The novel Ceremony, written by celebrated Native American author, Leslie Marmon Silko, is essentially a story about forgiveness and the need for rituals that help people move forward past events in their lives that need to be digested in order to once again be made whole. Perhaps, when read today, Ceremony is not as revolutionary as it was when first published in 1977, a mere thirty years after the events it describes, and at a time when the tumultuousness of race relations was at a peak, and Native American culture was only slowly being brought into the mainstream. Still, the central topics of change and adaptation are relevant today.
From the novel’s beginning, struggles with race, belonging, and adaptation are deeply intertwined within the fabric of the story. These issues must play out through the novel (completing the ceremonial aspect of the tale) in order for these issues to find a resolution within this context. We are presented with evidence that separation, disaffection, and illness are all a result of the native embrace of white culture. White culture emphasizes taking what one wants and using people, substances, and material possessions for what you need with no regard for the natural process of life and the efforts (which are emphasized by native culture through ceremonies) that man needs to put back into the world to be whole. Tayo acknowledges that “it took a great deal of energy to be a human being” (28), and he only makes this discovery in his native rediscovery. Silko asserts that white culture does not insist on giving back to nature and the world, and that part of the disease that is spreading in the world is due to this lack of insight, and healing can only be achieved in communion with one's roots and the natural processes of understanding the world as a whole. Silko sees greed, materialism, and the overemphasis of the value of property as destructive qualities of the white people. In one of the poems, white people are said to “ see no life/When they look/they only see objects./The world is a dead thing for them/They see no life.” (125)
Combating this destructive attitude toward the world is Tayo’s struggle and we are told how he must fight in the opening poems of the novel, "The only cure I know is a good ceremony,” (3) and “stories… They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death,” (3) emphasizing the importance of ceremony and stories as the cure for illness, whatever form that illness may take. The stories don’t simply orient a person in the world; stories also preserve people and cultures. Silko, in her preface to the book, describes a depressive discomfort that overwhelms her, rendering her useless and confined to a dark room for many hours a day. But when she began to write her story, “the depression lifted,” (xv) and was swept ever more away “as the main character, Tayo, began to recover from his illness, I too began to feel better.” (xv) Silko’s and Tayo’s stories are entwined as a ceremonial tale that lifts both storytellers out of their respective malaise, as the telling “evoked a feeling of comfort.” (xv) Silko through the story acknowledges that she, too, needs to recover from the white culture.
Silko weaves her own experiences with the oral traditions of the Pueblo into the novel. Tayo’s quest is not what we find in the usual Euro-centric novel. Rather, his is steeped in the Native American mythology and traditions of a vision quest, where the completion of the quest will mean that Tayo transforms from a sick, isolated individual who struggles with his biracial ethnicity and feeling no connection to either, to a healed man connected to his native traditions. Most of his crucial learning comes during each return to his roots which saves him from the white culture that used him and then cast him aside. Throughout Ceremony, Tayo achieves psychological peace in his native culture, but then repeatedly squanders his progress when he seeks other sources of healing, whether in the reliving of the glories of war, the pleasures of alcohol or flesh, or the medical practices of the army psychiatric hospital. Silko describes white people as inhibitors of the old way of healing, writing, “There are some things we can’t cure like we used to, not since the white people came.” (35)
Tayo is a psychologically wounded WWII veteran who became a prisoner of war of the Japanese after the Bataan death march. He is enticed into joining the American army by the idea of travel and his first major experiences in the white world are as a soldier, serving as an equal among white men. The uniform he wears confers upon him status and admiration, and a sense of purpose. “White women never looked at me until I put on that uniform, and them by God I was a U.S. Marine and they came crowding around.” (37) But once he is out of uniform, he is only another Indian and the appeal he held, that his uniform held, is gone. Reason makes him see that this is the case, but he is disconcerted that skin color plays such an obvious role, even after having endured the atrocities of war like any white man.
In the earliest part of the book, Tayo relates an incident in which he struggles and finally breaks down, when asked to shoot Japanese soldiers because he sees his Uncle Josiah in their faces. Looking upon the dead bodies later, he notices that the “skin was not much different from his own… even white men were darker after death.” (6-7) In war, everyone is the same color in death. But that lesson is ultimately lost on him and the other indian soldiers who, after returning from the war, recount those years as being heroically filled with women and booze and killing. The destructive nature of their army lives echos through to their return to their indian lives, those years having defiled them. They embody the witchery described in the poem. While it is many Indians’ belief that “the existence of all white people had been conceived by witchery” (143), Silko is careful to not let the readers conclude that all white people are evil or that only white people can embody witchery.
