Silko’s Ceremony as the Plot of Tayo: Critical Analysis

Throughout Silko’s Ceremony, the plot of Tayo is one which comes to portray a multitude of ideas. Coming from a white father and a Laguna mother Tayo has spent most of his life being seen as an outsider, even amongst his own family, with one exception being Rocky. After these two men head to war, with only Tayo coming back, the reader thus sees Tayo has a character with ailments. With some early on believing PTSD is to blame, there is something more which is never exactly identified. This sickness attaches itself to Tayo and remains with him, only is it until Robert (Auntie’s husband), sends him to Betonie after a failed attempt from Ku’oosh. With this more modern ceremony that has changed with the times, Tayo embarks on his healing process with the four symbols he must encounter, ultimately culminating in a symbolic storytelling to the elders. Definitely a trying ceremony, this healing process is one which incorporated many difference aspects of Tayo, past and present, yet seeing the connections between the process gives the reader a telling role of how the ceremony is able to finally heal an ailing Tayo.

Chronologically, Tayo’s traumas began immediately at his conception, with his Laguna mother and white father breaking social norms of the times. Referred to by Auntie as “her dead sister’s half-breed child” (Ceremony, pg 27), most of the tension of Tayo being seen as an outsider does more than likely stem from his own aunt. A mixed-breed child with his distinct hazel eyes, Tayo already is seen as different when compared to the other children, especially his cousin Rocky. While the latter was certainly never distasteful, it was Auntie who had always made it known (between Tayo and herself) of her attitudes towards him. Even at roughly four years old, Auntie would hold Rocky closer to her when Josiah, Robert, or Grandma were not there; she “wanted him close enough to feel excluded, to be aware of the distance between them” (Ceremony, 62). Rocky was a clear cut favorite early on and was deemed most likely to succeed, and with him serving as a ‘brother’ to Tayo, there was only added pressure and bigger comparisons that were to be made. The fact as well that Tayo is an outsider to his new family serves to show just how lacking of a true family Tayo is. He had already been put in a bad situation early on in his childhood due to his mother, and from that point on his ‘home’ life served to act more as a detriment than a benefit.

Even continuing with the trend of Tayo’s mixed-blood, one central figure that acts as a catalyst to Tayo’s anger early on is Emo. Seen in Tayo’s darker, clouded days at the bar when talking about post-war America, it it easy to see what kind of man Emo truly is. An intriguing character, one can recognize that “Emo’s apparent sympathy with the cause of justice to Indians, but [also how] his habit of objecting Anglo domination in is in time exposed as a synthetic wolf hide, masking his hatred for Indian culture and for his Indian brothers” (Evasdaughter, pg 89). He is a phony, a man who reminisces so fondly of killing Japanese soldiers in World War II that it is enough to make Tayo (and the reader) uncomfortable, and perhaps angry as well. Even by the end of the novel, Emo’s internal rage affects him enough in his attacks on Tayo, which fortunately culminate in Tayo’s eventual successful healing. However, on this night at the bar Tayo does indeed hear more than he can handle, and yet again his mixed-blood is used against him as an insult, “[he] drinks like an Indian, and crazy like one too--but you aren’t shit, white trash. You love Japs the way your mother loved to screw white men” (Ceremony, 58). While Tayo attacks Emo here, it is once again seen by the end of the novel that Tayo’s healing incorporates a similar confrontation as well, one with a different ending.

With Tayo’s heritage serving as one particularly distinct trauma, it is of course World War II that has only added to his clouded-self the reader sees early on, a state which calls for any sort of treatment. When talking to the Army recruiter, “it was the first time in all the years that Tayo had lived with [Rocky] that Rocky had called him ‘brother’”(Ceremony, 60). Even at the dismay of Auntie, this was coincidental timing nonetheless, adding a sort of higher responsibility for Tayo to keep Rocky alive throughout the war. Unfortunately for Tayo, Rocky was killed in the war, which “had enraged him” (Ceremony, 94) beyond what he could handle. Whether it be how Rocky had died, or the mourning that was met by Tayo upon returning from the war, one outcome of Rocky’s death in the war was that “it didn’t take Tayo long to see the accident of time and space”(Ceremony, 25), it was supposed to be the other way around. Tayo was ‘supposed’ to be the one who did not return from war not Rocky, who had a multitude of possibilities lying in front of him when he would return. This survivor’s guilt of sorts remains with Tayo, only adding to his traumas that must be dealt with through his healing.

