Ceremony

Ceremony is a story about storytelling and the power it holds. The novel begins with an extended verse section about the creation of the world, during which Ts’its’tsi’nako, the Thought-Woman, thinks the world into existence as a series of unfolding stories: For the Laguna Pueblo, stories create reality itself. The comparison of storytelling to pregnancy underscores the association between stories, creation, and life, as does the remark that stories are “all we have” to stave off death and illness (2).

The connection between narrative and life speaks in large part to the novel’s interest in Laguna Pueblo identity. Like many Indigenous American cultures, Laguna Pueblo society places great weight on oral tradition; the mere act of storytelling is thus a means of participating in and preserving that culture. The stories themselves are also vessels for Laguna Pueblo identity, reflecting shared values and beliefs. The mythical tale of Hummingbird and Greenbottle Fly is a good example. Josiah at one point references it to warn Tayo against killing flies, but the story also unfolds in the novel’s verse sections, where it mirrors and comments on Tayo’s journey. Silko thus uses the story to illustrate two ways in which stories create and perpetuate a culture: by providing members of that culture with a shared “language” in which to discuss their experiences and by integrating individual lives into a multigenerational, even timeless, narrative.