Ceremony: Section 6 Summary & Analysis

The woman’s plants are another sort of ceremony that connects the woman to the land. Josiah’s story is associated with a place, showing how Native American stories connect them to the land as well. The story also explains how a hunter might escape an animal that might otherwise be dangerous, by treating it with kindness and respect rather than trying to harm it in order to preserve one’s own safety.

The fact that the cattle are in the north proves they were stolen, as the cattle always head south to their homeland if given their own choice. Taking the cattle is another example of how white people in the novel take whatever they want with no regard for how that might affect other people. Likewise, white people like the loggers use up natural resources with no thought for the environment or the well-being of future generations. Instead of acknowledging the ways that a delicate ecosystem depends on everything working together in harmony, white people put up more fences and try to split the entire world into individual possessions.

Tayo symbolically breaks through the barriers that white people put on the world, welcoming many cultures instead of keeping each separate. Josiah gave him the tool to make the hole in the fence, just as Josiah’s relationship with Night Swan helped Tayo learn to cross the arbitrary boundaries that society puts between people. Still, Tayo’s caution is a reminder that the dominant white culture will react negatively to tearing down these “fences” between cultures.

Racism against Native Americans (and all people of color) pervades everyone who lives in America, though Tayo has tried not to be a part of this damaging system. In order to break down a harmful hierarchy that places white people above all other people, it is necessary to recognize both that white people can be thieves and people of color may be honest and wealthy. The novel suggests that white people are so distracted by their own wealth that they do not see how their culture is actually empty in terms of true connection and empathy with other people. White people remain isolated by their fences while Tayo focuses on bringing those fences down.

Tayo’s epiphany about time highlights the way that stories work in the novel. Ceremony does not move smoothly through time, instead jumping forward and back as certain episodes in Tayo’s life or traditional stories comment on each other. The moral of these stories is always a moral that brings people in harmony with nature, rather than the anger that white culture has taught Tayo to feel against natural elements (like the horse) that do not bend to his will. That Tayo can see through his own anger is a sign that he is gradually bringing himself back to the old values.

In some senses, it is easier for Tayo to give in to white culture and believe the lies about useless Native American culture rather than spend so much energy fighting a powerful evil. White culture wants to convince Tayo that his Native heritage is crazy, because the less Tayo fights against white culture, the more power it will have. Tayo’s body gives up at these thoughts, showing that his physical health and mental health have a large effect on one another.

A mountain lion could have killed Tayo in his vulnerable state, but Tayo remains safe by following the old traditions. The mountain lion also seems to respect Tayo’s eyes, implicitly approving of cultural hybridity as a natural phenomenon. Tayo also gives respect to both the mountain lion and Pueblo rituals by marking the footprints with pollen, bringing him back into proper connection with nature.

Tayo herds his cattle calmly, using the cattle’s own nature to get them where he wants them to go. This harmonious arrangement is far better for both Tayo and the cattle. However, the white men in the distance disrupt this balance and cause both Tayo and his horse harm. White culture again destroys the natural relationship and understanding between people and animals in the natural world.

Tayo is once again in the hands of violent white culture, as he was when he was a soldier in WWII, the “white man’s war.” Though Tayo is only retrieving property that belongs to him and his family, the white patrolmen see it as trespassing because they assume they own everything. Tayo hopes that this very arrogance about their natural dominance over the world will keep the patrolmen distracted enough that they lose the cattle, symbolically losing the chance to participate in the life-affirming cultural hybridity that the cattle represent.

Now that he is back under the control of a white man, Tayo’s stomach is no longer able to function correctly, showing that being forced to follow the white man’s orders keeps Tayo from staying true to his Pueblo values and the traditional stories. The white man has all the power in this interaction, and chooses to be unkind to Tayo even though Tayo is clearly hurt, an example of how white culture at large takes advantage of Native Americans even as they have no sympathy for the struggles that Native Americans face.

The natural world is still a comfort for Tayo, giving him strength. For the white patrolmen, the natural world is only a resource that they can exploit for profit. The white men do not respect the mountain lion, only wanting to kill it for its skin.

The land provides everything Tayo needs to stay safe and healthy, and Tayo is able to read the signs of nature in order to prepare for its cycles. This relationship of mutual care is fundamentally lacking from white culture as portrayed by the novel. White people in Ceremony subjugate other people because they do not know how to live with nature in this way.

The snowstorm seems like nature’s response to the threat that the white patrolmen pose to Tayo and the mountain lion. While snow may seem like “bad” weather to the white patrolmen, Tayo sees that snow is necessary and can even be a blessing.

The hunter is a vision of Pueblo culture before the interference of white culture. Instead of being suspicious of Tayo as the white patrolmen were, the hunter welcomes Tayo to his house and gives him food. The relationship between the woman and the hunter is obviously close, but otherwise unclear at this point.

Tayo again cares for nature, acknowledging the responsibility that humans have to care for the land that in return gives them the resources for life. Tayo believes that the hunter is the woman’s husband, and feels that he has trespassed on that relationship by sleeping with the woman. Yet the woman is comfortable and wants to help Tayo, suggesting that the bond between the woman and the hunter is more complicated than Tayo sees. The woman and the hunter arrange their house and paddocks to work with nature rather than against nature the way Floyd Lee’s fence does.

The woman is completely comfortable with nature and treats the hybrid cows with respect, symbolically accepting the cultural hybridity that the cows represent. The white people who stole the cows used them only for their own amusement at great harm to the cows, showing how white culture is not a constructive environment for cultural hybridity or diversity.

Tayo has accomplished his goal of finding the cattle, but he has not yet finished the ceremony that will bring him true healing. The cows still have to be brought back to Tayo’s ranch so that Tayo can also return home. Furthermore, Tayo still believes that he has gone against nature by sleeping with another man’s wife.