- Ceremony Leslie Marmon Silko Pdf
- Ceremony Leslie Marmon Silko Characters
- Ceremony Leslie Marmon Silko Pdf
- Ceremony Leslie Marmon Silko Pdf
Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony opens with a defense of storytelling. Storytelling is a way of making the world, a way of protecting self and culture. Ceremony itself takes part in this process, telling the story of Tayo, a young Native American come home from WWII and severely. Ceremony is a novel by Leslie Marmon Silko that was first published in 1977. Ceremony Returning home to the Laguna Pueblo reservation from World War II, via a Veteran's Hospital, Tayo must find a way to cure himself of his mental anguish, and to bring the rain back to his community. Combining prose and poetry, Ceremony interweaves the individual story of Tayo and the collective story of his people. Leslie Marmon Silko was born in Albuquerque in 1948 of mixed Laguna Pueblo, Mexican, and white ancestry. She grew up on the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. Her other books include Almanac of the Dead, Storyteller, and Gardens in the Dunes. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Grant.
Ceremony Leslie Marmon Silko Pdf
CeremonyIn Silko’s “Ceremony” the scene at the mine includes traditional songs, prayers, dances, drums, ritual movements, and
movement, that often have a hypnotic effect, especially through repetition. Participants in such ceremonies can reach an
and emotion are all one.
Ceremonies are held for many reasons, including for changes in season, for crops, and for 'purification,' especially of
disorder; he needs help to return to his tribal ways.
The mine scene, depicts the final ceremony in his purification. In The Sacred Hoop, Paula Gunn Allen states that Tayo's
rituals to heal his personal illness, the deterioration of the physical landscape, and the disintegration of the community.
Leroy, and Pinkie torture Harley.
Drumming occurs in the scence as Pinkie slams a tire iron repeatedly on the hood of the car. There is repetition, a
This part of the ceremony climaxes with Emo laughing and Pinkie stepping on Harley's throat. The wind suddenly kicks up
also a participant in the ceremony. At this moment, Tayo speaks to himself and addresses the universe. He sees the
to reach a greater awareness of himself and his role in life.
The sacrifice of Harley is vital for Tayo to witness and to understand as part of his purification ceremony. Until that
in time to help his grandfather, Josiah, the land would have received rain and his people would not be suffering from
blessing on the people, not their destruction'. By witnessing the sacrifice, Tayo begins to understand that Harley made
and proceed with his purification rituals.
Emo and his friends leave the scene, but the ceremony continues. Tayo begins to move, even though he is exhausted.
community within the tribe. Tayo has learned through the ceremony at the mine that he is not alone. He has learned that
to take meaning from the tribal customs. Purified, he is now ready to join the tribe. He heads to the elders in the village
middle of such works of prose fiction as Ceremony.
She makes little use of simile and metaphor in her verse, with image and narration being the key elements. Her
poems. Silko herself denies that some of her poems are poems, seeing them instead as stories placed on the page with
Short Bio
The world of Silko's poetry is very much shaped by a Native American consciousness. Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico,
Though regarded as one of the most acculturated of the pueblos, Laguna still possesses a strong sense of history and
the pueblo, Silko's 'great-grandpa Marmon' among them), it is not surprising that it has produced not only Silko but also
Rather than viewing this heritage as a curse, Silko has used European literary forms to move toward the strength of the
times the two blend. The boundary lines between the real world and the world of legends and between the modern and
changes brought by Western civilization and a lastingly strong natural environment (of which the Native American is part)
Bear Story
Changing is an important theme in Silkos work. 'Bear Story' tells of how the bears can call people to them and make which she grew up with and which she always returns to) who are changers, who make others change, and who can
Silko is also a writer who celebrates the strength of women, and the title of her first book, Laguna Woman, underscores
Anaya Marmon, the women in Silko's poems are strong, independent, even wildly indomitable.
Ceremony Leslie Marmon Silko Characters
Where Mountain Lion Lay Down with Deer
Ceremony Leslie Marmon Silko Pdf
In such poems as 'Where Mountain Lion Lay Down with Deer' we see Silkos non-Western sense of time. Things fromI smell the wind for my ancestors
pale blue leaves
crushes wild mountain smell.
Returning
up the gray stone cliff
where I descended
a thousand years ago
Returning to faded black stone
where mountain lion lay down with deer.
The image of the mountain lion and the deer may remind one of the biblical lion and lamb, but the animals have different The old ones who remember me are gone
the old songs are all forgotten
and the story of my birth.
How I danced in snow-frost moonlight
distant stars to the end of the Earth ...
Her words are not a lament, however. They do not convey a sense of loss but rather a deep continuity which goes
for the Native American way—not a way which is gone, but one which continues beyond time, changing and unchanged.
References
Velie, A. R. Four American Indian Literary Masters: N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Gerald
Works by Silko
Storyteller (poems and short stories) 1981
Laguna Woman (poems) 1974
Ceremony (novel) 1977
Almanac of the Dead (novel) 1991
Sacred Water (nonfiction) 1993
Yellow Woman (nonfiction) 1993
Ceremony interweaves the individual storyof Tayo and the collective story of his people. As Tayo's journeyunfolds, it is paralleled by poems telling old stories.
