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Nunez 1John Nunez Professor LoveEnglish 49511 November 2019Ceremony: The Sacredness of Storytelling and HealingCeremony, begins with, Ts’its’tsi’nako, Thought Woman and her sisters, Nau’ts’ity’i and I’tcts’ity’i, together they created the universe and the world along with the four lower worlds. The Zuni Tribal Nation tell a similar story about the lower four worlds, “The Zuni Grand Canyon emergence tale, (Myth & Knowing). The speaker is telling the story, “I’m telling you the story she is thinking, (Silko pg 1), and also explaining the significance and importance of storytelling, “They aren’t just for entertainment, “Don’t be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death,” (2). Storytelling is an essential part of the American Indian culture, “you don’t have anything if you don’t have the stories,” (2). Storytelling and experience is how young Indian children learn, they are not subject to instruction in the same manner European epistemology is taught. There are no rewards for success nor is there reprimand for failure. Success and failure do not exist in American Indian epistemology, if you listen well you will learn, and through many attempts positive failures you will learn; your learning is your reward. Silko’s, Ceremony has a similar factor in her story, Yellow Woman. Through the female deity Ts’eh, “I am Matano, you can call me Ts’eh” (Ceremony, 223). The healing process for Tayo is through the ceremony with Ts’eh. The male deity Ka’tsina, “stolen by Ka’tsina a mountain spirit,” (Yellow Woman, American Lit. 1478), both play major factors in the healing of the main characters of the stories and found in traditional storytelling. However the focus will be on Ceremony a Bildungsroman novel, including the traditional practices, traditional ceremonies, Nunez 2religious spirituality and the hard truths about life for American Indians while living on the reservation. The text also reveals the traumatic effect on the people living on the reservations and Tayo as the main character. Tayo a war veteran from WWII, “At the outset of the narrative, he has just returned to his reservation following six years of serving in the Second World War. He suffers from a “great swollen grief” that expresses itself in mental and physical symptoms” (Claudia Eppert, 729). Tayo suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that is not just caused from his experience in the war, there is a deep underlining that surfaces as story continues. Life on the reservation, is affiliated to the use of drugs, alcohol and sex abuse. Although drugs, alcohol and sex abuse is prevalent on many reservations, the healing ceremonies are not practiced, “Tayo cannot identify his illness because his community has been subject to a long and systematic erasure of Native traditions through school practices,” (Eppert, 729). This is why storytelling is so essential to the Tribal Nations, “And in the belly of this story the rituals and the ceremony are still growing” (2). Without the stories our children and young adults may lose the traditions and cultural way of life for the Tribal Nations. In an interview and the auto biography of Black Elk, an Olgala, Sioux Chief, John G. Neihardt, the journalist and editor of “Black Elk Speaks” referred to the American Indian as a dying race. However we are still here, we are still telling the stories, and the traditional stories are handed down from generation to generation, the Petroglyphs and Pictographs; are a road map to American Indian History and Culture. People from the different Tribal Nations have become successful business men and women, m there are some who have become actors, doctors and writers, who have a story to be told. Ceremony is a reminder of the traditions and a culture that continues into the 20th and 21st Centuries. Silko uses poetry as means to tell traditional stories, that also link Ceremony to other Tribal stories, such as in the first opening poem, Thought Woman is also referred to as “The Nunez 3Spider”, Corn Woman is another female deity. “It was summertime and Iktoa’ak’o’ya-Reed Woman …But her sister Corn Woman…” (13), Corn Woman can found in the Cherokee Creation story, Selu the first woman gathered the corn, while Kana’ti the first man hunted the elk. Names of deities, symbols, sacred ceremonies, sacred places, sacred plants and dialect are similar and linked to all Tribal Nations, although there are variations in storytelling, traditions and ceremonies, all are linked, even when some Tribal Nations had become enemies, they are still connected, we are still one Nation of many. The American Indian has not become a dying race and the stories will continue. Ceremony is many stories that make the entire story, linear reading is not to be found in Ceremony and it is the way, most stories are written by American Indian authors. Traditional storytelling finds its way to the past and often times to the future, short stories, poetry and history combined to create the bulk of a story; Ceremony combines all that makes for traditional and contemporary storytelling. Another factor that is significant, in Ceremony, is the spotted cattle, “It was a fence that hold the spotted cattle,” (187,188). The spotted or blemished cattle represent the condition of the American Indians placed on reservations and the land that was stolen. “”If the white people never looked