The novel, “Ceremony,” by Leslie Marmon Silko tells the story of Tayo, an army veteran of mixed ancestry. Tayo returns to the reservation after the war and is a crippled man. However, he rediscoveres himself and finds inner peace through his Native American heritage and stories. The narration of the novel flips through time and events in both a chaotic and ceremonial way to depict Tayo’s story. Today in class, we spoke about the poem at the beginning of the novel titled “Ceremony.” While I understand why people would think the “he” being referenced could be a community elder, I am still stuck on the idea that the “he” is Tayo’s future self. As Tayo was healed through stories, he is telling his fellow Native American Indian army veterans and readers of how they can be healed as well. Furthermore, on page 14, Tayo continuously characterized himself as invisible. As said in class, this is a result of colonisation and how Native Americans were made to be invisible and inferior. However, through stories and the recognition of his heritage, Tayo is no longer invisible. On another note, I am having trouble deciphering who the hummingbird, the fly, and the buzzard represent. Also, who could their mother be? Are the hummingbird, the fly, and the buzzard symbolic representations of natural elements? Is their mother the overpowering force bringing them together and controlling them? Mother Nature?
Silko gives many different examples of how indigenous communities have been displaced in this neo-colonialist experience. One of them that stood out occurred on page 63 as Silko discusses how Little Sister was engulfed in the white society around her. She began dressing and acting like the white kids in school. Over time she became shameful of this and her older sister felt responsible for bringing her back to her native culture. This occurrence is a prime example of what colonialism has done to many societies. White-washing native peoples to assimilate into the white culture is a huge aspect of colonialism. The second instance is on page 106, Silko discusses an encounter that Tayo had with some homeless Navajo people on the street. These indigenous groups were laid off from jobs as white people infiltrated the reservations. This is another example of how colonialism has disproportionately affected indigenous communities. They have been thrown into low-paying jobs as they were thrown out of the ones taken by white people. The questions I have concerning these excerpts are: In order to de-colonize, would it be safe to assume that shame plays a huge part in that process? Especially as an indigenous individual who felt so far astray? Other than the lack of education amongst the indigenous communities in this area, what else would allow these white people to invade their last remaining reservation jobs?
I have been thinking a lot about the differences between Tayo and his brother Rocky. Their differences are espically promenant in Rocky’s embracure of white American culture. “Rocky was funny about those things. He was an A-student and all-state in football and track… Rocky understood what he had to do to win in the white outside world… Tayo saw how Rocky deliberatly avoided the old time ways” (47). When the reader is aware of Rocky’s death due to his enlisting in the military, his desire to conform to white culture is espically haunting. This seems to be a statement from Silko on the abandinment of “old time ways” leading to death/destruction. Rocky’s coaches and teachers tell him not to let “the people at home hold you back” (47). In the end embracing this led to his death. While it is clear Sliko is making a statment by this, I am wondering in the case of Rocky if you can separate individual desires and aspirations from colonial pressure to assimilate to white American culture?
On page 93 and 94 of Ceremony the importance of flies is explained, “… [a] long time ago, way back in the time immemorial, the mother of the people got angry at them for the way they were behaving. For all she cared, they could go to hell–starve to death. The animals disappeared, the plants disappeared, and no rain came for a long time. it was the greenbottle fly who went to her, asking forgiveness for the people. Since that time the people have been grateful for what the fly did for us”. What do you think Silko purposefully made the creator a female, and more importantly called her “mother”? Do you think there is any significance that the previous scene is the store owner killing flies?
Leslie Marmon Silko’s “Ceremony” centers around the experiences of Tayo, a half Laguna Pueblo solider in World War II, and his return from the war, involving many aspects of Laguna Pueblo culture in the story. Silko opens the novel with three poems, the first of which describes the creation of the world as “Thought-Woman, the spider,/ named things and/ as she named them/ they appeared” (1). When discussing the colonization of the American West and the growing influence of white people on the Laguna experience later in the story, Silko writes that “The people had known, with the simple certainty of the world they saw, how everything should be. But the fifth world had become entangled with he 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). Each of these quotes emphasize the importance of works and names as a factor of creating reality, with Thought-Woman’s names causing creation to appear and the European names for the fifth world altering certainty surrounding the world. What does the importance of names reveal about Laguna culture and the extent of the impacts of colonization? Why are names so powerful and important?
The non-linear storytelling of Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony, offers a mind opening perspective of identities and the role of stories in our understanding of the world. Ceremony follows the woven narrative of Tayo, a half Laguna Pueblo veteran who has been deeply spiritually and mentally impacted by the war. Silko creates a narrative that forces the reader to let go of an expected linear flow and allow the story to unfold in parts. The addition of poems, written by different voices in the story, offers the reader a deeper insight into Laguna Pueblo culture and history. Tayo’s character illustrates symptoms of such mental stress and loss of undenity that he physically breaks down, with constant nausea and fatigue. The experience of simply existing becomes too much for Tayo. In the novel, this experience is called battle fatigue and Tayo’s symptoms include extreme sensitivity to the world around him. Being in the dark, for instance, becomes more comfortable for Tayo, “he felt better in the dark because he could not see the beds; he could not see the photographs in the frames on the bureau” (Silko 28). The internal and psychological impacts of war become too much to contain in one’s body and as a result flow out in waves of pain and sickness. Tayo’s fatigue is symbolic of the emotional and spiritual trauma he has endured for his entire life. How does Tayo’s loss of identity intensity the physical and mental trauma he’s endured and is still struggling with?
In Ceremony, there is a recurring theme around how the ‘white man’ or the colonizer knows best compared to the natives. This stood out on page 69 when Josiah, Tayo, and Robert were working with beef cattle and they decided to do it their way rather than by the book. Rocky then responds by saying, “Those books are written by scientists. They know everything there is to know about beef cattle. That’s the trouble with the way the people around here have always done things–they never knew what they were doing.” (70) This causes Tayo to question whether they truly knew what they were doing with the beef cow. This is problematic because they have physical experience and previous knowledge on how to properly work the land and the cattle. Having this scientific knowledge presented by the colonizer is normally harmful and only takes in the economic gain factor rather than everything else that comes with farming. Science has been known to only learn about nature so we can conquer it for personal gain. Does this science truly have nature in its best interest? Does textbook science have the answers compared to physical experience?
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, explores multiple timelines in the life of Tayo, a half white-half Native American, who fought in World War 2 and struggles in his healing after returning home. Throughout many intertwined stories taking place at different times and places regarding Tayo and his life, the importance of stories and storytelling is explored. The book begins with the poem titled ‘ceremony.’ The poem is as follows: “I will tell you something about stories (he said) They aren’t just for entertainment. Don’t be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death. You don’t have anything if you don’t have stories…He rubbed his belly. I keep them here… And in the belly of this story the rituals and the ceremony are still growing.” As the book itself begins and readers are introduced to Tayo’s mental struggles of identity and the loss of his brother and uncle, the majority of his health problems are seen through his inability to speak, and his upset stomach. I think these are important to note and I question the deeper meaning. For example, early on Tayo is literally unable to speak for himself, only about himself in the third person, saying, “He can’t talk to you. He is invisible. His words are formed with invisible tongue, they have no sound,” (14). Shortly after in a flashback/forward through time, waiting for a train, Tayo sees a Japanese family and “…he retched until his stomach heaved in frantic dry spasms,” (16). In another timeline Tayo reminisces and emphasizes the importance of knowing the right stories in order to transcend everyday boundaries in life (18). Later on, Tayo asks for the shades in his bedroom to be shut, saying “The light makes me vomit,” but the author notes that Tayo’s Aunt “could see the outline of his lie in the dim light,” (28). As the author travels back and forth through time with various stories, there are multiple references to a time when Tayo stabbed a fellow veteran in the belly, due to his vulgar stories and actions, such as playing with Japanese teeth (58). What are the connections between storytelling and Tayo’s physical wellbeing? Do you think reclaiming his own voice and his peoples’ stories within his belly will literally heal him in ways the doctors cannot? How important is voice and reclaiming stories/ history for colonized people in the decolonization process and what might Fanon say?