The trauma of thinking he saw his uncle Josiah's faceamong a crowd of Japanese soldiers he was ordered to shoot, andthen of watching his cousin Rocky die, drove Tayo out of his mind.A period of time in a Veterans' Hospital gets him well enough toreturn to his home, with his Grandmother, his Auntie, and her husbandRobert. This is the family unit that raised him after his mother,who had conceived him with an unknown white man, left him for goodat the age of four. In his family's home Tayo faces not only theirdisappointment at the loss of Rocky, but also his continued grievingover his favorite uncle Josiah's death. He also contends with hisguilt over a prayer against the rain he uttered in the forests ofthe Philippines, which he thinks is responsible for the six-yeardrought on the reservation.
As he slowly recuperates, Tayo realizes that he is notalone. His childhood friends Harley, Leroy, Emo, and Pinkie whoalso fought in the war contend with similar post-traumatic stress,self-medicating with alcohol. The company is little comfort. Hisold friends spend their drunken hours reminiscing about how greatthe war was and how much respect they got while they were in uniform.These stories only make Tayo think about the tremendous discrimination theNative Americans face at the hands of the whites, whom they nonethelessseem to admire, and he is even more saddened and infuriated. Justas Tayo begins to give up hope and to wish he could return to theVA hospital, his grandmother calls in the medicine man, Ku'oosh.Ku'oosh performs for Tayo a ceremony for warriors who have killedin battle, but both Ku'oosh and Tayo fear that the ancient ceremoniesare not applicable to this new situation.
Tayo is helped but not cured by Ku'oosh's ceremony. Itprompts him to consider his childhood, especially the summer beforehe left for the army. Although Auntie did her best to keep the twoboys separate, Tayo and Rocky became close friends, and the summerafter they graduated from high school, they enlisted in the armytogether. That summer, Josiah fell in love with Night Swan, a Mexican womanwho lived just outside the reservation. At her urging, he investedin a herd of Mexican cattle, which Tayo helped him to care for.As so often happens, there is a drought that summer. Having heardthe old stories of how droughts are ended, Tayo goes to a springand invents a rain ceremony. The following day it rains. In additionto helping the crops and the cattle, the rain keeps Josiah fromvisiting Night Swan. He asks Tayo to bring her a note. Tayo deliversthe note, and in the process is seduced by Night Swan.
Realizing that his ceremony has not been enough for Tayo, Ku'ooshsends him to the nearby town of Gallup to see another medicine man,Betonie, who knows more about the problems incurred by the contactbetween Native American and white cultures. Although he is skepticalof Betonie's strange ways and especially high connection with thewhite world, Tayo tells him of his what is troubling him. Betonielistens and explains that they must invent and complete a new ceremony.Tayo accepts. Betonie tells Tayo stores of the old ceremonies ashe performs them. Then Betonie tells Tayo stories of his grandfather,Descheeny, and the beginning of the creation of a new ceremony tostop the destruction the whites, an invention of Native Americanwitchery, are wreaking on the world.
Ceremony Leslie Marmon Silko Pdf
Betonie sends Tayo back home, reminding him that the ceremonyis still far from complete. When he meets Harley and Leroy on theway home, Tayo slips back into their lifestyle for a moment, but soonmoves on, heeding the signs Betonie told him of as he searches forJosiah's cattle. Tayo follows the stars to a woman's house. After spendinga night with the woman, Ts'eh, Tayo heads up into the mountains.He finds Josiah's cattle fenced into a white man's pasture. WhileTayo breaks into the pasture, the cattle run off to its far reaches,and Tayo spends all night looking for them. As dawn approaches,Tayo is about to give up when a mountain lion comes up to him. Tayohonors the mountain lion, and follows its tracks to the cattle.Just as he herds the cattle out of the pasture, two white patrolmenfind Tayo. Not realizing that the cattle are missing, but knowingTayo has trespassed, the patrolmen arrest Tayo. Before they canbring him to town, however, they notice the mountain lion tracksand let Tayo go in order to hunt it. As Tayo heads out, it beginsto snow. Tayo knows this will cover the tracks of his cattle andof the mountain lion, making the patrolmens' efforts fruitless. Onthe way down the mountain, Tayo meets a hunter, who lives with Ts'eh.When they arrive back at her house, she has corralled Tayo's cattle,which she keeps until Tayo and Robert return with a cattle truckto gather them up.
Returning home with Josiah's cattle, Tayo feels cured.However, the drought persists, and Tayo knows the ceremony is notcomplete. He goes to the family's ranch with the cattle, where hefinds Ts'eh . They spend the summer together, but as it draws toan end Robert visits and warns Tayo that Emo has been spreadingrumors about him. Shortly thereafter, Ts'eh tells Tayo that Emoand the white police are coming after him. Before she leaves, shetells Tayo how to avoid capture.
Following Ts'eh's instructions, Tayo easily evades thewhite police. Still running from Emo, he meets Harley and Leroy.Almost too late, Tayo realizes that Harley and Leroy have joinedforces with Emo. Running again, Tayo finds himself in an abandoneduranium mine. As he looks at the gaping hole left in the earth,Tayo realizes that this is the last station of his ceremony, theone where he incorporates an element of white culture, the mine.All he has to do is to spend the night there and the ceremony willbe complete. Soon Emo and Pinkie arrive. From a hiding place, Tayomust watch them torture Harley to death, and restrain himself fromkilling Emo in order to save Harley. With the help of the wind,Tayo survives the night. He returns home and goes back to Ku'oosh.After hearing all about Tayo's ceremony, Ku'oosh pronounces thatTs'eh was in fact A'moo'ooh, who has given her blessings to Tayoand his ceremony; the drought is ended and the destruction of thewhites is stopped. Tayo spends one last night in Ku'oosh's houseto finish off the ceremony, and then he returns home.