How Did Tayo Become Consumed by Doubts Once Again and How Did Falling Down to the Earth Help Him
A Laguna Pueblo human with a white father, Tayo returns to the Laguna reservation subsequently World War 2 ill in mind and body later on the trauma of war. Tayo grew up homeless with his female parent, Little Sister, who somewhen left him with her sister, Auntie. Auntie so raised Tayo out of a sense of duty, simply resents Tayo for his mixed blood and green eyes. As a kid, Tayo believed wholeheartedly in the traditional Native American stories and ceremonies, unlike his cousin Rocky (Auntie's son). After Rocky's death during the war, Tayo is wracked with guilt and doubt, and no longer believes so strongly in the sanctity of the one-time ways. Tayo'south pessimism has merit, as even the Laguna medicine man Ku'oosh admits that in the modern world the quondam ceremonies no longer work every bit they one time did. Still Tayo continues to search for healing, and after he meets the Navajo medicine man Betonie he works to create a new ceremony that volition work – this ceremony involves Tayo reconnecting with his past and accepting his "hybrid" beginnings past reclaiming his dead uncle Josiah's lost cattle, every bit well every bit reconnecting with the native spirit earth past falling in love with Ts'eh, who seems likely to be the human course of the Laguna goddess Reed Woman. Tayo comes to understand the necessity of cultural cantankerous-over in society to build a stronger, more sustainable future, as well as the need to protect the land from human greed. The novel suggests that Tayo'southward mixed blood is an asset to the hereafter, allowing Tayo to better adapt to the changing, modern world and a time to come of increased cultural diversity. And in refusing a final deadly face-off with the murderous Emo, Tayo asserts his connexion to the balance and respect of native philosophy, every bit opposed to what the novel portrays as the egotism and dominance-based ethic of white culture. In this way, Tayo himself stands every bit a kind of symbol of the pick that all humans take betwixt adding to the destruction of the world and contributing to the conservancy of the globe.
Tayo Quotes in Ceremony
The Ceremony quotes below are all either spoken past Tayo or refer to Tayo. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Then Tayo stood there, potent with nausea, while they fired at the soldiers, and he watched his uncle fall, and he knew it was Josiah; and even after Rocky started shaking him past the shoulders and telling him to finish crying, it was still Josiah lying in that location.
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"You lot know what people volition say if we ask for a medicine homo to help him. Someone volition say it'south not right. They'll say, 'Don't practise information technology. He's not full claret anyway."'
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"Just you know, grandson, this world is frail."
The word he chose to express "fragile" was filled with the intricacies of a standing process, and with a strength inherent in spider webs woven across paths through sand hills where early on in the morning the sun becomes entangled in each filament of web.
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"There are some things nosotros can't cure like we used to," he said, "not since the white people came. The others who had the Scalp Anniversary, some of them are not better either."
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"I'1000 one-half-breed. I'll be the showtime to say it. I'll speak for both sides. Offset fourth dimension you walked down the street in Gallup or Albuquerque, y'all knew. Don't prevarication. You knew correct away. The state of war was over, the uniform was gone. Suddenly that man at the shop waits on yous final, makes you await until all the white people bought what they wanted. And the white lady at the bus depot, she's real careful now not to touch your hand when she counts out your change."
Related Characters: Tayo (speaker)
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"They took our land, they took everything! So allow's get our easily on white women!" They cheered… Maybe Emo was incorrect: perhaps white people didn't have everything. Only Indians had droughts.
Related Characters: Emo (speaker), Tayo
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She was careful that Rocky did not share these things with Tayo, that they kept a distance betwixt themselves and him. But she would nor allow Tayo go exterior or play in another room alone. She wanted him close enough to feel excluded, to be aware of the distance betwixt them.
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They retrieve that if their children take the same color of pare, the same colour of eyes, that naught is changing." She laughed softly. "They are fools. "You don't have to understand what is happening. Simply remember this day. You will recognize it later. You are part of it at present."
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The people nowadays have an idea virtually the ceremonies. They think the ceremonies must exist performed exactly as they have always been done, peradventure because one skid-upwards or mistake and the whole ceremony must be stopped and the sand painting destroyed. That much is true. They think that if a singer tampers with any role of the ritual, great harm tin exist done, great power unleashed…That much tin be true also. Only long ago when the people were given these ceremonies, the irresolute began, if but in the aging of the yellowish gourd rattle or the shrinking of the skin around the eagle'south claw, if only in the dissimilar voices from generation to generation, singing the chants. You see, in many ways, the ceremonies have always been changing."