The harsh drought that Tayo finds himself experiencing upon returning home from war holds major significance in the novel. Different causes for drought are interested throughout the book, providing meaning to the symbolism of the drought. Tayo believes that he is the reason the drought is happening, due to his praying while in the jungle for the rain to stop. This personal belief is however challenged by other explanations; Josiah explains that “droughts happen when people forget, when people misbehave.” (42) Traditional Laguna stories, as told in poems, explain that drought is caused by the embracing of magic and witchery introduced by Pa’caya’nyi, and that the drought was a punishment by Nau’ts’ity’i as retaliation against the use of magic. In the poems, we see that the hummingbird and the fly are on a journey to bring the rains back to the people, but their journey is long and filled with multiple different ceremonies such as spawning the fly, getting the buzzard to purify the town, and getting tobacco for an offering. In understanding the drought as a metaphor for Tayo’s troubles and PTSD after his experience in war, we can assume that the ceremony that is needed to heal him is not a singular instance of spiritual awakening, but a process of returning to ones culture that is complex and relational, the ceremony needed to heal Tayo is a culmination of smaller ceremonies intertwining to return him to his roots. Through the side by side storytelling of traditional stories and Tayo’s story, Leslie Marmon Silko is defying liner boundaries of time and space, and affirming and mapping the complexity and interconnectedness of Laguna Pueblo ontology. Do you think that the motif of drought is merely a metaphor for Tayo’s post-war experience? Or perhaps, could it be a foundation through which Leslie Marmon Silko weaves parallel stories together, in such a way as to tell a story through a traditional rather than western point of view? How might this parallel, non-linear style of story telling be a personally decolonizing act for the author, given that she considers the writing of this book to be a ceremony for herself as well?
When Tayo was talking to the medicine man Ku’oosh they were talking about the white man’s war as Tayo pleaded that he had never killed a man, the old man said ” in the old way of warfare, you couldn’t kill another human being in battle without knowing it, without seeing the result, because even a wounded deer left great clots of lung blood or spilled guts. That way the hunter knew it would die. Humans beings were no different.” But Tayo insisted “the old man would not have believed white warfare, killing across great distances without knowing who or how many had died. It was all too alien to comprehend, the mortars and big guns, and even if he could have taken the old man to the target areas, led him through the fallen jungle trees and muddy craters of torn earth to show him the dead, the old man would not have believed anything so monstrous.” It is crazy to think about all the damage that can be done in the name of colonization and the fact that we can create weapons so disastrous that some people can even believe they exist. What do you think the authors intent was when she included all of this incredibly visual imagery about the white man’s war and the fact that the old medicine mad could not comprehend the damage?
In Ceremony, Silko explores the themes of colonialism and neo-colonialism, especially as it impacts the main character, half-white and half-native Tayo. Tayo serves in the second world war and it has lasting impacts on him. Silko writes, “The Scalp Ceremony lay to rest the Japanese souls in the green humid jungles, and it satisfied the female giant who fed on the dreams of warriors. But there was something else now, as Betonie said: it was everything they had seen — the cities, the tall buildings, the noise and the lights, the power of their weapons and machines. They were never the same after that: they had seen what the white people had made from the stolen land. It was the story of the white shell beads all over again, the white shell beads, stolen from a grave and found by a mana as he walked along a trail one day. He carried the beautiful white shell beads on the end of a stick because he suspected where they came from; he left them hanging in the branches of a piñon tree. And although he had never touched them, they haunted him; and all he could think of, all he dreamed of, were these white shell beads hanging in that tree. He could not eat, and he could not work … Every day they had to look at the land, from horizon to horizon, and every day the loss was with them; it was the dead unburied, and the mourning of the lost going on forever. So they tried to sink the loss in booze, and silence their grief with war stories about their courage, defending the land they had already lost” (Silko 156).
This paragraph beautifully explains the nuances of the impacts of the military on indigenous people. The loss of life is profound, as well as the reasoning for the involvement of Tayo, or the other soldiers, in the first place. Rocky, Tayo’s kin, says to him when Tayo begins to have hallucinations, “Hey, I know you’re homesick. But, Tayo, we’re supposed to be here. This is what we’re supposed to do.” (Silko 7). This dialogue lends readers to believe Rocky has an easier time accepting orders and responsibilities without questioning his authorities. Tayo, on the other hand, seems deeply disturbed by this duty that has been put on him. I think it is for the very reason Silko writes, because the soldiers are feigning courage to pretend like they are protecting their land, when in reality, the land has been ‘lost’ to the colonizer, as well as, now, their bodies and lives.
There is also an importance that is exemplified through the story of the girl in the tree that warns Navajo to stay away from the foreign objects. I am wondering here, what is the significance in Tayo’s life of keeping away from foreign, colonizer’s culture? Does a lack of this distance prove to be detrimental for him?
While Tayo deals with many issues surrounding PTSD due to his role in WWII, many of the themes in “Ceremony” are direct result of Colonization, and its ways of thinking. One of the most unique aspects of this book I have enjoyed in my reading is the non-linear approach. Silko writes in this way to provide us with perspective, as well as challenge our very linear themed literary skills. With Tayo’s PTSD, the non-linear aspect of writing worked very well in allowing us to understand his struggles more. Just as in the real world, PTSD, as well as many other mental health issues do not impact us in a linear way, with each day providing different challenges, as well as different levels of severity. Perhaps this was Silko’s way of dealing with some of her own challenges, as we learned she wrote this novel during her time in Ketchikan, Alaska. How could we as westeners have a more open-minded approach to non-linear understanding? Throughout the rest of the book, what can we take from Tayo’s story to relate it to Silko’s regarding their lives as a part of the Laguna Pueblo? How can we relate it to the general struggle of being human?
As Ceremony examines different life chapters of the main character Tayo, the author combines the story of Tayo and different stories of his people. One of the beginning scenes of Tayo hallucinating seeing his uncle get shot was very moving to me. He was experiencing some sort of PTSD from war. One thing that stood out to me was the guilt Tayo had from what he thought he had done concerning the drought that his people were facing. My question concerns what significance rain has in Tayo’s life and what the meaning behind his guilt comes from?
Silko uses the story and struggles of Tayo to highlight the injustices plaguing the lives of indigenous people living in the United States. I found it heartbreaking that Native Americans like Tayo could put their life on the line for a country that stole their land, only to return and not be treated with respect by their colonizers. Many native people who joined the army embraced aspects American culture, like alcoholism. So many natives who returned from war turned to the bottle. Tayo strives to stick to his native culture and beliefs, even though he is only half indigenous. Tayo’ s mother left him when he was only four, which, in addition to him not being fully native, led to him feeling like an outcast in his own community. His brother Rocky goes the opposite direction and strives to assimilate to American culture, but Rocky was fully indigenous. Do you think Tayo seeks acceptance into native culture because he feels like an outsider to both native people and white people?
In the novel Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, the main character Tayo has dealt with severe, debilitating PTSD from his participation in World War II and guilt from not feeling worthy within his Laguna Pueblo culture, as he outlives his “purebred” cousin Rocky. He faces constant stomach nausea and vomiting from frequent flashbacks and PTSD symptoms throughout his days, faces intense guilt from watching Japanese soldiers die by the hands of his military group, and becomes borderline suicidal in the aftermath. The second poem in the book titled “Ceremony” mentions the importance of the stomach. “He rubbed his belly. I keep them here/ [he said]/ Here, put your hand on it/ See, it is moving./ There is life here/ for the people.” This suggests Tayo’s pain represents at least in some part, the disassociation and discontent he has with his native culture as he fights the “white man’s war.”
How does Tayo’s physical and mental pain reflect the historical physical and mental pain that the Laguna Pueblo peoples have faced historically? Does his attempts at healing through both Western and native ways represent the Laguna Pueblo in modern day and their collective healing? Does Tayo represent more than just himself as a character or is he more of an example of what modern white Western life can do to a native Laguna Pueblo person regarding its violence and inequality?
On the author’s page in the beginning of the book, it talks about how Silko has mixed ancestry, she comes from a background of Laguna Pueblo, Mexican, and white. She also grew up in the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. After knowing this, reading different parts of the book made me reflect about Silkos own experience more. On page 30, Auntie says to old Grandma: “oh I don’t know, mama. You know how they are. You know what people will say if we ask for a medicine man to help him. They’ll say ‘don’t do it. He’s not full blood anyways.’’’ How does Silkos background change your perspective of Tayo and his experiences, and the story being told by Thought Woman? Who is Tayo really, and who is Thought Woman really?
