Leslie Silko, “The Man to Send Rain Clouds”
We’ve seen stories and poems from various cultures in different parts of the world and
this country, but with this story we have a meeting of two different cultures in our own
country. For want of better terms I’ll simply call the two Native American and
European/American Christian.
With a warm March sun high in the sky, Leon and Ken find Teofilo’s body. After tying
a feather in his hair, drawing paint lines on his face, and throwing corn meal and pollen
into the wind , they wrap his body. Asking him to send rain clouds, they return to town
with his body covered in the rear of their pickup.
When the “young priest,” Father Paul meets them and asks about “old Teofilo,” they
respond that everything is O.K. and that he won’t be staying alone at the sheep camp
anymore. We later realize that their ambiguity is to prevent the priest from becoming
involved with the funeral proceedings.
After they return home, noontime, they dress him for burial and have lunch. Neighbors
and clanspeople (members of their “family”) bring food “because the gravediggers would
come to eat when they were finished” (14). (Note the variation of the custom you’re
probably familiar with of bringing food for the family).
With the western sky “full of pale yellow light,” Louise suggests bringing Father Paul to
sprinkle “holy water for Grandpa. So he won’t be thirsty” (19). Knocking on “the old
carved door with its symbols of the Lamb,” Leon “looked up at the twin bells from the
king of Spain with the last sunlight pouring around them” (21).
With the news of the death, the priest says he “could have brought the Last Rites
anyway.” Leon, smiling, says “It wasn’t necessary” and Father Paul, looking at the floor,
insists, “For a Christian burial it was necessary.” The conversation marks the peak of the
story’s clash of cultures. Father Paul’s name and position reminds us of the apostle (not
disciple) Paul, the ultimate missionary of the New Testament, who spent much of his life
trying to convert pagans to Christianity..
Father Paul relents, and as they walk into the graveyard, “only half of the sun” shown
over the mesa. “[S]quinting at the last sunlight, he sprinkles the holy water onto the
blanket. The service over, “the sun was gone, and over on the highway the eastbound
lane was full of headlights” (36). Pleased, Leon looks at the mountain snow reflecting “a
faint red light from the west” and thinks to himself “the old man could send them big
thunderclouds for sure.”
I’ve done much more plot summary than usual, but now I’ll try to pull it all together. I
boldfaced the several references to the sun as it runs its course from mid-morning
through the day to its dropping below horizon. The easy symbolism is to suggest
Teofilo’s life running its course. But the scene is not negative.
We see the co-existence of the native American culture and the Christian culture. And
actually the “Christian culture” as represented by the Catholic priest is a transplanted
European culture, imported as surely as the church bells came from the king of Spain.
(Note also that Teofilo’s name is Mexican/Spanish, reflecting the Spanish influence on
Native Americans in his time just as surely as Ken, Leon, and Louise’s names reflect the
Anglo influence at the present).
The church door had carved “symbols of the lamb,” Christian symbols of Christ the lamb
who died for our sins. But Christ is also called the good shepherd. Once we remember
that Teofilo died tending his sheep, the symbolism begins to get interesting. For
Christians, Christ is an intermediator, one who would speak for us, who would intervene
on our behalf. When Ken and Leon ask Teofilo, “Send us rainclouds, grandfather,” they
are acknowledging his role as an intermediator. As a Christ figure, Teofilo’s death is
hoped to bring new life.
And so the two cultures come together. Following the Catholic religion, Father Paul
provides the Holy Water which is to lead to new life in Christ; following native American
religion, Teofilo’s family believes he will send rain clouds which will bring new life to
their crops and to them.
In the last scene, the headlights of the eastbound traffic have replaced the sun, whose
light had dominated the story.
One interpretration holds autos represent the new culture which is replacing the old
(native American). But their going east (where the new culture came from) doesn’t seem
to support that.
Another says the new west is shedding new light on the old east. The problem there is of
course that the light comes from new technology.
Another argues that the cars are returning to the source of light/life (the rising sun), just
as Teofilo is returning to his source. And Life goes on.
Unlike Lyman and Henry Jr from “The Red Convertible,” Teofilo’s family has managed
to hold on to their culture in the midst of the larger and dominant “alien” one. Unlike the
characters in “Latin Women Pray,” Teofilo’s family coexists quite nicely within the
larger “other” culture, even adapting parts of it to their use.