​Griffin Saunders

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                                                                                      Works Cited  

Silko, Leslie. Ceremony. ISBN 978-1-4406-2182-6, New American Library, 1978, Barnes and Noble, www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ceremony-leslie-marmonsilko/1100470410?ean=9781440621826.  

  

  

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko features a diverse cast of characters from a variety of backgrounds. The main character of the story is Tayo, A young man from the Laguna Pueblo who has lived his life in the liminal space between Native American and White American cultures. Through the development of his story, we see many times how his identity influences his decisions, and drives the conflict of the novel. At first, we see that Tayo struggles with accepting his Identity. He tries to be one culture or the other, not wanting those around him to acknowledge his other half.by the end of the novel and through his healing experiences he has learned to accept both halves of himself and recognizes the importance of both cultures in his life. Without the contribution both cultures made toward his healing, Tayo would not have been able to reconcile his past.  

The trauma that Tayo overcame in the novel originates in his time spent in the Philippines during the Vietnam War. A stressful situation that was thoroughly worsened by the loss of his friend's life. He saw countless violent acts and experience the horrors of a death march through unending rain and miles of jungle. His one prayer during that time was that the rain would stop. Following the war and his return to the United States, he had undiagnosed PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), yet each group he sought to find comfort in had turned him away. Other members of the Laguna pueblo turned him away for his mixed parents, service in a war the opposed, and service for the white man’s endeavors. His fellow veterans saw him as an outsider in their group. The sought to relive their “glory days” of the war, speaking fondly and proudly (and vulgarly) of their time spent in service. To the group of veterans, Tayo acted as a call that it was over, which was not something they wanted to think about. Tayo sought to remind them of what they were before the war, and what they have returned to being, which was news they did not like to receive.  

Despite his liminal life, Tayo actively tries to fit into other groups, and have people understand him. At a bar near the pueblo, several Native American veterans are telling their stories of the war and glorifying the time when they were actually treated halfway decent, instead of like Native Americans. Emo and the others even try to let Tayo join in on their fun and ask him to tell a story of what it was like for him. Instead of going along with the others however,  

Tayo chose to speak honestly. “I’m half-breed. I’ll be the first to say it. I’ll speak for both sides. First time you walked down the street in Gallup of Albuquerque, you knew. Don’t lie. You knew right away. The war was over, the uniform was gone. All of a sudden that man at the store waits on you last, makes you wait until all the white people bought what they wanted. And the white lady at the bus depot, she’s real careful now not to touch your hand when she counts out your change. You watch it slide across the counter at you, and you know. Goddamn it! You stupid sonofabitches! You know!” (50) Tayo knows that he is treated slightly better than other natives due to his lighter skin color, but even he is treated poorly by others. He wants the others to be honest with him, and actually speak on how horrible they are treated. The others still see Tayo as an outsider to their group due to this difference in cultural identity and Tayo knows this. He desperately wants to fit in with a group, for others to understand his pain, and for others to share theirs with him. Instead, this encounter only furthered the gap between himself, his fellow veterans, and the white people of the bar. He was given an opportunity to act like Emo, and had he chosen that side of his identity, the story could have ended.  

We also see members of the pueblo resenting him. His mixed parenthood was already a hindrance, but with his mother leaving him, and having never met his father, it left room for gossip to grow. His Auntie tried her best to prevent the gossip from developing, and to protect Tayo from hearing what the others had to say. It was not enough however, and Tayo understood growing up that he was different from the members of the pueblo. Old Grama herself made sure that Tayo knew he was different. When She was alone with just him and Rocky, she would openly treat Rocky better, giving things to do and play with, while Tayo was left to sit alone on the other side of the room. “[S]he (Old Grandma) would not let Tayo go outside or play in another room alone. She wanted him close enough to feel excluded, to be aware of the distance between them (68).” It was not as simple as him being overlooked by the others of the pueblo, there were those Like old Grandma who sought to make it clear to Tayo that he wasn’t wanted due to his difference.   

