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       Novelist, poet, and essayist, Leslie Marmon Silko is best known for her literary contributions to the Native American Renaissance. Silko proficiently includes age old Native American myths and oral traditions within her various works. Her novel Yellow Woman is notable for its focus on a story inspired by Native American tradition. Silko drew from tribal traditions as well as personal experience to design her Yellow Woman character. Yellow Woman is included in many of Silko’s texts and is meant to provide a strong female character who has a distinctively powerful connection to the natural and spiritual realms. One of Silko’s most acclaimed novels, Ceremony, includes a Yellow Woman character. However, this character, though clearly representative of Silko’s original Yellow Woman design, seems to draw deeper thematic connections to the entire work beyond those of the traditional Yellow Woman story. Many authors have commented on Leslie Marmon’s Silko’s addition of the Yellow Woman in her novel Ceremony. Paula Gunn Allen, for example, has written extensively on what the role of the Yellow Woman is, stating that she is a female character who breaks ties with her tribe due to controversial actions. Silko personifies this character through Ts’eh in Ceremony, and while many believe she followed the traditional path that a Yellow Woman represents, one can also argue that Silko broke the mold of the traditional Yellow Woman with her use of Ts’eh and utilized this character to further push the boundaries of race and gender.

      Yellow Woman was based off of the Laguna traditions that Silko grew up with. In an essay titled “Ritual and Renewal: Keres Traditions in Leslie Silko’s “Yellow Woman,”” author A. LaVonne Ruoff writes that the legend originated with the Laguna tribe. Ruoff states,
              According to Silko, the river in Laguna, where “Yellow woman” opens, was always associated with                stories as a place to meet boyfriends and lovers: “I used to wander around down there and try to                    imagine walking around the bend and just happening to stumble upon some beautiful man. Later                on I realized that these kinds of things that I was doing when I was fifteen are exactly the kinds of                things out of which stories like Yellow Woman [came], I finally put the two together: the                                adolescent longings and the old stories, that plus the stories around Laguna at the same time                        about people who did, in fact just in recent times, use the river as a meeting place” (Ruoff 74).
Silko first explored the legend of the mystical female in her novel Yellow Woman and proceeded to incorporate a Yellow Woman representative into many of her other novels. Silko formulated a character who is meant to rebelliously defy the norms of her tribe. The Yellow Woman characters vary slightly from story to story but often do follow the traditional form of the Yellow Woman and what she represents. According to author Paula Gunn Allen in her essay “Kochinnenako in Academe: Three Approaches to Interpreting a Keres Indian Tale,” Yellow Woman stories are meant to highlight her alienation from her tribe often due to nonconformist or rebellious acts, but ultimately have positive outcomes. Allen writes,
              “Yellow woman stories, female-centered and told from the Yellow Woman’s point of view, portray                a figure who is adventurous and strong. Ambiguous and unsettling, Silko’s “Yellow Woman”                          explores one woman’s changes- her need to open herself to a richer sensuality. Walking away                        from her everyday identity as daughter, wife and mother, she takes possession of transgressive                      feelings and desires by recognizing them in the stories she has heard, by blurring the boundaries                  between herself and the Yellow Woman of myth” (Allen 85).

Although the representatives of Yellow Woman within Silko’s various texts differ slightly, the traditional Yellow Woman is meant to act as a nonconformist woman who represents the way in which humans interact with the spiritual realm while maintaining a distinct connection to nature. Ruoff reiterates the purpose of Yellow Woman through her statement that “Yellow Woman becomes a symbol of renewal through liaison with outside forces” (Rouff 73). In Silko’s novel Ceremony, Yellow Woman is embodied through the character Ts’eh. While Ts’eh follows the traditional criteria of a Yellow Woman to some extent, she also broadens her role as a Yellow Woman and represents themes beyond those of tribal alienation and connection to the spiritual world.  