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Some people human action like witchery is responsible for every- thing that happens, when actually witchery only manipulates a small portion." He pointed in the management the boy had gone. "Accidents happen, and in that location'south little we can do. But don't exist so quick to call something practiced or bad. There are balances and harmonies e'er shifting, always necessary to maintain.
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'it never has been easy. It volition take a long long time and many more stories similar this ane earlier they are laid depression. …
"He reasoned that because information technology was set loose past witchery of all the world, and brought to them by the whites, the ceremony confronting it must be the same. …
This is the only mode,' she told him. 'It cannot exist done alone.
'Nosotros must have power from everywhere. Even the power we can get from the whites.'
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He was thinking about Harley and Leroy; about Helen Jean and himself. How much longer would they final? How long before 1 of them got stabbed in a bar fight, not just knocked out? How long before this old truck swerved off the route or caput-on into a bus?
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The power of each day spilled over the hills in not bad silence. Sunrise. He concluded the prayer with "sunrise" because he knew the Dawn people began and ended all their words with "sunrise."
Related Characters: Tayo
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Then he had gone, not expecting to observe anything more than the winter constellation in the north sky overhead; but suddenly Betonie'due south vision was a story he could experience happening - from the stars and the woman, the mountain and the cattle would come.
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It was a cure for that, and peradventure for other things too. The spotted cattle wouldn't be lost whatever more than, scattered through his dreams, driven past his hesitation to admit they had been stolen, that the state - all of information technology - had been stolen from them. The anticipation of what he might find was strung tight in his belly…
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He lay there and hated them. Not for what they wanted to do with him, simply for what they did to the earth with their machines, and to the animals with their packs of dogs and their guns. It happened once more and over again, and the people had to watch, unable to save or to protect whatsoever of the things that were and so important to them.
Related Characters: Tayo
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…occasionally a dogie bolted away bucking and leaping in a wide arc, returning finally to its mother when information technology tired of playing. Tayo's heart beat fast; he could run into Josiah's vision emerging, he could run across the story taking course in os and musculus.
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"The cease of the story. They desire to change it. They want information technology to end here, the way all their stories terminate, encircling slowly to choke the life away. The violence of the struggle excites them, and the killing soothes them. They take their stories about usa – Indian people who are only marking time and waiting for the end."
Related Characters: Ts'eh (speaker), Tayo
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From the jungles of his dreaming he recognized why the Japanese voices had merged with Laguna voices, with Josiah'southward voice and Rocky'due south phonation; the lines of cultures and worlds were drawn in flat dark lines on fine light sand, converging in the middle of witchery's final ceremonial sand painting. From that time on, human beings were one clan again, united by the fate the destroyers planned for all of them, for all living things; united past a circle of death that devoured people in cities twelve one thousand miles abroad, victims who had never known these mesas, who had never seen the frail colors of the rocks which boiled up their slaughter.
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It had been a close call. The witchery had almost ended the story co-ordinate to its program; Tayo had almost jammed the screwdriver into Emo's skull the way the witchery had wanted, savoring the yielding bone and membrane as the steel ruptured the brain. Their deadly ritual for the autumn solstice would accept been completed by him.
Related Characters: Tayo, Emo
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Tayo Grapheme Timeline in Ceremony
The timeline below shows where the graphic symbol Tayo appears in Ceremony. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The narrative of the story begins with Tayo, as he sleeps fitfully in his sparse bedroom. Tayo dreams in a mix of English... (full context)
Tayo wakes up and goes outside. He sees the ranch animals, a cat and goats, peacefully... (full context)
Tayo remembers the jungle, where he could never escape rain. He blamed the rain for Rocky'due south... (total context)
Tayo'south song describes 2 sisters: Reed Woman and Corn Woman. Corn Woman does all the work... (full context)
