Ceremony By Leslie Marmon Silko

Being mixed-race often involves issues relating to identity. It is especially challenging for Tayo, the protagonist of Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, because of his half-white and half-Native American identity. Ceremony takes place in the American Southwest during the early 20th century, where Tayo is looked down upon by both white and Laguna Indian society because of the taboo nature of racial mixing, as well as his refusal to fully embrace either group. The racial tensions between these two groups during this period are what sparks Tayo’s alienation, and over the course of the novel, Tayo’s identity takes on a role that affects various aspects of his abnormal life. Tayo’s outlook on race, actions, and perception from other characters in

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

One extreme change for the Indians was the arrival of Anglo-Europeans. Native peoples’ lives were changed at the blink of an eye while new ideas, practices and beliefs were shown to them. The arrival of the Europeans changed the way the Indians viewed their world and manipulated their resources. This new change could be viewed as positive as well as negative, for while some tribes entered into trade relations with the Anglos, others were used as slave labor and all were subject to disease brought on by the European newcomers. However, despite all the advantages and disadvantages, no other introduction changed the lives of the Indians more than firearms and horses. West outlines one of the most important evolutions for Native life and how it represented a new way to harness resources and gain power. In just a few chapters, we are able to see the great advancements the Indians made in hunting and trade due to these new technologies and how they allowed the Cheyennes to rise to a new purpose as the Called Out People.

When all these steps and stages were completed it led to freedom and enlightenment for him. When Tayo reached the “understanding that everything is interrelated” (Heroes), he is now free to live between his home and

Likewise, Silko uses examples to further her explanation of the culture of the Pueblo Indians. Unlike those who are in the audience, the Pueblo

“The Navajo reservation begins over there”. He pointed to the east. “The Pueblo boundaries are over there”. He looked below us to the south, where the narrow trail seemed to come from. “The Texans have their ranches over there, starting with that valley, the Concho Valley. The Mexicans run some cattle over there too” (Silko 765).

In Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony, the gender roles of three women are significant to the development of Tayo as being half-white and half-Indian. These three women are Tayo's birth mother, Auntie, and Old Grandma. His mother left him when he was four years old and that began his sense of emptiness and abandonment. She could not bear to raise a child that brought the reservation shame by her mistake.

Throughout the novel, Ceremony, has made an imprint that there is a significance in ceremonies when it comes to the Native Americans and how it ties in with their culture. There is a decrease in seeing that there is a significance in Ceremonies and that is what Leslie Silko does throughout the novel. Noticing that any type of ceremony should not be negative only because Ceremonies is what keeps the natives going in their culture and what they believe in. One of the themes that I have seen through the novel is the use of ceremonies and how they weigh heavily in the novel and on the main character. Within the novel, Tayo, the main character goes through difficulty as he is sent off to

     Throughout Ceremony, the author, Leslie Silko, displays the internal struggle that the American Indians faced at that time in history. She displays this struggle between good and evil in several parts of the book. One is the myth explaining the origin of the white man.

In the novel Ceremony by Leslie Silko, the main character, Tayo, shows apparent madness as he suffers from PTSD due to fighting in World War II. Madness can be defined as mental delusion or the behavior arising from it. The delusions that result of Tayo’s madness, hallucinations of important people he has lost and frequent flashbacks of the worst parts of the war, occur in a reasonable manner because it is common for people to be affected by war in such a negative way and fail to understand what is truly real. The product of Tayo’s madness gives truth to the fact that if one holds on to someone or something for too long, it is impossible to move on in a positive direction.

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

Perhaps two to three times a year at most, members of a neighboring long house appear to spend time with the members of the other longhouse before returning by night to perform what the Kaluli people hold as the cultural and emotional highpoint of the year. The Gisaro ceremony tells a story of lost loved ones; it brings to the forefront of the mind the pain and anguish of nostalgic recollections of the past and what is longed for once more. The dancers arrive by night dressed in the most ornate of dress, like that of the Kalo birds with feathers and body paints constructed from ingredients from around the rainforest to perform the ceremony aimed at eliciting emotional and angered response from members of their neighboring longhouse. They sing out as though they were loved ones lost, taking on the identity of these loved ones reincarnated in the Kalo bird after which they are dressed. As they perform, the members of the group who have experienced the loss grow largely emotional and angry, taking out their anger by plunging torches into the shoulders of the dancers to get back at them for causing such heartache. Though the fired torches pierce their skin, the dancers do not react and continue their performance long into the night – often for hours at a time. The following day, almost as a peace offering or an apology for causing so much pain in the heart of their neighbors, these performers return to deliver food to them and no animosity is held. Though an incredibly painful

    Leslie Marmon Silko is a Native American from New Mexico and is part of the Laguna tribe.  She received a MacArthur "genius" award and was considered one of the 135 most significant women writers ever.  Her home state has named her a living cultural treasure.  (Jaskoski, 1)  Her well-known novel Ceremony follows a half-breed named Tayo through his realization and healing process that he desperately needs when he returns from the horrors of World War II.  This is a process that takes him back to the history of his culture.

Silko describes these cattle like deer or antelope. She does this because they are the only things that have that "wildness" to the Navajo. Bringing in and changing, but not necessarily conforming to, the European idea of everything being spotless, is what has to be accepted in order to remain speckled. You have to accept the change. Spotlessness resists change, because it fights against what is natural to the earth. Betonie says, "Things that don't change are dead things" (Silko 84). You

In Leslie Silko's novel, Ceremony, Tayo's healing process takes him on an extensive spiritual journey to find his way back to his roots. On that journey, he encounters several mental challenges in order to let go of traumatic events he has faced throughout his life. While he embarks on this journey to happiness, Tayo encounters many symbols that help aid him in developing this sense of freedom. Having grown up Native American, Tayo learns that nature is a fundamental part in not only his life, but in his healing process altogether. Thought this novel, the reader witnesses Tayo’s connection to the natural world and to that of the rain, the sun, and the earth.