One of the key points I took away from the first section of Ceremony was the important of telling stories. In the first poem, the author ends their poem by stating, “I’m telling you the story she is thinking.” This implies that the author and the “she” they write about are collectively sharing the story. This exhibits a collective authorship that ensures the story lives on for generations and emphasizes creativity. Leslie Marmon Silko’s theme of storytelling is evident throughout the book; especially the first section. My favorite thing about this book is that Silko defies the accepted way (Western way) of writing novels by combining the use of poems and storytelling where ever she sees fit.
Silko’s emphasis on the importance of storytelling reminded me of a book I read a few semesters ago, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable by Amitav Ghosh. In the first section of The Great Derangement, Ghosh argues that in order to understand climate change we need more stories and pieces of literature about climate change that are outside of nonfiction. Amitav Ghosh states, “for let us make no mistake: the climate crisis is also a crisis of culture, and thus the imagination,” (Ghosh 9). I believe that both of these books point out the power of storytelling and the importance of keeping stories alive.
Do you think Leslie Marmon Silko would agree with Amitav Ghosh’s view that fiction and storytelling can be more effective in raising awareness to import issues than a nonfiction approach?
There are many recurring themes throughout Ceremony that have been appearing in my other classes. The story shows how indigenous communities face different adversities in the United States, almost all of them being rooted in colonialism. The colonizers have replaced indigenous knowledge with their own way of doing things. White men claim that indigenous knowledge is “backward” or not as credible as their own. In reality, western science and knowledge are reductionist and are not in tune with the rules of nature. One scene arises that surrounds this theme of the reduction of indigenous knowledge. Rocky questions the credibility of indigenous knowledge by stating, “Those books are written by scientists. They know everything there is to know about beef cattle. That’s the trouble with the way the people around here have always done things–they never knew what they were doing” (70). Western knowledge has taken over indigenous knowledge in many different disciplines. Besides raising cattle, what are other ways has western science replaced indigenous knowledge? In medicine? Environmental protections?
In Ceremony, we see Tayo yearning to heal after suffering mental and emotional trauma from the war that has manifested into a debilitating physical illness in which he struggles daily with simply being alive. Tayo is often referred to as a “half-blood” and has a constant identity conflict with having a foot in both worlds. Where his presence causes friction in his indigenous community and causes shame within his family. We see Tayo having a disconnect in the modern hospitals where he is voiceless and invisible, and in turn, struggling with native medicine men because he lacks the traditional knowledge to begin the internal and external healing practices. Tayo’s clash with his identity has been manifesting since his adolescence, whereabouts his auntie “was quick to correct the error”(63) when people would call him and Rocky brothers. Additionally, “auntie wanted Tayo to be close enough to feel excluded”(67). I wonder if this phenomenon of purposeful exclusion is frequent in communities where members are half native and half another race. If Tayo was full blood would his childhood have prepared him with the proper mental and spiritual tools to be healed in a traditional ceremony without such additional soul searching? Or would he end up like Rocky, too engulfed in the indigenous culture that he’d be longing to search for a different identity that wasn’t forced upon him, and seek to fit in and prosper elsewhere?
Ceremony presents some of the many problems that still exist within Native American culture. Tayo, who is referred to throughout the book as a sort of “half breed” in the sense that he is mixed race. This makes Tayo very conflicted, and he is also treated very differently within his community, and even treated differently by his own family. He becomes very sick after returning from his deployment and becomes very sick with something that is not quite common among the people. He is experiencing something like PTSD, and it is making him have dreams and feelings that make him wonder what exactly is real and what is fake. A medicine man named Ku’oosh visits Tayo and attempts to heal him from the modern sickness he is feeling. “Ku’oosh would have looked at the dismembered corpses and the atomic heat-flash outlines, where human bodies had evaporated , and the old man would have said something close and terrible had killed these people.” (pg.34) The experiences Tayo had during his time in war, and the mental repercussions from this are not something so familiar to the Laguna people. This explains why Tayo continues to feel this pain inside him even after the medicine man attempted to help. Tayo even stabs one of his friends in the stomach with a broken glass bottle without hardly realizing it due to the pain he was feeling within him. I have read another novel regarding Native Americans and the war. “Three Day Road” explains the experience of 2 Native American boys who are recruited to the military and become snipers. One of them holds dear the culture and morals that have been taught to them by their people, the other becomes encapsulated by warfare and blends into the culture quite easily. This reminds me of Tayo and Rocky, Tayo being the one who is trying to make sense out of the war the way the Laguna people would, while Rocky was completely swallowed by western culture and began to let go of the ways of their people. In the two novels that I have read on this topic, there are many similarities, but the one that I find most easily comparable would be the ways in which war directly conflicts with the culture of most Native American people. The main reason for this, to me, is that war is savagery, and to someone who has no knowledge of western culture would be quite surprised and terrified at the ways wars are carried out. Tayo has been struggling but with his visit with another medicine man, there might be hope for Tayo regaining his mental health.
In the novel Ceremony the beginning poems were extremely interesting. When the author is introducing these poems there is a pattern of defeating the barriers of gender. Men talk in a feminine way and women talk in the masculine. For example in the poem Ceremony she states, “He rubbed his belly. I keep them here [he said]. Here, put your hand on it. See, it is moving. There is life here for the people.” Is the purpose to this underlying pattern? Does it embody the messages buried throughout the novel?
In Ceremony, Silko starts the novel with a preface that gives a bit of background and then shares three poems before starting the first chapter. The first poem tells a creation story, which one can assume comes from Native American culture that the characters from the book are a part of. It is about “thought-woman” and her sisters, sitting in a room, and speaking the universe into existence, and is thinking a story that is (apparently) what we are about to read about in the book. Thought-woman is a spider, spinning a web of life/existence. It is very different than traditional western creation stories, but is an ontology that one can still understand. The next poem adds emphasis to the speaking of the creation of the universe by discussing the importance of stories. Stories are all we have and the man telling this poem/story keeps them in his stomach, where he feels the soul is found. Is he pregnant? I think yes and the stories are full of life. The third poem is a foreshadowing of a healing ceremony that we will read later in the book. Tayo and Rocky are Native American men (Tayo is mixed with white and Rocky is full Native blood) and are the main characters in the story so far. Rocky’s mom left him at a very young age with Uncle Josiah and Tayo’s family. Rocky, being full blood Native, rejects his ancestry because of his childhood trauma, while Tayo feels shame in his mixed ancestry and tries to compensate for this by fully embracing his Native culture. Rocky fully embraces white western culture that surrounds him, and convinces Tayo to join the US military to fight in WW2 agains the Japanese in the Pacific front. Two important things I took away from his time in the military was his refusal to execute Japanese soldiers because he saw his Uncle Josiah in the soldier. Even after the soldier was executed (not from Tayo’s bullet) Tayo saw nothing other than his Uncle Josiah lying there dead (page 7). This traumatized him, as his culture has always believed in the interconnectedness of everyone and everything, and everything as equally deserving of life. I believe this hallucination doesn’t come from just a traumatic experience, but maybe intervention from a higher spirit (which caused the PTSD). The second story that stood out to me from the boys’ experience in the war was the story about the unending rain in the rain forest in the Pacific somewhere. Tayo prayed the rain would go away and it would not. 6 years later, back in the States, the rain stopped for a long time. Tayo believed he prayed the rain away, but with a delayed and intensive reaction, as if the creator were punishing him. There are many instances of Tayo having traumatic/spiritual experiences and realizations, and I think this is all building up to a Ceremony of spiritual healing.
In Leslie Silko’s Ceremony, she begins by explaining the importance of storytelling. Silko makes it clear that she is telling the story from a third-person point of view when she says “I’m telling you the story she is thinking” at the end of the first poem. With this story being told from a third-party point of view I feel that there are various thoughts and emotions that could have potentially been left out while telling this story. How different would this story have been different if Tayo was to deliver it from the first-person point of view? What important aspects of this story would’ve been left out that Tayo did not find as important and how different would Tayos character be if he was given the power to present his story in his own voice?
In the later half of the book, when Tayo is at San Fidel and at the gas station, I enjoyed reading about the really powerful ability of story telling in Tayo’s life and his understandings to help him deal with his present situations. After experiencing a racist white man, who is suspecting him of stealing because of the way he looks, Silko writes, “He wanted to laugh at the station man who did not even know that his existence and the existence of all white people had been conceived by witchery,” (142). I think it was really interesting to see the impact of Tayo’s understanding of the witches curse on humanity have some sort of power in a real world situation, and entirely change the way he responded to it. I think there is a lot of power in his response, and his understanding or knowledge of his culture’s history allowed for it.
