Spotless in Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony" Essay examples

The Navajo farmed squash, corn, and beans. Some other fruits and vegetables in their diet were wild celery, wild onion, wolfberry, wax currant, juniper berry, and yucca bananas. They raised sheep and goats for meat, wool, and milk. They also hunted animals such as deer and prairie dogs. Occasionally, edible clay was added to food. This increased the calcium content.

When it comes to feeding show cattle many raisers have certain feeding strategies that they follow, ensuring they can maintain their goal on winning. Along with feeding it takes exercise so that one’s show calf will not become stout nor stubborn. Certain aspects are necessary to show an animal

The traditional Navajo Indians have a very primitive lifestyle. This means that they don’t necessarily have the best living conditions and

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s unconventional childhood, growing up without a father because her mom kicked him out and having to learn independence and responsibility by the age of twelve, influenced her poetry and shaped her as an motivated and self-sufficient individual. By the time “Vincent”, as she liked to be called, was nineteen years old, she already had already made a name for herself as a formidable poet. A couple discovered her and sponsored her education at Vassar College where Vincent experimented with her sexuality. She openly expressed her bisexuality, and continued to have both male and female sexual partners. When she married Eugen Boissevain, the couple agreed

With a combination of big bone, big toplines, big hair, long pretty clean necks, and structure soundness on there feet and legs. They are cardboard cutout cattle. They are not practical cattle. Based on appearance, they are extremely powerful and over the top. Big boned and deep bodied yet still attractive through the front end. (Macarthur)

“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).

Cattle has a reliable significance by being the personification of the Native American people. Although white ranchers rejected the animals, Josiah has his faith and intuition that his cattle would be unique, not the ordinary which have lost touch with their lands. He demonstrates the animals as “any living thing” (Silko, 74), which illustrates that the cattle would lose their origins if they “separate from the land for too long” (Silko, 74). Silko highlights the dissimilarity of treatment of animals by the whites from the Laguna method of hunting animals since the Laguna people expresses their respects and appreciations for the prey through rituals and ceremonies. When the Herefords owned by the white ranchers are about to fall to death because of thirst, the spotted cattle can find water on their own. In other words, they are self-sufficient and close to the lands

By the time of the Civil War, the Navajos had developed into a pastoral people, who had used their land to graze sheep. To those who complained of designating Bosque Redondo as a reservation to the Navajos, he retorted that the Navajos in being removed, were being forced to give up land far more valuable. Carleton noted this pastureland for its richness, and claimed that the Navajo land was, “unsurpassed as a pastoral region, in the whole world” stating that the size of the land being given up by the Navajo was the “size of Ohio” The richness of the Navajo homeland had allowed more than just grazing for their sheep, but also hosted the growth of other plants, such as peach orchards. Unfortunately for the Navajos, removal did not open up a host of rich new agricultural land to the tribe, and at Bosque Redondo they faced a far less fertile

As the research continues it becomes ever more important to discuss how exactly the differing pigmentation of one race of people actually occurs, because I feel that it has an effect on the way colorism is handled throughout the African American community. There are two ways in which a person of African descent can be of a lighter complexion; the first being amalgamation, which is the coming together of both the black and white races and reproducing to make a mulatto or mixed race child and the second is the use of cosmetic creams in attempt to bleach one’s skin until they too appear mulatto (Dorman 48). This is relevant because, it shows the extremes that people are willing to go to reach the highest plateau of social acceptance. Many of these creams were painful acidic chemicals slowly burning away the pigmentation as people slept, while others were considered mild abrasive materials used to “gently” scrape away dark pigments (Dorman

With the whites moving in on the Black Hills in search for gold, they wanted to buy it from the Lakota people. Crazy Horse moved and set up camp around the area and led raids on the miners. With these attacks, the whites decided to build more forts in the Lakota area, and force all of the Lakota people into agencies. Crazy Horse and the people who had followed him believed that they had to drive out the whites, and that the buffalo would return.

The Navajo nation keeps the skin walker myth alive through artistic work, such as Navajo jewelry and art. These Navajo myths always have a connection to the sacred land of the Four Corners region in the American Southwest. Because it is believed that skin walkers wear the skins of the animals they transform into, it is considered taboo to wear the pelt of any animal. In fact, the Navajo are only known to wear two hides, sheepskin and buckskin, both of which are only used for ceremonial purposes. The Navajo people have a very strong emotional bond with the Earth and the plant and animal kingdoms that are so much a part of their everyday lives.[citation needed] Certain animals are more sacred to some individuals, families and tribes. They believe

they were not equivalent to their White partners. Having been told that having darker skin was a

Many are unaware of the effects that race has played in their lives over the years. Some may not understand its implications, but are very oblivious to it. Race can influence such things like attitude and behavior. Nowadays being white or black means something more than just a Crayola color. No longer are they just colors, they are races with their own rules and regulations. People of color have been inferior to the white race for centuries. In their own way Zora Neale Hurston shows this concept in her story “How it feels to be Colored Me” as does Richard Wright in his autobiographical sketch “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”.

Although the cattle ranging which was occurring in the west during the mid-eighteen hundreds was known by the government to be taking place, a large part of the business was, in fact, illegal. In fact, John Upton Terrell declares that cattle herders’, “historical significance is not to be found in beneficial contributions to the nation welfare, for they made none. Quite to the contrary, they are worthy of note for the political corruption they engendered” (Terrell 181) This stems originally from the disease which the cattle carried with them, which the state of Missouri suffered from as a result of the cattle drives. Thus, Missouri attempted to regulate the flow of livestock into its borders by passing legislation. This “cattle act” which was enacted in 1855, could not be reasonably enforced and therefore failed. The reason that it could not be enforced was because the cattle herders often bribed the justices of the peace, who were given the authority to impound

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.