Indian name and a white name.” 62
“And there would be no peace and the people would have no rest until the entanglement had been unwound at the source” 64
In the scenes where Tayo is trying to find the cattle, he reflects on his hesitation to say his cattle were stolen by a white man. The cattle seemed to be in the white mans possession, protected by fences and borders, and for a brief moment, he perceived the cattle to possibly be rightfully the white mans. The renaming of indigenous names is directly connected to the taking of their lands and feeds into the dominant culture and way of relating to the world.
“The mountain had been named for the swirling views of clouds, the membranes of foggy mist clinging to the peaks, then leaving them covered with snow… The white ranchers called this place North Top, but he remembered it by the story Josiah had told him…” 171-72
The power that simply renaming things has to contribute to the erasure of different worlds is like that of directly taking land and kicking natives out. It produces more lies, more violence, more injustice and genocidal behavior.
How does this scene between Tayo, the cattle, and the white cowboys speak to the everyday genocidal tendencies of white settler colonialism in North America? Not only that, but how it also effects the human-nature relationship in the dominant culture?
-Samia Pegram
Joe Davis Weekly Question
The realization and events that Tayo experiences at the uranium mine are a climactic section of the book that unlocks many realizations and completes the ceremony. This passage in particular stands out in reference to the development of the atomic bomb and the connectedness of all people:
“From that time on, human beings were one clan again, united by the fate the destroyers planned for all of them, for all living things; united by a circle of death that devoured people in cities twelve thousand miles away, victims who has never known these mesas, who had never seen the delicate colors of the rocks which boiled up their slaughter.” (Silk 228)
I believe this passage has great weight that can be applied to today’s context. We often think of things that will destroy all of us (humanity) such as severe climate change and other anthropogenic causes similar to a nuclear fallout.
How does Silko’s ceremony show us the power of story telling to combat this form of violence and unite humanity?
This story telling also reminds me a lot of Rob Nixon’s ideas of dealing with “slow violence” and how to make people aware that there is a fate planned by the destroyers and that we are all in this together.
How can the idea of the atomic bomb and humanity united be applied to a fate that faces humanity today? Whether that be slow violence or anything else?
He found two quarters and tossed them into the man’s outstretched hands, swaying above his head, and both the man and the woman dropped to their knees in the sand to find them. Robert walked away, but Tayo stood there, remembering the little bridge in a park in San Diego where all the soldiers took their dates the night before they shipped out to the South Pacific and stood throwing coinsinto the shallow pond.
Abi G!
Question 2:
He repeated the words as he remembered them, not sure if they were the right ones, but feeling they were right, feeling the instant of the dawn was an event which in a single moment gathered all things together—the last stars, the mountaintops, the clouds, and the winds —celebrating this coming. The power of each day spilled over the hills in great silence. Sunrise. He ended the prayer with “sunrise” because he knew the Dawn people began and ended all their words with “sunrise.” . . . Maybe the dawn woke the instinct in the dim memory of the blood when horses had been as wild as the deer and at sunrise went into the trees and thickets to hide
“He pointed his chin at the springs and around at the narrow canyon. ‘This is where we come from, see. This sand, this stone, these trees, the vines all the wildflowers. This earth keeps us going. (47)” Part of indigenous culture involves a deeper more profound relation to the land and where they come form. They often think of themselves as in relation to the land, and that has implications for how they treat it and certain practices of conservation and protection. Land practices and relations are culturally embedded. How could this profound relationship to the land and sense of identity that is rooted in land be used in pursuit of sustainable development. What sort of paradigm changes could we use, with indigenous communities as a model, to result in more sustainable practices?
Sam Cullen^^