It did make me think, however, about how the racist man was still wrong in that situation and it’s a terrible thing to do. If Tayo does not react or respond to it, due to the power of the story he knows, does this allow racism to happen without consequence? I wonder if Tayo’s power to ignore it then continues to empower racist’s and thinking their behaviors are valid. More broadly, if one’s understanding of a situation allows them to somewhat “rise above it”, does this help or hurt the continuation of harmful belief systems from others?
This week’s readings came from Silko’s Ceremony and heavily focused on the importance of storytelling and the significance it has on preserving culture. The first poem is extremely interesting and is a Native American creation story about someone first referred to as the ‘thought woman’. She is sitting in a room with her sisters thinking the universe into existence. We later find out that this woman is a spider who is ‘spinning a web of life’ by thinking and naming things. The next poem titled Ceremony largely is concerned with the importance of storytelling as a way to preserve rituals and ceremonies. The third poem is by far the shortest and simply states “the only cure I know is a good ceremony, that’s what she said”. Despite being the shortest, this poem may have the most profound effect because of how blunt and straightforward it is about the prolific impact traditional ceremonies and rituals have on native peoples and cultures. This really resonates with me because it shows me the bigger picture of how important these rituals are. For these native people, the only way they believe that they can preserve and keep their culture alive is by adhering and maintaining to their traditional cultural practices. This brought me to my first question which is is it possible for them to maintain their cultural identity without these rituals/traditions? And in what ways has western/ a capitalist society presented these ideas as taboo making younger generations question their importance?
In Silko’s Ceremony, I want to discuss “Tayo knelt on the edge of the pool and let the dampness soak into the knees of his jean. He closed his eyes and swallowed the water slowly. He tasted the deep heartrock of the earth, where the water came from, and thought maybe this wasn’t the end after all” (Silko, 42). This is immediately followed by a poem which describes how people were tricked by a medicine man and neglected their Mother Corn alter, so she left and took her gifts with her. This follows the theme of the memory Tayo was reliving because he was enjoying the water, Josiah was explaining how the drought comes from people misbehaving or forgetting. Tayo believes that he caused the drought because of his prayers to stop the rain during the war and his wrongdoings in the war. the theme of forgetting or neglecting a part of his culture is a major theme of the book, could there have been a way for him to honor his culture while fighting in a war? Is there a way to recognize culture and tradition in modern warfare? How has modern warfare taken on a lot of western ideologies?
In Ceremony, Silko emphasizes the interconnectedness between the environment and its inhabitants. This is first shown by the drought discussed in the beginning of the novel. As Tayo is struggling with his mental illness, the land around him hasn’t seen rainfall in 6 years. This observation is followed by a poem starting on page 11 which tells the story of Reed Woman and Corn Woman. Reed Woman bathes all day and night while Corn Woman works the field. Out of jealousy Corn Woman got angry with Reed Woman so Reed Woman went away. Then the crops all dried up and died and the animals were left thirsty. I think this poem illustrates that connection between humans and the environment. Tayo has lost touch with his roots and the drought is a physical representation of that. When Tayo remembers the poem about Reed and Corn Woman, he blames himself for the drought and cries for his animals. How can Tayo reconnect with Reed Woman to heal his trauma and bring the rain back? In what other ways does Silko represent the connection between humans and nature?
In Silko’s “Ceremony” she states, “…way back in the time immemorial, the mother of the people got angry at them for the way they were behaving. For all she cared, they could go to hell–starve to death. The animals disappeared, the plants disappeared, and no rain came for a long time. It was the greenbottle fly who went to her, asking forgiveness for the people. Since that time the people have been grateful for what the fly did for us.” (Silko 93) This quote to me seems as though it is a metaphor for mother nature. In regards to if we take advantage of the earths resources, that everyone and everything will disappear due to the destruction that would be caused. And that now that they have been warned by mother nature they would now protect her. However, what is the significance of the fly or in better terms what does the fly represent/who does it represent?
In “Ceremony” Silko introduces the main character, Tayo, as part indigenous. After returning from war Tayo struggles with comfortability within his community. Although Tayo is only part indigenous, he follows traditional values and seeks for acceptance within his community. While his cousin Rocky is fully indigenous, Silko emphasizes his assimilation to westernized ideologies and values. Silko also provides details regarding Rocky’s family and their acceptance of their son’s differing values. I found it interesting that Rocky’s family understood that he would never try to embrace his own culture, but they were not bothered with his choices. Why do you think that Tayo tries so hard to be accepted into his own community when his cousin, who was fully accepted, pushed so hard to assimilate to westernized culture? Why would Rocky’s family accept Rocky’s fate of assimilation when Tayo has been the one who appreciates his own culture and values? Do you think Rocky’s family accepted his differing values because he was successful in his assimilation at school?
Reading the poem beginning on p.122 in Ceremony, I wonder how this can be connected to Tayo’s feelings of guilt described throughout the book, as the poem seems to tell the story of how colonialism and the white man’s Manifest Destiny came to be, especially given how it was prefaced by what the old man had to say, that “white people are only tools that the witchery manipulate; 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,” In the poem, at least as I understood it, white people and colonialism is described as an awful sort of prophecy, which as the witch tells it, begins to come true. I wonder if there is overlap in Tayo’s sense of guilt and this idea that Indian witchery made white people. While, as we discussed in class, this story of the witch takes away the autonomy and power of white people by describing them and their colonization, weapons, and disease as a curse induced by the witch, I still wonder if this specific story worsened his guilt? Or eased it? Given his question before the passage, “I wonder what good Indian ceremonies can do against the sickness which comes from their wars, their bombs, their lies?”
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko opened with a few short unique poems. The first describing the Spider Woman, or creator/namer of life, the second describing the power and significance of stories and ceremonies. The main character, Tayo, suffers realistic traumatic memories of his time in the Philippines during World War 2 and struggles to shake them even when his cousin Rocky helps explain they are only nightmares. Tayo is half Laguna Pueblo which gives a much deeper meaning to the poems in the beginning. He and many other Indigenous people struggled with regaining their previous lives after returning to the reservation after taking part in war. One theme that stood out to me was the apparent internalized racism that became nearly inevitable and led to a major dispute between Emo and Tayo. The quote that read “Here they were, trying to bring back that old feeling, that feeling they belonged to America the way they felt during the war….They never saw that it was the white people who gave them that feeling and it was the white people who took it away again when the war was over” really resonated with me as it shows that for many indigenouse people, fighting in the war was one of the only ways to briefly escape the racism that plagues the United States. Tayo clearly has endured a great deal of difficulties throughout his life, probably leading to these traumatic dream experiences he faces. However we also know he internally, spiritually struggles with his connection to the Laguna Pueblo after returning home. Could it be possible that regaining his relationship with his people and the Laguna culture could mitigate the mental fatigue and nightmares as well as his physical traumas he has been facing?
I found Silko’s use of poetry in Ceremony to be interesting in two ways: (1) through presenting multiple mediums and forms of writing, namely through the distinction between prose and poetry, Silko is attempting, and I would argue succeeding, to present to the reader a kind of experience which presents her story in a light typically not shared by other novels. For Silko, it seems that the use of poetry as a medium is intended to present concepts in new and meaningful ways. In the case of Silko’s connection between cultural mythology and self-identity, specifically in her referencing to a kind of creation story, one gets the sense of stepping into the narrative of the story. The layering of different mediums and different aspects of the fictionalized world created by Silko provides context for developing a more personal and significant attachment to the novel and the plot. This seems to reflect a more fundamental philosophy which Silko implicitly champions through this use of differing mediums, one that can be succinctly described as “pluralistic’, or ‘idiographic’. These terms simply refer to a distinct approach to the study and interpretation of knowledge, one which takes it to be true that because there are multiple methods of interpretation, a plurality of methods of creative presentation allow one to present new forms of knowledge, or new ‘perspectives’ to the same social fact under examination. Silko, in the use of multiple styles of writing and differing mediums, uses this plurality to her advantage, in an attempt to shape and present a more defined and complex narrative world, one which reflects the psychological reality of Tayo and his struggles.
Does the use of multiple mediums and styles of writing take away from a text’s ability to advocate for a specific position, especially regarding the clarity of one’s argumentation?
