Ceremony: A Reconciliation

Time of Healing

Tayo’s psychological, emotional, and physical healing does not occur instantly.  The healing, like the stages of grief, go through distinct stages. First, Tayo admits he has a problem. Then, he seeks help from the medicine man, Betonie. Next, he sets goals through the ceremony. Through the ceremony, the crux of the novel, Tayo remembers the Mexican cattle that his uncle bought to live on their dusty land; he remembers they were stolen; he remembers he promised to find them.  Through recapturing the yellow spotted cattle, he not only ties himself back to the land but also balances himself. 

In the ceremony, he realizes that his enemies, who are witches, want to destroy the world.  The witches, enemies of all life and change, delight in the atom bomb, which unravels the basic building blocks of life.  These enemies delight in the destruction of the Japanese.  These enemies delight in the agonies of the returning soldiers, and the disappearing culture of the Laguna Pueblo.  Betonie tells Tayo that “they [the witches] will try to stop you from completing the ceremony” (125). Tayo’s ceremony, which includes the return of the cattle, affirms the validity of life, yes, even his life. 

Tayo’s Quest

As in any quest, Tayo does meet personified deities, the Corn Maiden and Hunter, who help him accomplish his task; however, the ceremony can only be completed by Tayo.  At the end of the ceremony, Tayo finds that his friends, who had been soldiers in W.W.II, had developed into the witches he had been fighting.

In the last dramatic scene, he watches one of his friends being skinned alive, realizing that if he tries to rescue his friend that he, Tayo, might be killed and that he, Tayo, might kill. Tayo realizes that he must not kill because if he kills any of his friends or enemies, the killing would completely destroy Tayo’s psyche, thereby destroying the land and his people. Instead of following the path of destruction, Tayo restores the land by doing nothing and by allowing his friends to make their own mistakes.

Silko’s novel emphasizes that each of us is responsible for our actions whether creative or destructive. She also shows that Tayo accomplishes the task of reconciling two cultures, while giving hope that we, whether conquered or conquerors, can learn to overcome our base desires and live in balance with the land and with each other: a hope that each of us will succeed in accomplishing our own ceremonies.

Works Cited

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. New York: Penguin Books, 1977.