A Journey for Survival: Leslie Marmon Silko and the Acculturation of the Pueblo People

​              As humans, our very existence is dependent on growth and change. Physically, without growth we would be stuck in our infancy; helpless, with no chance of survival. Evolution and modification have always been essential to the survival and advancement of the many different races of people and cultures around the world. Laguna Pueblo writer and poet, Leslie Marmon Silko, is an advocate for the growth and survival of the Pueblo people and their culture. Her first full-length novel Ceremony, published in 1977, is a statement of what she believes is the only way her culture can survive in modern America. Ceremony is an expression of her belief that for Native American culture to continue to survive and become a stronger presence in the United States, Native Americans must make adaptations to their ancient ceremonies and rituals. Only this change and growth will keep their ceremonies and rituals, and therefore the people, strong. Without this evolution, Native Americans risk losing their culture to full assimilation into the dominant white world. Ceremony expresses the message that acculturation is necessary through the careful structuring of the novel, and its heavy emphasis on the mixed-racial identity of the characters Tayo and Betonie.

              Silko’s exposure to stories of alcoholic war veterans growing up in Laguna caused her to think about what it meant to preserve her culture in a new light. Yale University scholars Allan Chavkin and Nancy Feyl Chavkin co-wrote an essay discussing an unpublished essay Silko wrote for Viking Press. Silko’s essay explains the origins of the story for Ceremony and her intent for the novel. Ceremony began as a short story that was intended to be funny and light-hearted. Silko wanted to tell a story she heard growing up about a Laguna war veteran who would go to extreme lengths to drink. While writing the story, she realized that it was, in fact, not funny. Writing about the shame and embarrassment felt by the Laguna community regarding the alcoholism of their war veterans made Silko begin to wonder. Why was it that some vets could come home and figure out how to go on living, but many came home so deeply broken that they could not? She questioned if the failure of the ceremonies indicated that the community’s traditional beliefs were inadequate. She concluded that these rituals and ceremonies created thousands of years ago were not designed with twentieth-century warfare in mind (Chavkin and Feyl Chavkin 24). The ineffectiveness of these ceremonies brought Silko to the conclusion that there must be some adaptations made in the rituals to accommodate the modern world. Without the proper balance of old and new, the total assimilation of the Pueblo people would be imminent. Silko wrote Ceremony to make her thoughts about the need for the acculturation of her people known.

              Many elements in Ceremony make it a statement of the necessity of acculturation; the structure of the novel itself is key. The novel contains a disorienting mix of Western-style prose and the poetic style of the sacred stories of the Laguna people. The uncertainty of the reader is reflected in the confusion Tayo feels living in two separate worlds. As the novel progresses, the two styles seem to begin blending together. As the transitions flow more smoothly, the reader can start to make sense of what is happening. This change happens at the point in the story when the main character, Tayo, begins the ceremony of the progressive medicine man, Betonie. It starts with the story of Coyote Man, an ancient Pueblo Indian who has been transformed into a coyote, and the ceremony performed to bring him back to his people. Silko writes, “They made Pollen Boy in the center of the white corn painting…There were pinches of blue pollen at hisjoints,” (Silko 131). So far, this story has been given in the poetic style of a sacred story, but after this line the story continues in the familiar Western prose. The merge happens with the sentence, “He sat in the center of the white corn sand painting,” (Silko 131). Here, the story of Coyote Man becomes Tayo’s story. Tayo is sitting in the center of the sand painting; it is the same story now as it was then, only the people are different. The way the sacred stories and Tayo’s story flow together starts to become clear to the reader. Silko’s intent with her careful structuring is to provide an example of what it means to live in the liminal space of two drastically different cultures. Integrating new elements and old traditions to keep ancient ceremonies relevant assures that they are carried forward by the next generation. By merging two drastically different writing styles into a single book, Silko proves one cohesive, powerful and healing story can be created.

​          The Pueblo ancestors were unable to create ceremonies capable of destroying the evils they could not anticipate. This can be seen in Tayo’s encounter with Ku’oosh, a traditional tribal medicine man. Ku’oosh can not understand how it is possible for Tayo to be unsure if he had killed anyone in the war. Silko writes:

          But the old man would not have believed white warfare- killing across great distances without

          knowing how many had died. It was all too alien to comprehend, the mortars and big guns; and

          even if he could have taken the man to see the target areas… the old man would not have believed

           anything so monstrous. (Silko 33)

The fact that Ku’oosh, who is a symbol of the old, traditional ways, cannot fathom such horrible truths is representative of the Pueblo ancestor’s inability to foresee twentieth-century evils. How could a person who has never seen a firearm, or the devastation caused by an atomic bomb, know how to successfully combat them?