SD 3800 Voices in Sustainable Development 
The novel, “Ceremony,” by Leslie Marmon Silko tells the story of Tayo, an army veteran of mixed ancestry. Tayo returns to the reservation after the war and is a crippled man. However, he rediscoveres himself and finds inner peace through his Native American heritage and stories. The narration of the novel flips through time and events in both a chaotic and ceremonial way to depict Tayo’s story. Today in class, we spoke about the poem at the beginning of the novel titled “Ceremony.” While I understand why people would think the “he” being referenced could be a community elder, I am still stuck on the idea that the “he” is Tayo’s future self. As Tayo was healed through stories, he is telling his fellow Native American Indian army veterans and readers of how they can be healed as well. Furthermore, on page 14, Tayo continuously characterized himself as invisible. As said in class, this is a result of colonisation and how Native Americans were made to be invisible and inferior. However, through stories and the recognition of his heritage, Tayo is no longer invisible. On another note, I am having trouble deciphering who the hummingbird, the fly, and the buzzard represent. Also, who could their mother be? Are the hummingbird, the fly, and the buzzard symbolic representations of natural elements? Is their mother the overpowering force bringing them together and controlling them? Mother Nature?
Silko gives many different examples of how indigenous communities have been displaced in this neo-colonialist experience. One of them that stood out occurred on page 63 as Silko discusses how Little Sister was engulfed in the white society around her. She began dressing and acting like the white kids in school. Over time she became shameful of this and her older sister felt responsible for bringing her back to her native culture. This occurrence is a prime example of what colonialism has done to many societies. White-washing native peoples to assimilate into the white culture is a huge aspect of colonialism. The second instance is on page 106, Silko discusses an encounter that Tayo had with some homeless Navajo people on the street. These indigenous groups were laid off from jobs as white people infiltrated the reservations. This is another example of how colonialism has disproportionately affected indigenous communities. They have been thrown into low-paying jobs as they were thrown out of the ones taken by white people. The questions I have concerning these excerpts are: In order to de-colonize, would it be safe to assume that shame plays a huge part in that process? Especially as an indigenous individual who felt so far astray? Other than the lack of education amongst the indigenous communities in this area, what else would allow these white people to invade their last remaining reservation jobs?
I have been thinking a lot about the differences between Tayo and his brother Rocky. Their differences are espically promenant in Rocky’s embracure of white American culture. “Rocky was funny about those things. He was an A-student and all-state in football and track… Rocky understood what he had to do to win in the white outside world… Tayo saw how Rocky deliberatly avoided the old time ways” (47). When the reader is aware of Rocky’s death due to his enlisting in the military, his desire to conform to white culture is espically haunting. This seems to be a statement from Silko on the abandinment of “old time ways” leading to death/destruction. Rocky’s coaches and teachers tell him not to let “the people at home hold you back” (47). In the end embracing this led to his death. While it is clear Sliko is making a statment by this, I am wondering in the case of Rocky if you can separate individual desires and aspirations from colonial pressure to assimilate to white American culture?
On page 93 and 94 of Ceremony the importance of flies is explained, “… [a] long time ago, way back in the time immemorial, the mother of the people got angry at them for the way they were behaving. For all she cared, they could go to hell–starve to death. The animals disappeared, the plants disappeared, and no rain came for a long time. it was the greenbottle fly who went to her, asking forgiveness for the people. Since that time the people have been grateful for what the fly did for us”. What do you think Silko purposefully made the creator a female, and more importantly called her “mother”? Do you think there is any significance that the previous scene is the store owner killing flies?
Leslie Marmon Silko’s “Ceremony” centers around the experiences of Tayo, a half Laguna Pueblo solider in World War II, and his return from the war, involving many aspects of Laguna Pueblo culture in the story. Silko opens the novel with three poems, the first of which describes the creation of the world as “Thought-Woman, the spider,/ named things and/ as she named them/ they appeared” (1). When discussing the colonization of the American West and the growing influence of white people on the Laguna experience later in the story, Silko writes that “The people had known, with the simple certainty of the world they saw, how everything should be. But the fifth world had become entangled with he 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). Each of these quotes emphasize the importance of works and names as a factor of creating reality, with Thought-Woman’s names causing creation to appear and the European names for the fifth world altering certainty surrounding the world. What does the importance of names reveal about Laguna culture and the extent of the impacts of colonization? Why are names so powerful and important?
The non-linear storytelling of Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony, offers a mind opening perspective of identities and the role of stories in our understanding of the world. Ceremony follows the woven narrative of Tayo, a half Laguna Pueblo veteran who has been deeply spiritually and mentally impacted by the war. Silko creates a narrative that forces the reader to let go of an expected linear flow and allow the story to unfold in parts. The addition of poems, written by different voices in the story, offers the reader a deeper insight into Laguna Pueblo culture and history. Tayo’s character illustrates symptoms of such mental stress and loss of undenity that he physically breaks down, with constant nausea and fatigue. The experience of simply existing becomes too much for Tayo. In the novel, this experience is called battle fatigue and Tayo’s symptoms include extreme sensitivity to the world around him. Being in the dark, for instance, becomes more comfortable for Tayo, “he felt better in the dark because he could not see the beds; he could not see the photographs in the frames on the bureau” (Silko 28). The internal and psychological impacts of war become too much to contain in one’s body and as a result flow out in waves of pain and sickness. Tayo’s fatigue is symbolic of the emotional and spiritual trauma he has endured for his entire life. How does Tayo’s loss of identity intensity the physical and mental trauma he’s endured and is still struggling with?
In Ceremony, there is a recurring theme around how the ‘white man’ or the colonizer knows best compared to the natives. This stood out on page 69 when Josiah, Tayo, and Robert were working with beef cattle and they decided to do it their way rather than by the book. Rocky then responds by saying, “Those books are written by scientists. They know everything there is to know about beef cattle. That’s the trouble with the way the people around here have always done things–they never knew what they were doing.” (70) This causes Tayo to question whether they truly knew what they were doing with the beef cow. This is problematic because they have physical experience and previous knowledge on how to properly work the land and the cattle. Having this scientific knowledge presented by the colonizer is normally harmful and only takes in the economic gain factor rather than everything else that comes with farming. Science has been known to only learn about nature so we can conquer it for personal gain. Does this science truly have nature in its best interest? Does textbook science have the answers compared to physical experience?
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, explores multiple timelines in the life of Tayo, a half white-half Native American, who fought in World War 2 and struggles in his healing after returning home. Throughout many intertwined stories taking place at different times and places regarding Tayo and his life, the importance of stories and storytelling is explored. The book begins with the poem titled ‘ceremony.’ The poem is as follows: “I will tell you something about stories (he said) They aren’t just for entertainment. Don’t be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death. You don’t have anything if you don’t have stories…He rubbed his belly. I keep them here… And in the belly of this story the rituals and the ceremony are still growing.” As the book itself begins and readers are introduced to Tayo’s mental struggles of identity and the loss of his brother and uncle, the majority of his health problems are seen through his inability to speak, and his upset stomach. I think these are important to note and I question the deeper meaning. For example, early on Tayo is literally unable to speak for himself, only about himself in the third person, saying, “He can’t talk to you. He is invisible. His words are formed with invisible tongue, they have no sound,” (14). Shortly after in a flashback/forward through time, waiting for a train, Tayo sees a Japanese family and “…he retched until his stomach heaved in frantic dry spasms,” (16). In another timeline Tayo reminisces and emphasizes the importance of knowing the right stories in order to transcend everyday boundaries in life (18). Later on, Tayo asks for the shades in his bedroom to be shut, saying “The light makes me vomit,” but the author notes that Tayo’s Aunt “could see the outline of his lie in the dim light,” (28). As the author travels back and forth through time with various stories, there are multiple references to a time when Tayo stabbed a fellow veteran in the belly, due to his vulgar stories and actions, such as playing with Japanese teeth (58). What are the connections between storytelling and Tayo’s physical wellbeing? Do you think reclaiming his own voice and his peoples’ stories within his belly will literally heal him in ways the doctors cannot? How important is voice and reclaiming stories/ history for colonized people in the decolonization process and what might Fanon say?