Tayo experiences a ceremony that matches his own identity, it is not fully Native American, and incorporates therapy methods used by white doctors. Several times, Tayo has received treatment from white doctors trying to help him overcome his past. Additionally, traditional healers have tried tribal methods of healing him. In each of the situations, Tayo improved marginally, only to become far worse mentally only shortly after his treatment. In the case of white doctors, he often felt as though they did not actually care about his wellbeing as a person, though they had known details of what he went through. “They sent me to this place after the war. It was white. Everything in that place was white. Except for me. I was invisible. But I wasn’t afraid there. I didn’t feel things sneaking up behind me. I didn't cry for Rocky or Josiah. There was no voices and no dreams. Maybe I belong back in that place” (110) When Doctors tried to heal him, Tayo felt as if there was something missing from it, as if the treatment were detached from him as the patient. “[W]hile the white doctors were telling him he could get well and he was trying to believe them: medicine didn’t work that way, because the world didn’t work that way. His sickness was only part of something larger, and his cure would be found only in something great and inclusive of everything.” (113) Believing himself as something greater than a pill could fix, his belief brought the answer on how to heal him.   

The ceremony brought him through several circles, one to take him through each world. Each time he moved between worlds, an aspect of him was repaired, cleansing him, and purifying him of the witchery that caused his affliction. This ceremony was preceded and followed by standard therapeutic methods of asking Tayo to describe what he has gone through and how he feels and felt about it. He had explained during this therapy that neither doctors nor traditional healers had been able to help him, and he shows us that in his subconscious each time it failed because he had either been treated as a white man, or as an Indian, not as both. Betonie and Nightswan are able to understand that he does not wanted to be treated as either group, as he has lived his life belonging to neither. He is given what he believes is an opportunity to atone for what he has done through the ceremony, as this time he is addressed as having done something wrong. Each other time he has been told that there is no problem, and he is not responsible for anything, but through Betonie’s ceremony he is given the chance to make things right in his own mind.  

It is integral to Tayo as a character that he was mixed race of White and Native American. Having never fit into any group gave him the ability to adopt the perspective of an outsider regarding the interactions between both groups. He could see how the whites were mistreating the tribes, but held the belief that it was not their fault. Witchery was to blame in his mind, something far older than the White people, and a Native concept. It is his outside perspective that drives him as a character, as his desire is for both sides to understand one another. While in uniform, Indian soldiers were treated the same as white soldiers, which serves as proof for him that it is possible for everyone to get along. His status as a person of mixed race gives him the ability to choose which identity he would like to fit into, even if the others did not want him. Had he wanted to, he could have assimilated into the group of his choosing, and overtime he would have blended in. Yet it is because of his ability to choose that he refuses to. He recognizes the discrimination both groups have shown him is because of his ability to be either. Several times in the novel he came close to becoming one or the other, in the bar for example, yet each time he returned to his path of neither.  

Tayo is neither White or Native American, he is both. Tayo’s work throughout the novel shows that this is not merely a combination of the two, rather it is its own banner to be under. He displays to the reader multiple times that having the ability to choose does not represent a desire to choose. He could not have been saved from his past had either group tried to help, as he had learned that neither group really wanted to help him. Both groups would have helped an individual who fit in with them, et he never truly fit. Once he received attention from Nightswan and Betonie where they treated him like a real person instead of a “half-breed,” he began to recover. The more they reinforced his individuality and the value he holds as a being separate from the pueblo, the veterans, and the whites. His mental condition greatly stabilized. In the finale of the book, he is presented with his final trial to determine what his Identity truly was. He could have gone to talk with those looking for him and fallen into the trap lain by Emo, or he could have confronted Emo. Following with his identity, Tayo made the decision to do neither and hid, preventing the witchery from claiming another and cementing in his own mind that to be an outsider is all right. Had Tayo not lived his life as an outsider who never fully belonged to either group, had he not faced endless discrimination and tribulations, it is clear that he would not have chosen his final path. Had he truly belonged to one of the groups, the story would have ended with Tayo dead, imprisoned, or worse. Tayo came to a conclusion that only someone who had lived on the edge between two could have.