The origin of witchery in the characters of the novel is unrelated to race, a concept best exemplified by the character Emo, a pure Native who has appropriated the destructive elements of white culture. Emo also fought in the war, and while Tayo was disoriented by the wartime horrors, Emo was completely changed, blaming Native American elders for the cultural divide, “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.” (122) While Emo is genetically more Native American than Tayo, he is the true manifestation of destruction and the worst aspects of white culture and witchery. His character provides proof that while not all white people are bad, not all Native Americans are good. In the words of wise old Betonie: “You don’t write off all the white people, just like you don’t trust all Indians.” (118)
The novel describes how when young people leave the reservation for white enclaves, hoping for a better life, they are rejected by white society through a systemic discrimination that results in joblessness, homelessness, and poverty. “The Gallup people knew they didn’t have to pay good wages or put up with anything they didn’t like, because there were plenty more Indians where these had come from.” (106) This just goes to show the hopelessness and discrimination of the Native Americans based on their interactions and treatment by white people. White people in this excerpt from the text take advantage of the Indians which they deem inferior, a storyline that serves as an allegory for the kind of change that needs to occur within the entire Laguna community, and is symbolic of the changes that Silko sees as needing to occur in society as a whole.
That is not to say that Tayo is not seduced by white culture. Upon his return to his native land, Tayo has no appreciation for the mountains, rivers, and stories (this is reflective of Silko’s own disassociation). Tayo sees the result of his curse on the incessant rain because the land is parched and fruitless, and Tayo is just as sick as the land. Where the army gave him respect, his return to the white world stateside relegates him to a lower status in the country for which he just fought a war. He tries in vain to recapture that feeling of belonging when he finds himself ill, insisting that he go to the VA Hospital to be cured, because this is the reality that he has known throughout the war years (the white culture years). “Here they were, trying to bring back that old feeling that they belonged to America the way they felt during the war. They blamed themselves for losing the new feeling just like they blamed themselves for losing the land the white people took.” (39) But because white culture is part of the illness, they cannot give his spirit the cleansing that it needs. The Laguna people have developed cleansing rituals specifically for those who have killed, because they detest warfare. Pinkie, LeRoy, Emo, and Harley are lost, they don’t even attempt to avail themselves of these ceremonies, but Tayo feels the need to be purified. Perhaps his sense that he had never belonged to either the white culture or the native culture before the war and his disappointment and disgust with his own expression of the materialism and selfishness of white culture are the distinguishing factors that drive him to be a better Native American XXX than those men whose blood is pure, but whose spirit is not. The white community looks down upon the native population, but the community to which Tayo wants to belong, the community in which he was raised, also struggles with ignorance and their prejudice against people of mixed ethnicity. And so does Tayo. He has a hate for the white half of his parentage, vilifying white culture as the symbols of death and destruction, alcoholism and war. “He lay there and hated them. Not for what they wanted to do with him, but for what they did to the earth with their machines, and to the animals with their packs of dogs and their guns.” (189)
The pivotal moment showing Tayo’s struggle and eventual understanding of what he needs to recover, is his argument in the bar with Emo, who is representative of witchery and therefore “white culture” This is the catalyst for the transition to seeking a traditional cure: ceremony. Tayo decides he needs to remove himself from the white culture and the traditional quest, and embark on the journey with the medicine man. Initially, the ritual that Tayo is subjected to does nothing for him because he has not yet come to understand the nature of the ritual and how in ceremony one can cleanse oneself. He needs to tell his own story to complete the ceremony. Furthermore, Silko suggests that Ku’oosh was only able to cure Tayo partially because Tayo had been in the white world and Betonie’s hybrid ceremonies are more effective because they bring in new ideas, addressing those white culture events in a native narrative. Silko’s point is that while native roots are vital to life, modification to embrace new circumstances are necessary to evolve and sustain life moving forward. This view is not anathema to the Native American traditions because they believe in the interconnectedness of all things.
Tayo finally understands that he must immerse himself in nature and native culture, and once he does, “there were no boundaries; the world below and the sand paintings inside became the same that night. The mountains from all the directions had been gathered there that night.” (145) The disintegration of boundaries is Tayo’s acceptance that his is a mystic journey where the various worlds in which he exists are all one. That epiphany is broken almost immediately when he is sucked back into the degenerate life that is associated with white culture by Leroy and Harley. The sordid fate of Helen Jean, an Indian woman traveling with Leroy and Harley, who is seduced into prostitution by the white culture because that is all they see her as good for, is emblematic of the Native American experience outside of their community. The drunk veterans fight over her, “pushing at each other, in a staggering circle on the dance floor. The other guys were cheering for a fight. They forgot about her" (153). We see that they, despite being of Indian blood, treat women with the disrespect they have learned from white culture. Their lack of love and respect is reflective in the fact that they have forgotten all about the traditional call to protect women much as the war was supposed to be about the defense of their nation, but became a selfish way to gain esteem in the white culture that had previously rejected them.
