Sand Lizard people who are separated, one ending up traveling Victorian Europe.
Gardens and botanical interests connect characters from many different cultures.
Silko began her own company, Flood Plain Press, to publish works with
nontraditional formats, combining text, photographs, and drawings. Through this
enterprise she brought out a second edition of Laguna Woman in 1994 and pub-
lished Sacred Water (1993), a combination of her photographs, drawings, and poetic-
prose meditations on family history, personal history, and the human relationship
to land and water.
Ceremony was launched to rave reviews, including one by Frank MacShane in
The New York Times Book Review (12 June 1977), who praised her integration of the
Western novel and traditional Laguna storytelling practices, calling her “the most
accomplished Indian writer of her generation.” Since that time, Ceremony has been
studied from several angles: as Native American storytelling, as literature about war
veterans, as literature focused on environmental concerns, and even as an example of
nuclear war literature. Many critics have researched the roots in the Laguna culture
of the symbolism, motifs, landscape, gender roles, animals, and characters of the
novel. Thus, students exploring criticism of Ceremony will find many rich examples
of close readings of the novel as well as studies that consider it in the traditions
mentioned above.
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION AND RESEARCH
- In “Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective,” found in
Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit and reprinted in many anthologies of
Native American writing, Silko describes the oral storytelling practices of the
Pueblo people, invoking the image of a spider web. Rather than a linear pat-
tern, the spider web is one in which a multitude of connections leads to com-
plex interrelationships where what happens in one place reverberates in many
others. How does this metaphor reflect on the structure of Ceremony? How
does it help explicate the novel’s structure? What does it suggest about the
role and significance of storytelling in the novel? Other points of discussion
in the essay may also offer helpful strategies for understanding and discuss-
ing the novel. In a related topic, students might also wish to consider in what
ways Silko combines the traditional Western novel form with Pueblo myths
and stories, and the effects created by combining, rather than using one or the
other. Helpful articles cited below include those by Alanna Kathleen Brown
and Jude Todd, and Edith Swan’s “Laguna Symbolic Geography.” - The cattle Uncle Josiah creates as a mix of breeds that will be able to withstand
Southwestern droughts but still carry weight serve as an example of a trope
running throughout Ceremony: the role of “mixed-breeds” in contemporary
culture. Tayo has green eyes and is not a full-blood Laguna. Old Betonie is part
Mexican. Many other examples of people and things that are of mixed heritage
appear throughout the novel. Students would find it profitable to trace these
examples and examine their significance in the story. What strengths and
weaknesses come from being mixed? Why does Auntie feel ashamed of Tayo’s