Ceremony: Section 2 Summary & Analysis

Though the Pueblo people are supposed to honor family above all things, Auntie does not accept Tayo because he is of mixed blood. Auntie insists on cultural purity among the Pueblo people, ironically making her own family weaker in the process. Especially once Rocky is gone, Auntie focuses only on her own purity rather than welcoming the chance to strengthen her family in its time of mourning.

Auntie forcing Tayo in Rocky’s bed suggests that Auntie wants to have Rocky back instead of Tayo. Tayo is, of course, unable to be Rocky, and does not want to dishonor Rocky’s memory by trying. His upset stomach shows how Tayo is not in tune with his Native heritage or the world because he is so focused on the loss of Rocky and Josiah. In closing the blinds, Grandma shows that she understands Tayo’s lack of harmony with the outside world. The implication is that her connection to her own native history and senses gives her that understanding.

The silence and distance between Tayo and the other members of his family seems unnatural. The novel suggests that Tayo should be closer to his grandmother and to Robert. One way to recover from the tragedy of Josiah’s death would be to get closer to his remaining family, but Tayo is not yet able to do so. Grandmother stays faithful to traditional Pueblo ways by suggesting a medicine man, but Auntie shows both her distaste for the old rituals and her resentment over Tayo’s mixed blood by refusing.

Ku’oosh’s care with language reinforces the power of stories, as one wrong word can have undesired consequences. Ku’oosh explicitly mentions how the world is interconnected. The danger in these connections is that one misstep can be enough to knock the entire world out of balance. According to Auntie, Tayo has disrupted the world’s balance since his birth because of his mixed blood. She continues to believe in purity as the answer to imbalance.

Ku’oosh (and the novel) explicitly ties the war to white people, making “white culture” the cause of death and destruction. Modern, mechanical methods of war, in which death happens not face to face but from a distance, are far different from the old Pueblo ways of warfare. These changes mean that the ceremony meant to help warriors will no longer be enough to cure the sickness that comes from causing the loss of life. Life is sacred in the Pueblo philosophy – and even life taken in battle must be given respect – but the mass war of “white culture” that was on display in WWII seems to take life for granted.

Though Ku’oosh’s Scalp Ceremony may not have cured Tayo completely, Tayo’s conversation with the medicine man seems to have brought Tayo closer to peace with the old Native ways – indicated by the fact that Tayo’s stomach is better able to take in food and nourish Tayo’s body.

The call of alcohol is tempting because it allows the veterans to ignore or hide from the emptiness of their lives. When they are drunk, the veterans can pretend they are still a valued part of American society, the way they were as soldiers during the war. Acceptance in American society is shown through sexual desirability. Modern American culture, as seen in the actions of white women, was apparently happy to use Native Americans as soldiers (thus respecting the uniform), but does not accept them as people.

Tayo doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere due to his white blood, as white Americans treat him poorly for his Native American looks and other Native Americans distrust Tayo’s white heritage. Tayo, by speaking for both sides, has the potential to be a bridge between these two conflicting cultures. Yet the other veterans do not want to grapple with the difficult, though possibly valuable work of bringing cultures together.

White culture is portrayed as destructive within the novel because it does not accept any other cultures – it seeks only dominance. The other Native Americans have unfortunately internalized the lie that white culture should be dominant, as shown by their desire for white women more than any other sexual partners. Tayo’s inability to hate the Japanese who were supposedly his enemies shows that Tayo is willing to embrace different cultures, that he sees not other cultures as the enemy but hate itself as the enemy.

Tayo again brings the Philippine jungle and the Southwestern region together by conflating a Japanese soldier with an old Native American classmate. Tayo did not hear the gunshot that killed Rocky, mirroring the way he did not know if he had personally killed someone. Part of respecting the sanctity of life means bearing witness to death instead of ignoring it or allowing it to go unhonored.

The destructive force of crunching the grape seeds reminds Tayo of the battle field. The still flowing stream in the drought indicates that despite the fact that nature is out of balance, it still survives, has the potential to heal.

At the stream, Tayo literally comes back to the source of his Native heritage, starting a journey that will bring him back in harmony with the Pueblo traditions and the land that they live on. Yet this harmony means balance in the purest sense of the word. Even the wind and dust – ostensibly harmful aspects of the drought – are necessary for life. According to Josiah’s advice, Tayo can help end the drought by acting in the proper Pueblo traditions. Tayo drinking from the stream, bringing nature directly into himself, is a signal that he is starting to reconnect.

The Ck’o’yo magic can stand in for many things that distract the Pueblo people from caring for the land – that is, the Corn Mother – the way they should. The magic seems to represent all of the wonders of modern life that distance people from the work it takes to create things by promising instant gratification. Silko points out the ways that modern American culture focuses on the material things, harming people and the environment.