The harsh drought that Tayo finds himself experiencing upon returning home from war holds major significance in the novel. Different causes for drought are interested throughout the book, providing meaning to the symbolism of the drought. Tayo believes that he is the reason the drought is happening, due to his praying while in the jungle for the rain to stop. This personal belief is however challenged by other explanations; Josiah explains that “droughts happen when people forget, when people misbehave.” (42) Traditional Laguna stories, as told in poems, explain that drought is caused by the embracing of magic and witchery introduced by Pa’caya’nyi, and that the drought was a punishment by Nau’ts’ity’i as retaliation against the use of magic. In the poems, we see that the hummingbird and the fly are on a journey to bring the rains back to the people, but their journey is long and filled with multiple different ceremonies such as spawning the fly, getting the buzzard to purify the town, and getting tobacco for an offering. In understanding the drought as a metaphor for Tayo’s troubles and PTSD after his experience in war, we can assume that the ceremony that is needed to heal him is not a singular instance of spiritual awakening, but a process of returning to ones culture that is complex and relational, the ceremony needed to heal Tayo is a culmination of smaller ceremonies intertwining to return him to his roots. Through the side by side storytelling of traditional stories and Tayo’s story, Leslie Marmon Silko is defying liner boundaries of time and space, and affirming and mapping the complexity and interconnectedness of Laguna Pueblo ontology. Do you think that the motif of drought is merely a metaphor for Tayo’s post-war experience? Or perhaps, could it be a foundation through which Leslie Marmon Silko weaves parallel stories together, in such a way as to tell a story through a traditional rather than western point of view? How might this parallel, non-linear style of story telling be a personally decolonizing act for the author, given that she considers the writing of this book to be a ceremony for herself as well?
When Tayo was talking to the medicine man Ku’oosh they were talking about the white man’s war as Tayo pleaded that he had never killed a man, the old man said ” in the old way of warfare, you couldn’t kill another human being in battle without knowing it, without seeing the result, because even a wounded deer left great clots of lung blood or spilled guts. That way the hunter knew it would die. Humans beings were no different.” But Tayo insisted “the old man would not have believed white warfare, killing across great distances without knowing who or how many had died. It was all too alien to comprehend, the mortars and big guns, and even if he could have taken the old man to the target areas, led him through the fallen jungle trees and muddy craters of torn earth to show him the dead, the old man would not have believed anything so monstrous.” It is crazy to think about all the damage that can be done in the name of colonization and the fact that we can create weapons so disastrous that some people can even believe they exist. What do you think the authors intent was when she included all of this incredibly visual imagery about the white man’s war and the fact that the old medicine mad could not comprehend the damage?
In Ceremony, Silko explores the themes of colonialism and neo-colonialism, especially as it impacts the main character, half-white and half-native Tayo. Tayo serves in the second world war and it has lasting impacts on him. Silko writes, “The Scalp Ceremony lay to rest the Japanese souls in the green humid jungles, and it satisfied the female giant who fed on the dreams of warriors. But there was something else now, as Betonie said: it was everything they had seen — the cities, the tall buildings, the noise and the lights, the power of their weapons and machines. They were never the same after that: they had seen what the white people had made from the stolen land. It was the story of the white shell beads all over again, the white shell beads, stolen from a grave and found by a mana as he walked along a trail one day. He carried the beautiful white shell beads on the end of a stick because he suspected where they came from; he left them hanging in the branches of a piñon tree. And although he had never touched them, they haunted him; and all he could think of, all he dreamed of, were these white shell beads hanging in that tree. He could not eat, and he could not work … Every day they had to look at the land, from horizon to horizon, and every day the loss was with them; it was the dead unburied, and the mourning of the lost going on forever. So they tried to sink the loss in booze, and silence their grief with war stories about their courage, defending the land they had already lost” (Silko 156).
This paragraph beautifully explains the nuances of the impacts of the military on indigenous people. The loss of life is profound, as well as the reasoning for the involvement of Tayo, or the other soldiers, in the first place. Rocky, Tayo’s kin, says to him when Tayo begins to have hallucinations, “Hey, I know you’re homesick. But, Tayo, we’re supposed to be here. This is what we’re supposed to do.” (Silko 7). This dialogue lends readers to believe Rocky has an easier time accepting orders and responsibilities without questioning his authorities. Tayo, on the other hand, seems deeply disturbed by this duty that has been put on him. I think it is for the very reason Silko writes, because the soldiers are feigning courage to pretend like they are protecting their land, when in reality, the land has been ‘lost’ to the colonizer, as well as, now, their bodies and lives.
There is also an importance that is exemplified through the story of the girl in the tree that warns Navajo to stay away from the foreign objects. I am wondering here, what is the significance in Tayo’s life of keeping away from foreign, colonizer’s culture? Does a lack of this distance prove to be detrimental for him?
While Tayo deals with many issues surrounding PTSD due to his role in WWII, many of the themes in “Ceremony” are direct result of Colonization, and its ways of thinking. One of the most unique aspects of this book I have enjoyed in my reading is the non-linear approach. Silko writes in this way to provide us with perspective, as well as challenge our very linear themed literary skills. With Tayo’s PTSD, the non-linear aspect of writing worked very well in allowing us to understand his struggles more. Just as in the real world, PTSD, as well as many other mental health issues do not impact us in a linear way, with each day providing different challenges, as well as different levels of severity. Perhaps this was Silko’s way of dealing with some of her own challenges, as we learned she wrote this novel during her time in Ketchikan, Alaska. How could we as westeners have a more open-minded approach to non-linear understanding? Throughout the rest of the book, what can we take from Tayo’s story to relate it to Silko’s regarding their lives as a part of the Laguna Pueblo? How can we relate it to the general struggle of being human?
As Ceremony examines different life chapters of the main character Tayo, the author combines the story of Tayo and different stories of his people. One of the beginning scenes of Tayo hallucinating seeing his uncle get shot was very moving to me. He was experiencing some sort of PTSD from war. One thing that stood out to me was the guilt Tayo had from what he thought he had done concerning the drought that his people were facing. My question concerns what significance rain has in Tayo’s life and what the meaning behind his guilt comes from?
Silko uses the story and struggles of Tayo to highlight the injustices plaguing the lives of indigenous people living in the United States. I found it heartbreaking that Native Americans like Tayo could put their life on the line for a country that stole their land, only to return and not be treated with respect by their colonizers. Many native people who joined the army embraced aspects American culture, like alcoholism. So many natives who returned from war turned to the bottle. Tayo strives to stick to his native culture and beliefs, even though he is only half indigenous. Tayo’ s mother left him when he was only four, which, in addition to him not being fully native, led to him feeling like an outcast in his own community. His brother Rocky goes the opposite direction and strives to assimilate to American culture, but Rocky was fully indigenous. Do you think Tayo seeks acceptance into native culture because he feels like an outsider to both native people and white people?
In the novel Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, the main character Tayo has dealt with severe, debilitating PTSD from his participation in World War II and guilt from not feeling worthy within his Laguna Pueblo culture, as he outlives his “purebred” cousin Rocky. He faces constant stomach nausea and vomiting from frequent flashbacks and PTSD symptoms throughout his days, faces intense guilt from watching Japanese soldiers die by the hands of his military group, and becomes borderline suicidal in the aftermath. The second poem in the book titled “Ceremony” mentions the importance of the stomach. “He rubbed his belly. I keep them here/ [he said]/ Here, put your hand on it/ See, it is moving./ There is life here/ for the people.” This suggests Tayo’s pain represents at least in some part, the disassociation and discontent he has with his native culture as he fights the “white man’s war.”
How does Tayo’s physical and mental pain reflect the historical physical and mental pain that the Laguna Pueblo peoples have faced historically? Does his attempts at healing through both Western and native ways represent the Laguna Pueblo in modern day and their collective healing? Does Tayo represent more than just himself as a character or is he more of an example of what modern white Western life can do to a native Laguna Pueblo person regarding its violence and inequality?
On the author’s page in the beginning of the book, it talks about how Silko has mixed ancestry, she comes from a background of Laguna Pueblo, Mexican, and white. She also grew up in the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. After knowing this, reading different parts of the book made me reflect about Silkos own experience more. On page 30, Auntie says to old Grandma: “oh I don’t know, mama. You know how they are. You know what people will say if we ask for a medicine man to help him. They’ll say ‘don’t do it. He’s not full blood anyways.’’’ How does Silkos background change your perspective of Tayo and his experiences, and the story being told by Thought Woman? Who is Tayo really, and who is Thought Woman really?
