Ceremony, Tradition and Adaptation Theme Analysis

The title of Ceremony refers to the ceremonies and rituals that, according to the novel, all humans must perform in order to keep themselves and the world happy and healthy. These ceremonies can be formal or informal, but all, the novel asserts, are intensely important for both the well-being of individual people and the larger world that they live in. Ceremonies are performed through physical actions, such as a hunter giving salt to a deer he has killed. But these physical actions connect to a deeper metaphysical understanding, viewpoint, or way of being in the world. For instance, in giving salt to the fallen deer, the hunter enacts his respect for the deer’s spirit, and more broadly acknowledges the earth and the taking of life. The ceremony physically connects the hunter to both the deer he hunts and the world in which he hunts. A ceremony doesn’t just represent the connectedness of things; performing the ceremony maintains and strengthens that connection.

The novel, however, depicts a world in which these ceremonies are in crisis, whether from abandonment or loss of power. Some Native Americans, such as Rocky, believe they need to forget the old ceremonies in order to succeed in the white world. Rocky dismisses ceremonies like the deer ritual as superstition in the face of modern science, but in so doing loses connection to the earth and his own history. That Rocky dies in World War II while Tayo does not, the novel implies that without the ceremonies and the connection they provide, Rocky could not survive.

But the crisis also results from the fact that the ceremonies have lost their power: the traditional ceremony for warriors who have killed in battle that the medicine man Ku’oosh performs in order to try to heal Tayo doesn’t work. The solution to this crisis arises through the character of Betonie, a different medicine man who lives in the city of Gallup and is therefore more knowledgeable of the modern world. While some Native Americans in the novel believe that the ceremonies must stay exactly the same in order to retain their power, Betonie believes that ceremonies must change along with the world in order to be able to connect to that new world. And so Betonie sets Tayo out to find and build a new ceremony, one with the power to heal both Tayo and the world. The novel affirms Betonie’s beliefs through Tayo’s success. Only through the adaptation and evolution of the specific content and form of ceremonies can those ceremonies continue to offer connection to the deeper metaphysical truths and needs. Respect for the old traditions coupled with an awareness of the new world brings true healing and keeps humanity in harmony with the world.

Finally, it is worthwhile to consider how the idea of ceremonies functions in a novel that connects its main character Tayo’s imbalance and need for healing with the world’s own imbalance and need for healing. While Tayo’s story is brought to conclusion by the novel and he finds the healing he seeks, the post-WWII world receives no such clear resolution. Tayo’s healing, after all, doesn’t mean that the atomic bomb has ceased to exist in the real world, or that world war has been forever put behind us. But the novel’s insistence that ceremonies can both heal the individual and the world creates a vague feeling that Tayo’s healing should correspond to a healing of the world. What resolves this tension is the recognition that Silko means for Ceremony novel itself to be a new kind of ceremony – that reading the novel can offer the healing and connection to address the destructive imbalance that Silko sees in the world.