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With all of these traumas that Tayo had been dealing with, one of the first things that began the healing process was to meet with a medicine man. It was Grandma who had decided that “those white doctors haven’t helped [Tayo] at all…[and that] that boy needs a medicine man” (Ceremony, 30). While it was first Ku’oosh that attempted to help Tayo, not much that he had done was very effective, yet this may in fact be due to the outdated methods he was using. Throughout this ceremony, one key aspect that one can see from Ku’oosh was that this entire healing process was going to be one which was “important to all of us. Not only for [Tayo’s] sake, but for this fragile world” (Ceremony, 33). A key note, this entire process is one that does indeed show the fragility of the world around Tayo, it is Tayo who is going on a journey that will encompass the world around him in order to better him. Most importantly however, it was the meeting with Betonie in which Tayo’s more contemporary healing process would begin.

Almost immediately one recognizes the distinct difference between Betonie and Ku’oosh with how the ceremony is done. Betonie, unlike the latter, has deemed it necessary to adapt his ceremony with the times, changing it as the years go on rather than using the ingredients that Ku’oosh had tried. Upon meeting Betonie with his eyes “that were hazel like his own” (Ceremony, 109), Tayo had noticed the usage/ownage of a multitude of more modern items such as “old calendars, the sequences of years confused and lost” (Ceremony, 111). This change is indeed what Ku’oosh was lacking, and what will help kickstart the entire healing process. This Navajo medicine man still uses Native American methods, which is important as the Army doctors which had seen Tayo could not do anything other than diagnosing him with PTSD, when in all actuality Tayo had become enshrouded in a cloud that remained in him until this moment.

The two key factors that arise from Betonie’s ceremony come in the forms of the detailing of witchery and the four signs that Tayo must encounter. Concerning the former, it is witchery which “wants us to believe all evil resides with white people” (Ceremony, 122), and serves as a warning to Tayo that he must defend himself against any sort of evil. As one will see, the end of the novel highlights that it is once again Emo that serves as a final test of sorts to Tayo. Here, it is Emo who tempts Tayo to harm him yet again while at the abandoned mine, but unlike previous instances, Tayo stops himself from doing so. By harming Emo in any sort of way, Tayo would ultimately be tempted by the evil witchcraft which has corrupted his enemy. Emo’s plan is one which “plan[s] either to sacrifice or to corrupt Tayo” (Evasdaughter, pg 93). By this time, a moderately healed Tayo realizes he must not be tricked by this, and does not attack Emo, in turn playing a role in helping to complete the healing process.

As previously mentioned, it is the four symbols from Betonie’s that Tayo must encounter which plays an integral role in completing the healing process; The constellation of stars, “the spotted cattle, a mountain, and a woman” (Ceremony, 141). Seeing first the stars that were mentioned by Betonie, Tayo recognizes these while searching for the spotted cattle. Coming across it while with a certain woman, Tayo recognizes how “the pattern of the ceremony was in the stars, and the constellation formed a map of the mountains in the directions he had gone for the ceremony” (Swan, pg 323). The stars have literally aligned, showing Tayo must go further up the mountains to find the spotted cattle he desires to recover. It is exactly this that Tayo does, as he continues this journey of finding the cattle. Fortunately for Tayo, this same journey takes him onto “Mount Taylor” (Ceremony, 175), which is precisely where not only the mountain of Betonie’s vision is interacted with but so is the spotted cattle. It is on Mount Taylor where Tayo also encounters a mountain lion, which has significance of its own when discussing the role the mountain plays. Here, after a tense stare-off, Tayo notices that “the mountain lion blinked his eyes; there was no fear” (Ceremony, 182). Looking at how intricate the relation is between Tayo and the natural world (one which must be healed throughout this entire process), there is an idea here. The mountain lion may indeed be “function[ing] in this part of the novel as a shadow self in this shadow place, an animal helper figure with which Tayo can be identified [with]” (Nelson, 296). The animal is here to not only help Tayo off the mountain, through the snow, and to find the cattle, but also represents himself. The “mountain lion [becomes] the hunter’s helper” (Ceremony, 182) as Silko puts it, aiding Tayo’s soon-failed escape away from the farm.

With these two spoken of, it is indeed the interaction with the spotted cattle that is the cause for Tayo’s meeting with the mountain lion on Mount Taylor. Following the constellation of stars this entire time, Tayo comes across the “fence that could hold the spotted cattle” (Ceremony, 174).