One of the key points I took away from the first section of Ceremony was the important of telling stories. In the first poem, the author ends their poem by stating, “I’m telling you the story she is thinking.” This implies that the author and the “she” they write about are collectively sharing the story. This exhibits a collective authorship that ensures the story lives on for generations and emphasizes creativity. Leslie Marmon Silko’s theme of storytelling is evident throughout the book; especially the first section. My favorite thing about this book is that Silko defies the accepted way (Western way) of writing novels by combining the use of poems and storytelling where ever she sees fit.
Silko’s emphasis on the importance of storytelling reminded me of a book I read a few semesters ago, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable by Amitav Ghosh. In the first section of The Great Derangement, Ghosh argues that in order to understand climate change we need more stories and pieces of literature about climate change that are outside of nonfiction. Amitav Ghosh states, “for let us make no mistake: the climate crisis is also a crisis of culture, and thus the imagination,” (Ghosh 9). I believe that both of these books point out the power of storytelling and the importance of keeping stories alive.
Do you think Leslie Marmon Silko would agree with Amitav Ghosh’s view that fiction and storytelling can be more effective in raising awareness to import issues than a nonfiction approach?
There are many recurring themes throughout Ceremony that have been appearing in my other classes. The story shows how indigenous communities face different adversities in the United States, almost all of them being rooted in colonialism. The colonizers have replaced indigenous knowledge with their own way of doing things. White men claim that indigenous knowledge is “backward” or not as credible as their own. In reality, western science and knowledge are reductionist and are not in tune with the rules of nature. One scene arises that surrounds this theme of the reduction of indigenous knowledge. Rocky questions the credibility of indigenous knowledge by stating, “Those books are written by scientists. They know everything there is to know about beef cattle. That’s the trouble with the way the people around here have always done things–they never knew what they were doing” (70). Western knowledge has taken over indigenous knowledge in many different disciplines. Besides raising cattle, what are other ways has western science replaced indigenous knowledge? In medicine? Environmental protections?
In Ceremony, we see Tayo yearning to heal after suffering mental and emotional trauma from the war that has manifested into a debilitating physical illness in which he struggles daily with simply being alive. Tayo is often referred to as a “half-blood” and has a constant identity conflict with having a foot in both worlds. Where his presence causes friction in his indigenous community and causes shame within his family. We see Tayo having a disconnect in the modern hospitals where he is voiceless and invisible, and in turn, struggling with native medicine men because he lacks the traditional knowledge to begin the internal and external healing practices. Tayo’s clash with his identity has been manifesting since his adolescence, whereabouts his auntie “was quick to correct the error”(63) when people would call him and Rocky brothers. Additionally, “auntie wanted Tayo to be close enough to feel excluded”(67). I wonder if this phenomenon of purposeful exclusion is frequent in communities where members are half native and half another race. If Tayo was full blood would his childhood have prepared him with the proper mental and spiritual tools to be healed in a traditional ceremony without such additional soul searching? Or would he end up like Rocky, too engulfed in the indigenous culture that he’d be longing to search for a different identity that wasn’t forced upon him, and seek to fit in and prosper elsewhere?
Ceremony presents some of the many problems that still exist within Native American culture. Tayo, who is referred to throughout the book as a sort of “half breed” in the sense that he is mixed race. This makes Tayo very conflicted, and he is also treated very differently within his community, and even treated differently by his own family. He becomes very sick after returning from his deployment and becomes very sick with something that is not quite common among the people. He is experiencing something like PTSD, and it is making him have dreams and feelings that make him wonder what exactly is real and what is fake. A medicine man named Ku’oosh visits Tayo and attempts to heal him from the modern sickness he is feeling. “Ku’oosh would have looked at the dismembered corpses and the atomic heat-flash outlines, where human bodies had evaporated , and the old man would have said something close and terrible had killed these people.” (pg.34) The experiences Tayo had during his time in war, and the mental repercussions from this are not something so familiar to the Laguna people. This explains why Tayo continues to feel this pain inside him even after the medicine man attempted to help. Tayo even stabs one of his friends in the stomach with a broken glass bottle without hardly realizing it due to the pain he was feeling within him. I have read another novel regarding Native Americans and the war. “Three Day Road” explains the experience of 2 Native American boys who are recruited to the military and become snipers. One of them holds dear the culture and morals that have been taught to them by their people, the other becomes encapsulated by warfare and blends into the culture quite easily. This reminds me of Tayo and Rocky, Tayo being the one who is trying to make sense out of the war the way the Laguna people would, while Rocky was completely swallowed by western culture and began to let go of the ways of their people. In the two novels that I have read on this topic, there are many similarities, but the one that I find most easily comparable would be the ways in which war directly conflicts with the culture of most Native American people. The main reason for this, to me, is that war is savagery, and to someone who has no knowledge of western culture would be quite surprised and terrified at the ways wars are carried out. Tayo has been struggling but with his visit with another medicine man, there might be hope for Tayo regaining his mental health.
In the novel Ceremony the beginning poems were extremely interesting. When the author is introducing these poems there is a pattern of defeating the barriers of gender. Men talk in a feminine way and women talk in the masculine. For example in the poem Ceremony she states, “He rubbed his belly. I keep them here [he said]. Here, put your hand on it. See, it is moving. There is life here for the people.” Is the purpose to this underlying pattern? Does it embody the messages buried throughout the novel?
In Ceremony, Silko starts the novel with a preface that gives a bit of background and then shares three poems before starting the first chapter. The first poem tells a creation story, which one can assume comes from Native American culture that the characters from the book are a part of. It is about “thought-woman” and her sisters, sitting in a room, and speaking the universe into existence, and is thinking a story that is (apparently) what we are about to read about in the book. Thought-woman is a spider, spinning a web of life/existence. It is very different than traditional western creation stories, but is an ontology that one can still understand. The next poem adds emphasis to the speaking of the creation of the universe by discussing the importance of stories. Stories are all we have and the man telling this poem/story keeps them in his stomach, where he feels the soul is found. Is he pregnant? I think yes and the stories are full of life. The third poem is a foreshadowing of a healing ceremony that we will read later in the book. Tayo and Rocky are Native American men (Tayo is mixed with white and Rocky is full Native blood) and are the main characters in the story so far. Rocky’s mom left him at a very young age with Uncle Josiah and Tayo’s family. Rocky, being full blood Native, rejects his ancestry because of his childhood trauma, while Tayo feels shame in his mixed ancestry and tries to compensate for this by fully embracing his Native culture. Rocky fully embraces white western culture that surrounds him, and convinces Tayo to join the US military to fight in WW2 agains the Japanese in the Pacific front. Two important things I took away from his time in the military was his refusal to execute Japanese soldiers because he saw his Uncle Josiah in the soldier. Even after the soldier was executed (not from Tayo’s bullet) Tayo saw nothing other than his Uncle Josiah lying there dead (page 7). This traumatized him, as his culture has always believed in the interconnectedness of everyone and everything, and everything as equally deserving of life. I believe this hallucination doesn’t come from just a traumatic experience, but maybe intervention from a higher spirit (which caused the PTSD). The second story that stood out to me from the boys’ experience in the war was the story about the unending rain in the rain forest in the Pacific somewhere. Tayo prayed the rain would go away and it would not. 6 years later, back in the States, the rain stopped for a long time. Tayo believed he prayed the rain away, but with a delayed and intensive reaction, as if the creator were punishing him. There are many instances of Tayo having traumatic/spiritual experiences and realizations, and I think this is all building up to a Ceremony of spiritual healing.
In Leslie Silko’s Ceremony, she begins by explaining the importance of storytelling. Silko makes it clear that she is telling the story from a third-person point of view when she says “I’m telling you the story she is thinking” at the end of the first poem. With this story being told from a third-party point of view I feel that there are various thoughts and emotions that could have potentially been left out while telling this story. How different would this story have been different if Tayo was to deliver it from the first-person point of view? What important aspects of this story would’ve been left out that Tayo did not find as important and how different would Tayos character be if he was given the power to present his story in his own voice?
In the later half of the book, when Tayo is at San Fidel and at the gas station, I enjoyed reading about the really powerful ability of story telling in Tayo’s life and his understandings to help him deal with his present situations. After experiencing a racist white man, who is suspecting him of stealing because of the way he looks, Silko writes, “He wanted to laugh at the station man who did not even know that his existence and the existence of all white people had been conceived by witchery,” (142). I think it was really interesting to see the impact of Tayo’s understanding of the witches curse on humanity have some sort of power in a real world situation, and entirely change the way he responded to it. I think there is a lot of power in his response, and his understanding or knowledge of his culture’s history allowed for it.
