Ceremony

Pages 1-67

Reading Check

1. Tayo, Harley, Leroy, Emo (18)

2.  Alcohol (21-22, 36-37, 49)

3. The jungle (or rain, humidity, wetness, etc.) (10-13)

4. Teeth from Japanese soldiers (56)

Short Answer

1. Emo hates Tayo because Tayo is part white, and many other Laguna Pueblo view Tayo with suspicion for the same reason. However, where others feel Tayo is not truly Laguna Pueblo, Emo is jealous of Tayo’s connection to white America, for which he seeks acceptance from himself. (50-53)

2. Ku’oosh cannot help Tayo because Ku’oosh doesn’t understand modern warfare. Ku’oosh cannot address the root of Tayo’s trauma with his ceremonies as a result. (31-35)

3. Warriors who do not partake in the Scalp Society and a Scalp Ceremony are haunted by K’oo’ko. Everything around them is endangered as well: Hunting game might disappear, and droughts may occur. This suggests that the Laguna Pueblo view individual trauma as inseparable from its societal and environmental context, and the effects go in both directions. (34)

Pages 68-128

Reading Check

1. Night Swan (78)

2. Greenbottle Fly (76)

3. Gallup, underneath the bridge (99-105)

4. Witchery/witches (122-28)

Short Answer

1. According to Josiah, the Western scientific approach to cattle breeding and raising leaves the herd ill-equipped to live and forage in their natural environment. Ceremony depicts a similarly severed connection to the land among the Laguna Pueblo as a result of colonialism. (68-70)

2. Tayo and Night Swan are both marginalized because of their appearance/race. Night Swan believes they are scapegoated for changes that their communities would rather not acknowledge. (91-92)

3. Tayo believes he has been sent to Betonie so that Betonie can kill him. Tayo believes his family thinks there’s no hope for him, illustrating the extent of his own despair and guilt. (111-13)

4. Tayo believes in the power of the old stories. He believes that the world was once fundamentally different and that animals might have talked before white people colonized the Americas. (86-88)

5. Like Tayo, Betonie has green eyes (in Betonie’s case, inherited from a Mexican grandmother). This suggests that he will understand Tayo’s experiences as someone of mixed heritage and will help him find a way of embracing his Laguna Pueblo identity.

Pages 129-192

Reading Check

1. A mountain range, constellations, and a woman (129-34; 141)

2. Harley and Leroy started a fight over Helen Jean. (155)

3. Floyd Lee (174)

4. A mountain lion (181-82; 188)

Short Answer

1. Tayo hesitates because he has been taught all of his life that white people do not steal. This is ironic given that all of the land men like Floyd Lee own was at one point stolen from its original inhabitants. (177-78)

2. Tayo believes white people suffer more because they carry the guilt of thieves. They know that everything they have is stolen and must bear that burden at all times. (177-79)

3. Tayo’s view of his friends’ future is bleak: He thinks every single one of them will end up dead if they (or he) persist in their self-destructive habits. (155-56)

Pages 193-244

Reading Check

1. A shield (with Betonie’s constellations painted on it) (199)

2. Ts’eh (207)

3. A uranium mine (226-28)

4. Emo wants to kill Tayo. (230-37)

Short Answer

1. Ts’eh believes that the destroyers want to strangle the life out of Tayo’s story, saying that they hate seeing life flourish outside of their control. (215-16)

2. Tayo concludes that the uranium mine is part of witchery’s destructive ceremonies. As the uranium was used to create the atomic bombs that were dropped in Japan during Tayo’s wartime service, the realization recontextualizes his trauma as part of a broader, ongoing struggle against the destroyers. (228-30)

3. Tayo thinks their military funeral makes it not much different than if they had died in the Pacific theater. This implies that the war ultimately killed them, via trauma