But, Tayo’s journey to find Josiah’s cattle sets him back on the path and although when he returns with the cattle he believes that he is cured, it is not that simple. A successive series of events are part of the ceremonial struggle Tayo needs to endure, from his running from Emo and the white police through the Uranium mine, to Ts’eh. His time in the Uranium mine is emblematic of the “larger industrial-military complex whose ultimate goal is to produce weapons of mass destruction.” (enotes.com) Here we are again reminded of the struggles to understand land ownership, “ a sacred understanding of the land as a living being shared by all but also because the test site is specifically land taken from Native-American peoples… the test site simultaneously represents both the destructiveness of western economic development and the hypocrisy of what whites have done to the American continent in the name of building and defending the nation.” (enotes.com) Ironically, “In the U.S., the Navajo lands became one of the prime targets for mining, contributing thirteen million tons of uranium to military use from 1945 to 1988.” (The Ethical Issues in Uranium Mining Research in the Navajo Nation, Brugge and Bindu) Silko places these scenes in Tayo’s ceremonial story to reiterate the juxtaposition of a people belonging to the land and land ownership. His communion with Ts’eh is the final step because she is his knowledge guide, bestowing upon him the wisdom he needs to gain the understanding to complete his story, to complete the ceremony that will cleanse and heal him.
“Laguna culture is typical of that of the Pueblo Indians, practicing a religion that is infused with ancestor worship and nature gods.” (Laguna 2017, Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia) The concept of belonging to the land, rather than the land belonging to someone, serves as a clear distinction between white culture and indigenous culture. “‘They don’t understand. We know these hills, and we are comfortable here.’ There was something about the way the old man said the word ‘comfortable’. It had a different meaning – not the comfort of big houses or rich food or even clean streets, but the comfort of belonging with the land, and the peace of being with these hills.” (108) While the Indians are portrayed as having a deep connection to the land, the white people are described as destructive and materialistic people who consider the land to be dead. As the drought ends, so does Tayo’s fear, of Emo, of the police, and of his destructive associations, particularly with white culture, and he feels blessed, by the native spirits.
Tayo's initiation into the Laguna community is a resounding acceptance of a half-white member’s message of hope and change, showing that this microcosm will be able to accept new things thereby demonstrating an ability to adapt and survive and serves as an allegory for the kind of change that needs to occur within the entire Laguna community, symbolizing the changes that Silko sees as needing to occur in society as a whole.
The central message of Ceremony is particularly resonant today because as a nation and world we continue to struggle with the idea that societal change is inevitable and that those individuals and communities who don't learn to adapt will die. Ceremony points us in the direction we should look to assess the cure for our own ailments. The novel encourages us to pursue a reclamation of our origins, family, and culture, but also the ability to embrace the convergence of old and new as a way to reconcile who we are. The curative quest through this story needs to evolve with the times in which it takes place in order to be effectual. “Indians or Mexicans or whites – most people are afraid of change. They think that if their children have the same color of skin, the same color of eyes, that nothing is changing. They are fools. They blame us, the ones who look different. That way they don’t have to think about what has happened inside themselves.” (92)
In an interview, Silko called writing the book her “ ceremony for staying sane” (penguinhouse.com), and the literary techniques she employs are a part of that ceremony in that they are more native in her use of a cyclical sense of time, rather than the Eurocentric linear sense of time to spin the tale. This is an example of how Silko uses tribal literary techniques, which proves didactic as the readers learn more about Native American culture through her method of storytelling. Silko’s entire process focuses her on her own native origins. The interspersed native poems lend a mystic quality to Silko’s writing that are in juxtaposition to the realistic narrative, but are so heavy in meaning that they guide the narrative forward, much like a spirit guide would lead a person in need of guidance through a ceremony.
The three line poem at the end of the novel reads, “Sunrise,/accept this offering,/Sunrise.” (244) While short, the poem is excruciatingly symbolic of the rebirth and beginning of a new story, a new dawning, a new era in the life of Tayo, whose last few chapters have been anything but hopeful and rejuvenating. Each sunrise bathes the world in hope and opportunity. Much as Silko was bathed in renewal with her reconnection to her own roots through the telling of this fictionalized memoir, “I remade the place in words … I was home.” (xv) Silko tells Tayo’s story, a story of rediscovery, which is the ceremonial cure for Silko’s ailing knowledge and understanding of her own upbringing. She is offering the sun her novel as atonement and sacrifice. Silko encapsulates the narrative on so many levels, in one instance with herself writing in the role of shaman, and, at the same time, as herself being the one in need of saving and the novel itself in that case acts as the shaman.