Tayo blames his song in the Philippines for causing the drought at the ranch in New... (full context)
Tayo felt invisible in the veteran'southward hospital, and unable to interact with people through the fog... (full context)
Tayo takes his luggage to the LA train station, trying to go used to life exterior... (full context)
Returning to Tayo's present in the ranch house, Tayo sits on his bed watching the sunlight crawl across... (full context)
Tayo goes exterior and sits under an elm tree. Tayo'due south friend Harley rides upwards on a... (total context)
Tayo is content to sit with Harley in silence, but Harley is restless. Harley jokes about... (full context)
...and beer. Yet Harley always finds a manner to get his next beverage. Harley convinces Tayo to become with him and ride the burro "up the line," that is to the... (total context)
Tayo and Harley set up off for the closest bar, every bit the air current blows constantly. The burro... (total context)
...Rocky and his plans to go to college and play football, so much so that Tayo feels equally if Rocky is still live and Tayo himself was the i who died... (full context)
When Tayo returns to New Laguna from the Veteran's Hospital, Auntie takes intendance of him. Tayo knows... (full context)
...still makes Rocky and Josiah'due south beds when she comes into the room to bank check on Tayo. Tayo gets off his own bed then that Auntie tin can clean his sheets. Tayo tries... (total context)
Old Grandma and Robert, Auntie's husband, mostly get out Tayo alone every bit he recovers. Now that Josiah is dead, Robert must take intendance of all... (full context)
...Grandma sends for Ku'oosh despite Auntie'due south protests that a medicine human will reignite gossip about Tayo'south mother and her wild ways. When he comes, Ku'oosh sits at Tayo's bedside and speaks... (total context)
Ku'oosh asks Tayo nearly his feel in the white people's war, and tells Tayo that Tayo has to... (total context)
Tayo is down-hearted after Ku'oosh leaves, convinced that his actions in the war cannot be cured.... (total context)
Tayo goes out with Emo and Harley to a bar with some other war veterans. The... (full context)
The other veterans push Tayo to tell a story from the celebrity days every bit a Marine. Tayo stands and begins... (full context)
Tayo knows that the other veterans use liquor and the attention of white women to feel... (total context)
Tayo flashes dorsum to carrying Rocky on a blanket in the Philippine jungle. Two Japanese soldiers,... (full context)
Back in Tayo's present, Harley checks to run across if Tayo is feeling ameliorate nevertheless later on his "sunstroke" attack.... (total context)
Tayo remembers Uncle Josiah telling him about this detail stream, when they were rinsing off with... (total context)
Harley and Tayo go along toward the bar on their burro and mule. They finally flag downwards a truck... (total context)
Tayo thinks about a time when he and Rocky went deer hunting. After they fell a... (total context)
Rocky finishes gutting the deer, then he and Tayo each accept a pinch of cornmeal to feed the deer'southward spirit so that the deer... (total context)
Dorsum in the bar, Harley jokes with Tayo nigh how placidity Tayo is, though Tayo knows that Harley is really worried about the... (total context)
In the bar, Harley laughs that Tayo was lucky not to go to jail for what he did to Emo. Tayo thinks... (full context)
The other veterans laugh at Tayo every bit he silently drinks while they all talk. Tayo goes to the bathroom, thinking about... (total context)
...Indian (because another soldier called him Geronimo) and fainted in Emo's bed. Emo laughs, merely Tayo can tell Emo is angry. (full context)
Emo turns on Tayo and jeers at him for never telling any state of war stories. Emo then takes out a... (full context)
Tayo feels every bit if the alcohol is loosening his anger, rather than numbing information technology. As Emo... (full context)
Rocky takes Tayo to an army recruitment meeting, where the recruiter seems disappointed to be talking to a... (total context)
Tayo went to live with Auntie when he was 4 years sometime. He can remember small-scale... (full context)
When Rocky and Tayo started school, Rocky pulls away from everyone in the family unit. Tayo understands Auntie much meliorate... (total context)
...Sister back into harmony with the tribe once more. Instead of doing so, Auntie tells Tayo stories of his female parent's wild days and refuses to let Tayo go along a photo of... (full context)
The army recruiter questions whether Rocky and Tayo are really brothers, due to Tayo's green eyes, simply Rocky insists. Rocky and Tayo enlist... (full context)
A month before Tayo and Rocky graduate high school, Josiah makes a $500 deal with Ulibarri, a Mexican rancher,... (full context)
Josiah and Tayo unload the cows at their pasture and the herd nervously clumps as far from the... (full context)
...butterfly brand that the Mexican ranch used. Some of the cows accept had calves, and Tayo can see the strong Hereford shoulders mixed with the hybrid cattle'southward lithe athletic build in... (full context)
...rumors, challenge that Old Grandma is scandalized by what the boondocks is maxim about Josiah. Tayo knows that Old Grandma does not care what people say about their family unit because she... (full context)