It did make me think, however, about how the racist man was still wrong in that situation and it’s a terrible thing to do. If Tayo does not react or respond to it, due to the power of the story he knows, does this allow racism to happen without consequence? I wonder if Tayo’s power to ignore it then continues to empower racist’s and thinking their behaviors are valid. More broadly, if one’s understanding of a situation allows them to somewhat “rise above it”, does this help or hurt the continuation of harmful belief systems from others?
This week’s readings came from Silko’s Ceremony and heavily focused on the importance of storytelling and the significance it has on preserving culture. The first poem is extremely interesting and is a Native American creation story about someone first referred to as the ‘thought woman’. She is sitting in a room with her sisters thinking the universe into existence. We later find out that this woman is a spider who is ‘spinning a web of life’ by thinking and naming things. The next poem titled Ceremony largely is concerned with the importance of storytelling as a way to preserve rituals and ceremonies. The third poem is by far the shortest and simply states “the only cure I know is a good ceremony, that’s what she said”. Despite being the shortest, this poem may have the most profound effect because of how blunt and straightforward it is about the prolific impact traditional ceremonies and rituals have on native peoples and cultures. This really resonates with me because it shows me the bigger picture of how important these rituals are. For these native people, the only way they believe that they can preserve and keep their culture alive is by adhering and maintaining to their traditional cultural practices. This brought me to my first question which is is it possible for them to maintain their cultural identity without these rituals/traditions? And in what ways has western/ a capitalist society presented these ideas as taboo making younger generations question their importance?
In Silko’s Ceremony, I want to discuss “Tayo knelt on the edge of the pool and let the dampness soak into the knees of his jean. He closed his eyes and swallowed the water slowly. He tasted the deep heartrock of the earth, where the water came from, and thought maybe this wasn’t the end after all” (Silko, 42). This is immediately followed by a poem which describes how people were tricked by a medicine man and neglected their Mother Corn alter, so she left and took her gifts with her. This follows the theme of the memory Tayo was reliving because he was enjoying the water, Josiah was explaining how the drought comes from people misbehaving or forgetting. Tayo believes that he caused the drought because of his prayers to stop the rain during the war and his wrongdoings in the war. the theme of forgetting or neglecting a part of his culture is a major theme of the book, could there have been a way for him to honor his culture while fighting in a war? Is there a way to recognize culture and tradition in modern warfare? How has modern warfare taken on a lot of western ideologies?
In Ceremony, Silko emphasizes the interconnectedness between the environment and its inhabitants. This is first shown by the drought discussed in the beginning of the novel. As Tayo is struggling with his mental illness, the land around him hasn’t seen rainfall in 6 years. This observation is followed by a poem starting on page 11 which tells the story of Reed Woman and Corn Woman. Reed Woman bathes all day and night while Corn Woman works the field. Out of jealousy Corn Woman got angry with Reed Woman so Reed Woman went away. Then the crops all dried up and died and the animals were left thirsty. I think this poem illustrates that connection between humans and the environment. Tayo has lost touch with his roots and the drought is a physical representation of that. When Tayo remembers the poem about Reed and Corn Woman, he blames himself for the drought and cries for his animals. How can Tayo reconnect with Reed Woman to heal his trauma and bring the rain back? In what other ways does Silko represent the connection between humans and nature?
In Silko’s “Ceremony” she states, “…way back in the time immemorial, the mother of the people got angry at them for the way they were behaving. For all she cared, they could go to hell–starve to death. The animals disappeared, the plants disappeared, and no rain came for a long time. It was the greenbottle fly who went to her, asking forgiveness for the people. Since that time the people have been grateful for what the fly did for us.” (Silko 93) This quote to me seems as though it is a metaphor for mother nature. In regards to if we take advantage of the earths resources, that everyone and everything will disappear due to the destruction that would be caused. And that now that they have been warned by mother nature they would now protect her. However, what is the significance of the fly or in better terms what does the fly represent/who does it represent?
In “Ceremony” Silko introduces the main character, Tayo, as part indigenous. After returning from war Tayo struggles with comfortability within his community. Although Tayo is only part indigenous, he follows traditional values and seeks for acceptance within his community. While his cousin Rocky is fully indigenous, Silko emphasizes his assimilation to westernized ideologies and values. Silko also provides details regarding Rocky’s family and their acceptance of their son’s differing values. I found it interesting that Rocky’s family understood that he would never try to embrace his own culture, but they were not bothered with his choices. Why do you think that Tayo tries so hard to be accepted into his own community when his cousin, who was fully accepted, pushed so hard to assimilate to westernized culture? Why would Rocky’s family accept Rocky’s fate of assimilation when Tayo has been the one who appreciates his own culture and values? Do you think Rocky’s family accepted his differing values because he was successful in his assimilation at school?
Reading the poem beginning on p.122 in Ceremony, I wonder how this can be connected to Tayo’s feelings of guilt described throughout the book, as the poem seems to tell the story of how colonialism and the white man’s Manifest Destiny came to be, especially given how it was prefaced by what the old man had to say, that “white people are only tools that the witchery manipulate; 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,” In the poem, at least as I understood it, white people and colonialism is described as an awful sort of prophecy, which as the witch tells it, begins to come true. I wonder if there is overlap in Tayo’s sense of guilt and this idea that Indian witchery made white people. While, as we discussed in class, this story of the witch takes away the autonomy and power of white people by describing them and their colonization, weapons, and disease as a curse induced by the witch, I still wonder if this specific story worsened his guilt? Or eased it? Given his question before the passage, “I wonder what good Indian ceremonies can do against the sickness which comes from their wars, their bombs, their lies?”
Also considering Tayo’s inner conflict and issues with identity given that he is half white.
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko opened with a few short unique poems. The first describing the Spider Woman, or creator/namer of life, the second describing the power and significance of stories and ceremonies. The main character, Tayo, suffers realistic traumatic memories of his time in the Philippines during World War 2 and struggles to shake them even when his cousin Rocky helps explain they are only nightmares. Tayo is half Laguna Pueblo which gives a much deeper meaning to the poems in the beginning. He and many other Indigenous people struggled with regaining their previous lives after returning to the reservation after taking part in war. One theme that stood out to me was the apparent internalized racism that became nearly inevitable and led to a major dispute between Emo and Tayo. The quote that read “Here they were, trying to bring back that old feeling, that feeling they belonged to America the way they felt during the war….They never saw that it was the white people who gave them that feeling and it was the white people who took it away again when the war was over” really resonated with me as it shows that for many indigenouse people, fighting in the war was one of the only ways to briefly escape the racism that plagues the United States. Tayo clearly has endured a great deal of difficulties throughout his life, probably leading to these traumatic dream experiences he faces. However we also know he internally, spiritually struggles with his connection to the Laguna Pueblo after returning home. Could it be possible that regaining his relationship with his people and the Laguna culture could mitigate the mental fatigue and nightmares as well as his physical traumas he has been facing?
I found Silko’s use of poetry in Ceremony to be interesting in two ways: (1) through presenting multiple mediums and forms of writing, namely through the distinction between prose and poetry, Silko is attempting, and I would argue succeeding, to present to the reader a kind of experience which presents her story in a light typically not shared by other novels. For Silko, it seems that the use of poetry as a medium is intended to present concepts in new and meaningful ways. In the case of Silko’s connection between cultural mythology and self-identity, specifically in her referencing to a kind of creation story, one gets the sense of stepping into the narrative of the story. The layering of different mediums and different aspects of the fictionalized world created by Silko provides context for developing a more personal and significant attachment to the novel and the plot. This seems to reflect a more fundamental philosophy which Silko implicitly champions through this use of differing mediums, one that can be succinctly described as “pluralistic’, or ‘idiographic’. These terms simply refer to a distinct approach to the study and interpretation of knowledge, one which takes it to be true that because there are multiple methods of interpretation, a plurality of methods of creative presentation allow one to present new forms of knowledge, or new ‘perspectives’ to the same social fact under examination. Silko, in the use of multiple styles of writing and differing mediums, uses this plurality to her advantage, in an attempt to shape and present a more defined and complex narrative world, one which reflects the psychological reality of Tayo and his struggles.
Does the use of multiple mediums and styles of writing take away from a text’s ability to advocate for a specific position, especially regarding the clarity of one’s argumentation?