990 silko, Leslie Marmon
ScIence and tecHnoLoGy in Ceremony
Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony presents the
conflict between Western scientific modes of under-
standing and Native American beliefs and tradi-
tions. This theme brings together many of the pieces
that make up this fragmented and challenging novel.
The reader finds a direct statement of these
opposing worldviews in one of the longer story-
poems that interrupt and run parallel to the more
conventional story, the main character’s psychologi-
cal healing and reintegration into the community
after returning from war. In this story-poem, witches
gather from all around to participate in “a contest /
in dark things.” A mysterious figure wins the contest
with a story that, in its telling, becomes a horrible
reality and terrifies even the other witches in atten-
dance. Europeans, who are described as alien, cave-
dwelling creatures with skin that is white “like the
belly of a fish / covered with hair,” arrive from across
the ocean to destroy the environment, animals, and
native peoples. The actions of these newcomers
culminate in atomic explosions and utter destruc-
tion. In this story-poem, Westerners are not witches
themselves but the tools of witchery, and they are
unable to truly see and to value what they destroy:
They see no life
When they look
they see only objects.
The world is a dead thing for them
The trees and rivers are not aliveIn Native American traditions, as depicted in Silko’s
novel, the world is full of life, from animals and
plants to geological formations and weather pat-
terns. This conflict between Western science and
Native American beliefs is developed more fully in
scenes involving deer and flies.
Tayo acts according to Native American tradi-
tions when he covers the eyes of a slain deer “out of
respect” before it is dressed. By contrast, his cousin
Rocky—who has grown up alongside Tayo but has
rejected most of those traditions—is embarrassed by
this and other practices that he knows will follow,
including a ritual feeding of the deer’s spirit. Raised
to embrace Western views, Rocky would rather treat
the slain deer as a piece of meat, “hang[ing] the deer
in the woodshed, where the meat would stay cold
and cure properly.”
Similarly, Tayo hears conflicting statements of
the value of flies. At home, primarily from his
uncle and grandmother, he learns stories of how
the greenbottle fly saved the world from drought
by carrying an apology to the offended mother of
all life and how, accordingly, flies should be treated
with respect. In school, by contrast, he is taught that
flies are carriers of disease and should be killed with
impunity. The science teacher at school presents this
second statement not as an example of scientific
inquiry but rather as part of a rival faith, complete
with a holy text to be revered: “In school the sci-
ence teacher had explained what superstition was,
and then held the science textbook up for the class
to see the true source of explanations.” Real science
provides powerful tools for understanding our world
but stops short of serving in this manner as a new
faith and as “the true source of explanations.”
In the tale dismissed in the novel by the science
teacher as superstition, Hummingbird explains how
to summon the greenbottle fly by placing dirt, corn
flour, and a sprinkling of water in a jar, covering the
jar, and repeating over the jar the words “After four
days / you will be alive.” This tale contrasts mean-
ingfully with a second account, found not in Silko’s
novel but in many contemporary high school biol-
ogy textbooks: the 1668 experiments by the Italian
physician Francesco Redi showing that maggots
did not appear in meat contained in tightly sealed
jars, as the covering prevented flies from laying
eggs. Redi’s experiments contributed to the thesis
that life comes from life, not from spontaneous
generation.
Old Betonie, the unconventional medicine man
who emerges to play an important role in Tayo’s
healing in the second half of the novel, embodies the
desire to relieve at least some of this tension between
competing belief systems. Old Betonie follows the
old ways even as he insists that change is inevitable
and must be embraced. Even his dwelling, a tradi-
tional hogan, illustrates this blending of beliefs: It is
filled with the paraphernalia of the medicine man
as well as old newspapers, illustrated calendars, and
telephone books from distant cities, all of which help
him in “keeping track of things.”