That summertime, Tayo and Josiah spend their days in the fields while Rocky ostensibly prepares for his football... (full context)
Tayo thinks back to the day they buried his mother, a dry solar day much like the... (full context)
The next day, Tayo sees storm clouds gathering by the mountain Tse-pi'na. All the ranch hands gather to picket... (full context)
Tayo goes to Night Swan's apartment in Cubero, hearing her Victrola play a Spanish tape singing... (total context)
Returning to Tayo's present, Tayo leaves Harley with yet some other beer and walks out of the bar. Tayo... (full context)
When Tayo gets back to the bar, Harley is gone. Tayo walks to Cubero and sits on... (full context)
...clouds if the people get Erstwhile Buzzard to purify their town. The novel returns to Tayo in the nowadays. He tells Robert that he is feeling better and can help Robert... (total context)
Robert and Tayo take a trip to the city of Gallup and Tayo is reminded of the poverty... (total context)
Tayo remembers when he was a little boy and lived nether that aforementioned bridge with his... (full context)
One 24-hour interval, law come to articulate out the settlements under the bridge while Tayo'south female parent is out with a man. Tayo hides in a tamaric and willow grove and... (total context)
In Tayo'south present, Robert and Tayo stop on the bridge in Gallup, avoiding the women who enquire... (full context)
Ku'oosh has sent Tayo to Gallup to see a medicine man named Betonie. Gallup is known for the Gallup... (total context)
Betonie can run into that Tayo is unsure of his eccentric ways, and tells Tayo he tin leave at whatsoever time.... (full context)
In the hogan, Tayo sees traditional medicine man paraphernalia equally well as ceremonial objects and layers of old calendars.... (full context)
...has come loose from his mustache and he carefully locks the hair in a footlocker. Tayo pretends he doesn't know why Betonie would practise that, merely he remembers the old stories... (full context)
Tayo tells Betonie almost feeling like invisible white smoke when he was in the Veteran'due south Hospital.... (full context)
Tayo tells Betonie well-nigh seeing Uncle Josiah die in the Philippines, wearing a Japanese uniform. Tayo... (full context)
Tayo tells Betonie almost Nighttime Swan's hazel eyes and Auntie's suspicions that Nighttime Swan was evil... (full context)
...to able to change or they will die and all mankind will dice with them. Tayo wants to believe Betonie, merely has trouble seeing the healing power in the junk cluttered... (total context)
Betonie and Tayo walk outside, and Tayo comments on all the state in Gallup that was stolen by... (full context)
Betonie introduces Tayo to his helper, Shush, whose proper noun means "comport." Betonie begins to tell a story, and... (total context)
Betonie stops the story to remind Tayo that witchery is only responsible for a small portion of life. Good or bad are... (full context)
Tayo starts to tell Betonie nigh Emo and Rocky, because he is reminded of them by... (total context)
Betonie reminds Tayo that white people are non purely evil, they are only one tool that the larger... (full context)
Betonie, Shush, and Tayo ride on horseback into the foothills of the Chuska mountains outside Gallup. They fix... (total context)
Tayo falls asleep and dreams about speckled cattle that constantly outrun him, heading south. When he... (full context)
Betonie tells Tayo that the anniversary is not however finished. Betonie draws a constellation in the grit, and then... (total context)
Tayo leaves Betonie and hitchhikes back towards New Laguna. He stops at a gas station to... (full context)
Tayo gets in the truck with Harley, equally Helen Jean and Leroy express mirth about how Harley... (full context)
...handbag. Harley picks it up for her, playacting at putting some on while Leroy and Tayo tease him for being "chickish muggy." They all go into the bar and get a... (full context)
Tayo dreams of one-time Betonie's Navajo singing, until he is awakened past someone telling him to... (full context)
...their courage in the war, so that they don't have to call back their lost land. Tayo takes off walking, realizing he is in transition simply like the boy called dorsum from... (full context)
Tayo goes abode to New Laguna and waits to encounter one of the things Betonie mentioned... (total context)
The woman undresses beginning herself and so Tayo. They sleep together and Tayo fully gives in to the pleasure of their bodies. That... (full context)
The woman serves Tayo breakfast and so busies herself carefully packing specific rocks and plants in muslin packages. Tayo thanks... (full context)
...logging companies. The white logging companies over chase the country to feed their workers, and Tayo is sick at the lack of respect that white people show for this delicate environment.... (full context)
Equally Tayo rounds another ridge, he sees his uncle's cows in the altitude. Tayo knows that the... (full context)
Tayo rides along the argue until dark falls and finds a spot next to a tree... (full context)
As Tayo searches for the cattle, he realizes that he is completely within the present moment, not... (full context)
Tayo lets the horse stop to drink h2o and is struck by a sudden bout of... (full context)