      Ts’eh helped connect the main character of Ceremony, Tayo, to his past, present, and future as well as the earth and spirits associated with his life. Ceremony is about a young man struggling to find his identity in life and rid himself of his past demons. The primary struggle that Tayo faces regarding his identity is the fact that he is of mixed race, half Native American and half Caucasian. Throughout the story, Tayo is striving to find his liminal space; striving to find his identity as a person and accept his own race. Ts’eh is able to teach Tayo how to overcome the sadness and torment he was experiencing regarding the deaths of Rocky, his cousin, and Josiah, his uncle. While Tayo was not responsible for either of their deaths, he struggled with guilt because he was with them when they died. The love his feels for Ts’eh helps him overcome this guilt:
              “…now the old memories were less than the constriction of a single throat muscle. She was with                  him again, a heartbeat unbroken where time subsided into dawn, and the sunset gave way to the                  stars, wheeling across the night. The breaking and crushing were gone, and the love pushed                          inside his chest, and when he cried now, it was because she loved him so much” (Silko 211).
Little is revealed about Ts’eh when she is first introduced. Tayo immediately felt drawn to her not knowing her name nor from whence she came, yet he spends the night with her. Ts’eh embodies the characteristics of a Yellow Woman as she acts like a spiritual guide for Tayo and connects him to nature and the spiritual realm. Ts’eh’s connection to nature are apparent even in her first introduction. Ts’eh appears at the base of a mountain and refuses to reveal her name until she and Tayo have traveled to the top of the mountain. She then reveals that she is a Montaña, meaning mountain. This distinct connection to nature follows the pattern of the traditional Yellow Woman. Furthermore, because of Ts’eh’s spiritual intuition, she often seems connected to other characters in the novel. This ability to utilize different mediums allows Ts’eh to have a strong connection to Tayo as she is able to teach him how to accept his past and move on to his future through his interactions with her. Additionally, Ts’eh follows the traditional Yellow Woman pattern as she temporarily left her family in order to be with Tayo. Through her association with nature and the spiritual world and her ability to teach the importance of this association to Tayo, Ts’eh does fit the mold of Silko’s traditional Yellow Woman.

       As previously mentioned, Silko derived her Yellow Woman story from Laguna stories. The practice of oral tradition plays a vital role in Native-American culture. Rouff writes, “Silko’s sources for her “Yellow Woman” story are not the published accounts but rather the oral ones passed on by members of her family” (Rouff 74). The use of oral tradition in Ceremony creates the spiderweb of connections between the different elements of the text and ties them together as a functional unit. Oral traditions bind the natural world and the spiritual world while also creating a sense of unity among people on earth. Ts’eh comes into play here as a Laguna Yellow Woman as she teaches Tayo to appreciate his cultural heritage, inclusive of oral tradition and myth. She makes Tayo stop and appreciate the stories that he has grown up with hearing and how they connect his past, present, and future through a draw to the spiritual and natural worlds. This once again, represents how Ts’eh holds many of the characteristics of the conventional Yellow Woman.

       Although Ts’eh does embody many of the attributes of the original Yellow Woman, Ts’eh does not fit into the exact mold of a Yellow Woman. Firstly, as Paula Gunn Allen pointed out, a Yellow Woman story is traditionally told from the perspective of the woman. Ceremony is written in Tayo’s perspective and that perspective does not change with the introduction of Ts’eh. Secondly, Ts’eh does not mention any rebellious acts that have alienated her from her tribe; she misses her family and speaks fondly of them (Silko 207). The readers are also left to assume that Ts’eh returned to her tribe after her encounter with Tayo. In this novel, Ts’eh’s sexual encounter with Tayo was not presented as an improper act, but rather as a means to healing. By presenting this story through Tayo’s perspective, Silko effectively highlighted the beauty of the Yellow Woman and the good that she represents. Ts’eh was not presented as a woman outcast by her tribe due to improper actions, rather, she was presented as a beautiful creature of love, peace, and acceptance. “The breaking and crushing were gone, and the love pushed inside his chest, and when he cried now, it was because she loved him so much” (Silko 211); Ts’eh’s purpose was to guide Tayo to peace. Tayo could not have succeeded in his ceremony if he had not encountered Ts’eh. The Yellow Woman taught Tayo how to accept himself, how to love, respect, and rely on nature, and ultimately how to complete his journey. Silko successfully illustrates Ts’eh in a light that focuses on the fact that Ts’eh is an independent and empowering individual. While Ts’eh embodies some of what a traditional Yellow Woman stands for, she does not follow the exact criteria of a traditional Yellow Woman story. Silko effectively provides a character with a purpose to benefit the main character of the story and manages to represent her in a manner so that the readers are left with no negative connotations towards her.

