Ceremony: Section 3 Summary & Analysis

Rocky takes Tayo to an army recruitment meeting, where the recruiter seems disappointed to be talking to a small group of Indian men. Rocky animatedly asks the recruiter how to become a pilot while Tayo looks at the pamphlets. Rocky then asks the recruiter if he and “his brother” can sign up together. This is the first time that Rocky has ever called Tayo “brother.”

Tayo went to live with Auntie when he was 4 years old. He can remember small details about his mother, her smell, the way her hug felt. Tayo’s mother had told him that he would be happy living with a new brother, but Rocky was angry when Tayo showed up at their door. Josiah and Old Grandma treat Rocky and Tayo equally, but Auntie gives Rocky preferential treatment whenever no one is looking. Tayo thinks Auntie wants Tayo to be just close enough to the family to see how he is being excluded.

When Rocky and Tayo started school, Rocky pulls away from everyone in the family. Tayo understands Auntie much better than Rocky does, spending more time with her while Rocky plays sports at school. Auntie tries to be the perfect Christian, but the individual focus of the European religion keeps Auntie apart from her native community. In fact, the Laguna Elders think Auntie should have been able to bring Little Sister back to proper life in the Laguna community, and helped Little Sister give up alcohol and form a suitable relationship with a Native man instead of sleeping with white men. Auntie chose to focus on her own individual purity instead of helping her whole family.

Little Sister felt so much shame for the ways white people describe the savagery of Indians that she tries to act white by drinking and sleeping with white men. This humiliation reflects on the rest of the Laguna community, and no one can have any peace until Auntie brings Little Sister back into harmony with the tribe once more. Instead of doing so, Auntie tells Tayo stories of his mother’s wild days and refuses to let Tayo keep a photo of his mother. Josiah finds Tayo crying over the lost photo, but Tayo is too ashamed to admit to Josiah why he is so upset.

The novel returns to the poem of the Corn Mother story. The people cannot follow Hummingbird into the world below, so Hummingbird tells them how to create a messenger. They must fill a jar with dirt, corn flour and water, then repeat the incantation “After four days you will be alive” four times.

The army recruiter questions whether Rocky and Tayo are really brothers, due to Tayo’s green eyes, but Rocky insists. Rocky and Tayo enlist and then head back to the ranch. Tayo starts to have second thoughts, remembering that he is supposed to stay and help Josiah with the ranch after Rocky graduates. Auntie is angry at their enlistment, but tells Tayo he can go on the condition that he keeps Rocky safe.

A month before Tayo and Rocky graduate high school, Josiah makes a $500 deal with Ulibarri, a Mexican rancher, to buy cattle. Tayo helps Josiah pick out 20 of the best cows and the two men start to herd the small group back to their ranch. Josiah is excited at the prospect of breeding these stronger, hybrid cattle instead of the weak Hereford breed. Josiah laughs at the scientific books about cattle breeding, trusting native wisdom more than white studies. Yet Rocky believes that white scientists are far more knowledgeable about the best care for these animals.

Auntie is also angry about the cattle deal, thinking that Josiah has somehow been tricked by Ulibarri and a Mexican woman who works with Ulibarri. Auntie gets ready to go to Church, muttering about how the entire town will be gossiping about Josiah and the Mexican woman. Tayo thinks that Auntie appreciates the chance to feel more righteous than her family.

Josiah and Tayo unload the cows at their pasture and the herd nervously clumps as far from the truck as possible. They leave the cows to settle in and come back to check on them a week later. The cows are no where to be found, having broken through the pasture fence to look for water. Josiah is proud of this wildness, taking it as a sign that these cattle are survivors. The cattle constantly move south, presumably trying to return to their first home.

That June, Josiah decides to brand the cattle, adding a small mark to the large butterfly brand that the Mexican ranch used. Some of the cows have had calves, and Tayo can see the strong Hereford shoulders mixed with the hybrid cattle’s lithe athletic build in the babies.

Josiah goes to see the Mexican woman to thank her again for letting him know that Ulibarri had cattle to sell. Josiah had fallen in love with her the past spring, enchanted by her hazel eyes. The Corn Mother story breaks in to explain how a fly was born in the jar. Hummingbird takes Fly with him down to the fourth world to talk to Corn Mother. The novel then moves back to Josiah and the Mexican woman, as Josiah met her at Lalo’s bar in Cubero and then could not get her face out of his head.

The Mexican Woman, called Night Swan, tells Josiah all about her past as a dancer in cantinas across the Southwest. The first time she enchanted a man with her dancing, his wife found out and Night Swan was run out of the town of Las Cruces. This man was a parasite, feeding off of Night Swan’s energy to distract from his own empty life. Night Swan danced wherever she could, feeling how her dances could restore balance to the land. After Night Swan had a daughter, and then a granddaughter, she decided to retire in Cubero because she liked the view of the mountain Tse-pi’na.

The people of Cubero do not entirely trust Night Swan, seeing her as a whore, but the men visit her often. The women of Cubero content themselves with gossiping about what the old Indian Josiah does the many times his truck is parked outside of Night Swan’s apartment. Auntie is livid about the rumors, claiming that Old Grandma is scandalized by what the town is saying about Josiah. Tayo knows that Old Grandma does not care what people say about their family because she already knows all the juicy gossip about everyone else in New Laguna.

The cattle take so much of Josiah’s time that he can no longer sneak away to see Night Swan. Josiah hires another ranch hand to help with the sheep camp while he focuses on the cattle. The ranch hand, Mike, is an excellent worker, but Auntie does not trust him because he is an Apache. Mike leaves the ranch to become a mechanic in California and Josiah is forced to hire his alcoholic cousin Pinkie to watch the sheep.

That summer, Tayo and Josiah spend their days in the fields while Rocky ostensibly prepares for his football scholarship at the university. Tayo knows that Rocky is really planning to go into the army, and spending his afternoons in Paguete with his new girlfriend. Auntie frets about the girlfriend, but can’t reprimand her favored son. Meanwhile, old Grandma starts to notice Josiah’s infatuation with “that Mexican woman” and tells him a cautionary story about their old dog that was run over on the highway because he was chasing a she-dog in heat.

Tayo thinks back to the day they buried his mother, a dry day much like the drought they are currently having. As they left the graveyard, Josiah had given Tayo a candy cane and told him not to cry. Now, Tayo tries all the rituals he can find to help end the dry spell. He follows the stories of cloud priests for what helped in past droughts, and is rewarded with cooler air. Tayo watches a spider come out to drink from a small spring and thinks about the story where Spider Woman helps Sun Man win the storm clouds back from the Gambler. Tayo doesn’t know if he should believe the old stories after his white education, but he still feels the stories’ truth in his gut.

The next day, Tayo sees storm clouds gathering by the mountain Tse-pi’na. All the ranch hands gather to watch the rain start falling. Josiah gives Tayo a note to deliver to Night Swan, as he was going to see her today but the rain means he has too much work to do on the ranch.

Tayo goes to Night Swan’s apartment in Cubero, hearing her Victrola play a Spanish record singing “y volveré” (I will return). Night Swan opens the door wearing a blue kimono and Tayo is overwhelmed by the blue of Night Swan’s room, the breeze from the window, and Night Swan’s perfume in the air. Tayo and Night Swan make love while the rain patters on the roof. Night Swan then tells Tayo that she has been watching him because of his hazel eyes. Tayo explains that the other kids teased him for his “Mexican eyes,” but Night Swan reminds Tayo that fools are always afraid of change. She says that Tayo is now “a part of it,” though Night Swan does not explain what “it” is.