When Tayo wakes upward, he sees a mountain lion walk through the immigration in forepart of him.... (total context)
Tayo finally catches up to the cattle once more and starts to follow them as they head... (full context)
Tayo wakes slowly, feeling as though he is waking in the Pacific once again to a sun... (total context)
...convince the Texan patrolman to get back to the truck then that they can help Tayo with his injuries. The Texan refuses, and forces Tayo to stand up and mount the... (full context)
When Tayo wakes again, he feels comforted by the solid land underneath his torso. He feels equally... (full context)
The next time Tayo wakes up, the patrollers are gone and there is a chill night breeze. Tayo can... (total context)
Tayo gets up and walks southeast through the snow. He happily eats snow and thinks that... (full context)
...in traditional article of clothing with his hair long, and has a buck slung across his shoulders. Tayo tells the hunter that he is looking for cattle and the hunter tells Tayo to... (full context)
Tayo goes outside to help the adult female shake snow off her trees then that the branches... (full context)
The woman goes into the paddock to pet the cows, though Tayo is afraid of the large, one-half-wild fauna. Tayo explains that his uncle wanted cows that... (full context)
Tayo and the woman get dorsum to the business firm and Tayo readies his equus caballus to leave.... (total context)
The next spring, Robert and Tayo return to the woman'south house to collect the cattle, but the adult female and the hunter... (full context)
Tayo helps Robert and Pinkie care for the sheep, impressed at how well Little finger seems to... (full context)
Tayo dreams of the adult female again, overwhelmed by his love for her. Tayo decides to get... (total context)
Every bit he approaches the ranch business firm, Tayo notes that the surrounding land is lightly greenish this year, neither the blood-red of drought... (full context)
When Tayo wakes, he thinks the woman was some other dream. Just he then sees her footprints articulate... (total context)
Ts'eh shares niggling more than about her family, as if she expects Tayo to accept already heard all the gossip about them. Tayo wants to enquire about Ts'eh's... (full context)
...plants and describes them equally all different colors of the sky. Equally Ts'eh gathers seedlings, Tayo considers convenance his cattle with a xanthous bull owned past Romero, i of Tayo's cousins.... (full context)
Ts'eh needs only one more than plant, and asks Tayo to assemble it for her if she is not hither when the time comes. Ts'eh... (full context)
Robert comes to visit Tayo at the end of summertime, and finds that Tayo is not planning to come dwelling... (full context)
Ts'eh and Tayo observe a expressionless calf the next time they walk down the canyon. Ts'eh comments that... (full context)
...cute power to conceive new life and carry the side by side generation of elk. Ts'eh and Tayo visit where the elk is painted, though the paint is faded because no one has... (total context)
Ts'eh builds a burn and starts to weep. Tayo can exercise nothing to comfort her, simply asking why she is crying. Ts'eh says she... (full context)
Equally Tayo and Ts'eh watch the cows in the pasture, Ts'eh announces that they are coming to... (full context)
Tayo wakes up feeling as if he is in the jungle, so realizes he is only... (full context)
Tayo goes back to the route, looking for someone who doesn't know about the recent questions... (full context)
...drunk that Leroy can't even open the truck door without falling out of the car. Tayo helps him become dorsum in and sits in the back seat. Harley and Leroy are... (full context)
...and Leroy have been driving around all night after starting at a bar in Gallup. Tayo doesn't understand how they ended up going north on the Acoma road later on starting in... (full context)
A while later, Tayo wakes up in the truck, with Harley and Leroy gone. Tayo gets out of the... (full context)
Tayo crawls through the barbed wire and finds a stream. He drinks, merely notices that the... (total context)
Tayo walks into the mineshaft, seeing the witchery'due south pattern in the yellow striped rock. He realizes... (full context)
Suddenly, headlights shine into the mine shaft and Tayo runs farther into the mine. Emo gets out of the car, and Tayo hears Pinkie... (full context)
Tayo is common cold and hungry hiding in the mineshaft, and he begins to wonder how long... (full context)
Tayo creeps closer to the bonfire and holds the screwdriver in his pocket. Tayo realizes that... (full context)
Tayo begins to program how he can kill Emo with the screwdriver. Leroy and Little finger begin... (full context)
Tayo looks support to the stars, unchanging no affair the fourth dimension or place, as Emo,... (full context)
Tayo sits in a kiva with Ku'oosh and the other old men of the tribe. Tayo... (total context)
...eat a hearty lunch and Ku'oosh builds up the burn in the kiva. Ku'oosh tells Tayo to stay in the kiva all night fasting. A story-verse form describes how the man whom... (full context)
Auntie avoids Tayo at present that Tayo has visited Ku'oosh, saying that the other women from the church come... (full context)
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