       Silko designed Ts’eh for a message that transcends the traditional story of a woman disconnected from her tribe and reconnected to the spiritual realm; she draws deeper implications to gender and race. Although Ts’eh is not present for a large portion of the book, Silko utilizes Ts’eh to reinforce some of the novel’s principle themes. Ceremony is focused on a Native American man and his journey to discovering his identity, or “self.” Silko employs Ts’eh in order to reinforce this theme. However, Ts’eh is meant not only for the benefit of Tayo, but also for the benefit of females in general. Ts’eh exceeds the purpose of Silko’s traditional Yellow Woman and functions to draw in a theme regarding gender. Ts’eh teaches Tayo how to accept himself for his mixed race and celebrate each detail of his personal identity. As a woman, Ts’eh is able to demonstrate that self-acceptance is the same for both males and females; one must love and appreciate the structures that make he or she unique. Self-acceptance also requires that the individual moves on from the hauntings of his or her past. For Tayo, he had to learn how to move on from the guilt that he felt over Rocky and Josiah’s deaths and realize that even though they are dead, he can continue to love them and focus on the good that he experienced with these individuals during their lifetimes. Silko excellently uses a female to teach these lessons to Tayo, which ultimately assists in blurring the boundaries of gender discrimination or inferiority. Silko gave females a platform through Ts’eh in a text that is primarily dominated by males. Ts’eh is a strong, independent character who is working to the benefit of another person. Leslie Marmon Silko illustrates what could be called a symbiotic relationship; although they are of the same species, their gender difference as well as Ts’eh’s distinct connection to the natural and spiritual world outlines an unambiguous connection and trust between Tayo and Ts’eh. Silko does not make one less important than the other; Ts’eh, representative of women, and Tayo, representative of men, are equal. They both benefit each other for the greater good of self-worth and cultural acceptance. Clearly, Ts’eh is meant to delineate a message far beyond the established Yellow Woman story of tribal alienation and adventure.

       Finally, Ts’eh is further involved in Silko’s theme of racial identity. Ceremony is a story of how a person of mixed racial identity discovered personal acceptance through his cultural and personal past, present, and future. This novel is a testimony to how the earth and its inhabitants work together to create a peaceful and unified environment. This unification is brought about through the connection and acceptance of cultural background, a respect for the elements of nature, and an embrace of personal identity as well as different people groups. Ts’eh assists in reinforcing this purpose as she represents female identify, a connection to the spiritual realm, and a oneness with nature.

       While many different viewpoints regarding Silko’s purpose behind her use of the character Ts’eh stand, Ts’eh clearly embodies themes that extend beyond Silko’s conventional Yellow Woman character. Ts’eh does act as a Yellow Woman through her spiritual connection to Tayo and her ability to encourage his appreciation of nature. She draws ties between his personal identity and the identity of Native Americans by demonstrating to him how to accept his past, learn from it, and move on to the future. However, Silko gives Ts’eh a platform beyond that of a Yellow Woman and is able to teach the vitality of racial acceptance; she provides Tayo a deeper appreciation for his culture by implementing the importance of oral tradition and storytelling in their relationship. Furthermore, Silko is able to communicate the importance of gender nondiscrimination through Ts’eh as this Yellow Woman demonstrates strength and independence in her relationship with Tayo. Many Native American tribes are matrilineal, meaning they are based on kinship with the female line, rather than the more common patrilineal society. Ts’eh represents this principle way of living as she acts as a strong, guiding force in her relationship with Tayo; she has the ability to teach him and connect him to different worlds. Thus, Silko pushed the boundaries of the traditional Yellow Woman with her character Ts’eh in Ceremony through her inclusivity of themes relating to gender and race.

Works Cited

Allen, Paula Gunn. “Kochinnenako in Academe: Three Approaches to Interpreting a Keres Indian Tale.”                Critical Essays, edited by Melody Graulich, Rugers University Press, 1993, p. 83-85, Google Books.

Rouff, A. LaVonne. “Ritual and Renewal: Keres Traditions in Leslie Silko’s “Yellow Woman.”” Critical                    Essays, edited by Melody Graulich, Rutgers University Press, 1993, p. 69-79, Google Books.

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. Deluxe ed., vol. 2, Penguin Books; Anniversary Edition, 2006.

Ts’eh: A Traditional Yellow Woman?

​By: Lydia Bradley