​              The main character in Ceremony, Tayo, is symbolic of the confusion and despair felt by all Native American people caught existing between two worlds; ancient tribal culture and modern America. One of the most important elements to Tayo’s character is that he has a mixed-racial identity. His mixed-racial identity is the symbol of the two drastically different cultures the Pueblo find themselves caught between; his illness represents the anguish felt by the entire community. Through Tayo’s journey to cure the illness that afflicted him after his time in WWII, which today would be recognized as PTSD, Silko emphasizes the importance of balance and cultural hybridity. The military hospital pumps him full of mind-numbing drugs, causing Tayo to fade away in a drug-induced haze. When he returns home, his grandmother decides to bring Ku’oosh to help Tayo. Ku’oosh performs the traditional Scalp Ceremony but is unable to complete it when Tayo begins to vomit. Ku’oosh then says, “Some things we can’t cure like we used to, not since the white people came…I’m afraid of what will happen to all of us if you and the others don’t get well,” (Silko 35). The traditional ceremony was not just ineffective on Tayo, but many of the other “pure” Pueblo war veterans as well. Silko is saying that the old ways are not enough for the issues faced by modern-day Pueblo.

            The healer, Betonie, is the most clear and direct representation of Silko’s ideas in the novel. Like Tayo, Betonie has a mixed-racial identity. This is significant to Betonie’s character, because a medicine man of “mixed blood” was something unheard of in Pueblo culture. Betonie’s mixed heritage lets him see the world from both sides, taking old ceremonies and improving them with modern elements to insure they are suited to deal with the witchery of the modern world. Betonie believes it is the witchery, not just white people, that are destroying the Pueblo. He says, “You don’t right off all the white people, just like you don’t trust all the Indians,” (Silko 118). Betonie is trying to make Tayo see that the white people are not the only ones who contribute to the loss of Pueblo culture. Pueblo people who refuse to recognize the modern world they live in are also to blame. Betonie also says:

                  At one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was

                then. But after the white people came, elements in the world began to shift; and it became necessary

               to create new ceremonies. I have made changes in the rituals. The people mistrust this greatly, but

                only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong. (Silko 116)

This statement is a direct reflection of Silko’s belief that without the modernization of ceremonial rituals, they will be ineffective. This ineffectiveness will ultimately be the cause of the complete demise of Pueblo culture, because without growth their ceremonies cannot stay strong.

​             Even though the Pueblo are fearful of Betonie’s ideas, he knows it is the witchery that has put the fear of change in their minds. It takes someone who is from both worlds to teach Tayo about what is really happening. Betonie is a product of the modern world, as is Tayo, and can teach Tayo how to accept every part of himself. When Tayo opens his mind to Betonie’s progressive ways, he is able to begin healing. Betonie says to Tayo, “That is the trickery of the witchcraft. They want us to believe all evil resides with white people. Then we will look no further to see what is really happening,” (Silko 122). Betonie is trying to make Tayo understand that just because an idea comes from white culture, that does not inherently make it evil. Indian witchery unleashed the white destruction on the world; making Indians partially responsible for their own devastation. The witchery wants to destroy all races across the world, and it intends to accomplish the destruction through wide-spread hate. The only way to ensure the survival of their race is to take power from everywhere they can, even whites, and create something new and stronger than before. That is the only hope they have in defeating the witchery and ensuring their survival.

​          Silko has made it her mission to record Pueblo orature in the written form. She shows us with her work that literacy is essential for the growth and development of ceremonial life. Scholar Bernard Hirsch from the University of Nebraska has researched the blending of the oral tradition and the written word in the works of Leslie Silko. He discusses how even though writing a story down, “…freezes the words in space and time,” (Hirsh 1). It allows for individuals to create new storytelling events of their own. The flexibility and inclusiveness of the oral tradition means even writing has its place in the evolution of the story (Hirsch 2). The way Silko has chosen to blend two writing styles in Ceremony is an excellent example of what this type of liminality should look like. The combination of Western-style prose and traditional oral storytelling techniques make Ceremony a hybrid itself. It is only fitting that a story so focused on blending and change is itself something completely different from the norm.

            We live in a world that is constantly changing; this is a fact humanity cannot ignore. War and wide-spread hate threaten to destroy life as we know it. Betonie would say that the witchery has blinded us, so we cannot see what is really happening. Whatever the reason for the uproar our planet is in, there is a way to fight back. It is important to remember that Betonie’s ideas are not one-sided. We can all learn to be like Tayo and open our minds to each other’s ideas. If we are open to the idea of change and learning from other cultures, we open ourselves up to endless possibilities. Adopting a more modern idea from another source does not mean that a culture is being phased out. It means that the culture is alive and growing, progressive-minded and strong; it is possible to change and still hold onto the essence of who we are. Ceremony teaches us an important lesson in the power of hybridity. The strength we need to save our world is something that can only be created by joining together all our ideas and creating unified, cohesive solutions for our most globally pressing issues. If we do not find a way to work together, we are sure to destroy the world with our single-minded ideas of self-preservation.

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By. Heather Brunner