While darkness usually represents a space of fear or uncertainty, for Tayo the darkness offers space for reflection and peace. Again, Silko flips the literary device of using white for good and black for evil by making darkness a healing opportunity.

Tayo follows the old tradition (covering the deer’s head) by using a modern element (his jacket), showing how the ceremonies can be adapted to modern life. Rocky’s question of why Tayo covered the deer’s head is not a question about the action itself. It is a question about the sentiment behind the ritual, asking why it is even necessary to give respect to the deer when humans have weapons that Rocky believes makes them more powerful than nature.

Rocky shows how Native Americans can completely reject the old traditions in favor of “white culture.” At first, this seems to be a good thing for Rocky, as he is successful in all the ways that matter for modern America. Yet Rocky has to leave his native heritage behind to do so, suggesting that modern America has no place for Native peoples.

Rocky may be doubtful of the ceremonies, but he continues to do some of the most important actions. The cornmeal “nourishes” the deer’s spirit, just as the deer will give food to the Pueblo people. The ceremony forms a relationship of mutual care between the humans and the deer, rather than humans dominating nature as is typical in the white culture portrayed in the novel.

Rather than seeing silence as peace and meditation, Harley views silence as scary and dangerous – a sign that he has become addicted to white culture’s constant noise. Though Tayo’s true reasons for attacking Emo are left ambiguous here, the reasons other people ascribe to the violence show the damaging conception of Native Americans as savages who cannot handle modern life.

By intertwining Tayo’s story with the Corn Mother story, Silko asserts that Tayo’s “modern” story is just as vital to Pueblo culture as the Corn Mother story is. The parallels between the stories further suggests Silko’s ideas about how things both stay the same and must change, how adaptation of a story or ritual can in fact allow it to continue to access ancient truths and knowledge in a changing world. Put another way: the structure of Silko’s book reflects her ideas about the necessity of adaptation. At the same time, the Corn Mother story offers a kind of “interpretive key” for Tayo’s story: in this part, Hummingbird has to go down to the fourth world – a more spiritual world in the Pueblo cosmology – to find sustenance. People are not able to reach this fourth world because they have lost touch with their spiritual roots, just as Tayo and the Pueblo around him have.

Though the novel is sympathetic to the fact that Native Americans face oppression in modern America, Emo’s violent reaction is clearly the wrong response. Again, white women are used as the symbol for acceptance in America. Tayo thinks that white people do not “have droughts,” meaning that white people are privileged enough not to notice when the environment is not in proper balance to sustain farming. White people ignore the problem, or use overwhelming force to allow themselves to ignore it, thereby stripping the land further.

Humans may cause destruction to the land, but they also have the power to replenish it if they are careful. While it is a bit unorthodox for Tayo to realize this in the bathroom, it is another sign that the novel accepts natural processes without embarrassment, unlike modern “white” culture. Modern culture also surrounds sexual relationships in shame, choosing to prioritize cultural purity and keep Native Americans and white people separate. Though Emo wants to sleep with white women as a status symbol, he hypocritically hates any sign that Native American blood has been diluted with white blood.

Native Americans may be able to sleep with white women, but they have to lie about their heritage to do so. This is another sign that Native Americans are not free to openly express their identities in modern American culture. Furthermore, it points to a future in which Native Americans will be unable to procreate or pass their Native heritage to another generation. Emo wants to believe that he is accepted, but he cannot hide his true identity forever, causing him to lash out in shame and anger.

Emo shows no respect for the lives he took, reducing entire people to the teeth he took from them. The white teeth call to mind a view of white culture that reduces people to tools. This dishonor is pushed even further when Emo praises the atomic bomb, a symbol of the worst selfish and destructive tendencies that the novel sees in white culture. Tayo’s memory compares the atomic bomb to a small child doing incredible damage to a garden. The people who died in the atomic bomb attacks were as powerless as the ants that Tayo killed by stomping on the melons.

Tayo’s reasons for attacking Emo are made clear her. Rather than Tayo being the crazed, drunken savage that people think he is because of the attack, he actually attacks Emo for dishonoring life and Pueblo philosophy. Slashing at Emo’s stomach shows that Emo is completely unconnected from the Pueblo stories and proper behavior. Yet the novel underscores the fundamental connections between all living things: though Tayo had righteous reasons for attacking Emo, it is impossible to hurt Emo without also hurting himself. The violence Tayo has done will come back to haunt him in more than just an injury to his hand, and the novel is clear here that even if Emo is monstrous, Tayo’s violent response is not one that will bring healing of any sort.