beyond the li. To see that theirs was a nation built on stolen land, then they would never be able to understand how they had been used by the witchery…” (191). Tayo recognizes the importance of getting the cattle back to his people, in order to renew the traditions and the conditions of the Laguna Pueblo people even though the land would never be returned to the American Indian people. “Michael Hobbs, insightfully observers that Tayo must account for both ancestral and Western traditions by writing his own internally persuasive discourse,” (Eppert, 731). The witchery is significant to the greed of European settlers who used religion and political statutes to take the land from the Tribal Nations. Ceremony captures the Nunez 4very heart of the spirituality of the American Indian Culture. In order to fight against the witchery, Betonie the medicine man sends Tayo to the mountain to reclaim the cattle that was taken from his family. Betonie points to the stars, “Remember these stars…I’ve seen them and I’ve seen the spotted cattle; I’ve seen a mountain and I’ve have seen a woman,” (152). Silko lays out the scenario of what is to come for Tayo and his family, connecting the cattle, the mountain and the woman, that will stop the witchery and bring healing to Tayo and his family; who are a representation of the Laguna people. Tayo has captured the cattle and spent time in the mountains with Ts’eh as he rises in the morning; Silko uses poetry to bring a deeper meaning to the story, “Sunrise! We come at sunrise to greet you. We call you at sunrise. Father of the clouds you are beautiful at sunrise!” (182). This is the prayer Tayo repeats knowing that the [sunrise] has power, “The power of each day spilled over the hills in great silence,” 182). Sunrise is on the first page of the book, its significance is presented in this passage, “He ended the prayer with “sunrise” because he knew the Dawn people ended all their words with sunrise,” (182). Tayo has endured the war, returning home to have issues with family and friends almost killing his friend Emo. He has endured the Whitemans hospital in Los Angeles that had no effect, “He did not realize that until he left the hospital, because white smoke had no conscious of itself,” (14). He tried to receive healing from Betonie; however Betonie’s power did not work because he combined his ceremony with contemporary items. It is when he spent time with Ts’eh that the witchery of Tayo’s PTSD has ended, Whirling darkness started its journey with its witchery and its witchery has returned upon it. Its witchery has returned all around it. Whirling Nunez 5darkness has come back on itself. It doesn’t open its eyes with its witchery. It has stiffened with effects of its own witchery. It is dead for now. It is dead for now. It is dead for now. It is dead for now. The poetry that speaker recites is an actual prayer, to keep the witchery dead for a time. But the witchery will return, colonization in the United States will remain, however the heart and soul of the American Indian will also remain as long as the stories and ceremonies continue. The stories will continue with American Indian authors such as Leslie Marmon Silko and stories like Ceremony, that hold on to the values of traditional and contemporary storytelling. Nunez 6Works CitedBelasco, Susan and Johnson, Link, “Yellow Woman” The Bedford Anthology of American Literature, Volume Two: 1865 to Present, Bedford / St. Martin’s, Boston - New YorkBogrette, Caroline, Caroline’s Journal Leslie Marmon Silko, Yellow Woman, https:/carolinesjournal.home.blog/2019/01/27jan-29leslie-ma Eppert, Claudia, “Leslie Silko’s Ceremony: Rhetoric’s of Ethical Reading and Composition” jac24.3 (2004)McClure, Michael, Leonard, Scott, “Sacred Places,” “The Zuni and the Grand Canyon” Myth & Knowing, McGraw – Hill Higher Education, New York, New York, 2004Neihardt, John G., Black Elk Speaks, The Complete Edition, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London 2014Silko, Leslie Marmon, Ceremony, Penguin Books New York, New York 1977Nunez 7Annotated Bibliography Belasco and Johnson, “Yellow Woman” Leslie Marmon Silko, The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature is a collection of short stories from various American authors. Yellow Woman, is a story that connects the spirit world with the natural and identity of the male deity, Ka’tsina Bogrette, Caroline, Caroline’s Journal, Leslie Marmon Silko, Yellow Woman, presents incite on the spirit of Yellow Woman and a look into feminism in American Indian short stories. Eppert, Claudia, Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony: Rhetoric’s of Ethical Reading and Composition” The scholarly composition ventures into the Bildungsroman of Tayo and his journey to be freed from PTSD. McClure and Leonard, Myth & Knowing, is a compilation of Mythological Studies. Scared Places, leads to scared places in mythological stories. The Zuni and the Grand Canyon is an emergence tale.Neihardt, John G. Black Elk Speaks, is an exclusive interview with Black Elk an Oglala Lakota Chief, who experienced the Indian, wars with the U.S.Silko, Leslie Marmon, Ceremony, conveys the reader into the spiritual and natural worlds of the Laguna Pueblo Indians, and also the Bildungs of the protagonist Tayo and his desire to free himself and his people from witchery. ................
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