The State University of New York
At Potsdam
CEREMONY, STORYTELLING, LAND,
THE REDISCOVERY OF IDENTITY IN LESLIE
MARMON SILKO’S CEREMONY AND
STORYTELLER
AND
N. SCOTT MOMADAY’S THE ANCIENT CHILD ,
HOUSE MADE OF DAWN, AND THE WAY TO
RAINY MOUNTAIN
By
Alyssa Wood
A Thesis
Submitted to the Faculty of
English and Communication
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree
Master of Arts in English and Communication
Potsdam, New York
November, 2006
This thesis entitled
CEREMONY, STORYTELLING, LAND,
THE REDISCOVERY OF IDENTITY IN LESLIE MARMON SILKO’S CEREMONY
AND STORYTELLER
AND
N. SCOTT MOMADAY’S THE ANCIENT CHILD , HOUSE MADE OF DAWN,
AND THE WAY TO RAINY MOUNTAIN
By Alyssa Wood
Has been approved for the
Department of English and Communication
___________________________________
Dr. Anne Malone, Associate Professor
___________________________________
Dr. Richard Henry, Associate Professor
___________________________________
____________________
12/12/2006
____________________
12/12/2006
____________________
Dr. Lisa M. Wilson, Dir. Of Graduate Studies
For Dr. Tony Tyler, Professor Emeritus
12/12/2006
The final copy of the above mentioned thesis has been examined by the
signatories and found to meet acceptable standards for scholarly work in the
discipline in both form and content.
PERMISSION TO COPY
I grant the State University of New York College at Potsdam the nonexclusive right to use this work for the University’s own purposes and to make
single copies of the work available to the public on a not-for-profit basis if
copies are not otherwise available.
___________________________________________
ALYSSA WOOD
3
____________
12/1/2006
ABSTRACT
This analysis will examine the connection between understanding identity
and the intertwining elements of ceremony, storytelling, and land in selected
works of Native American authors Leslie Marmon Silko and N. Scott
Momaday. In their works, the protagonists seek their native identity from
which they have become spiritually disconnected. This thesis guides the
reader along their quests for identity using the framework of a spider’s web,
an image that symbolizes unity and wholeness in native works. The web’s
outer ring, healing ceremony, intertwines with the inner strands of storytelling.
All unite at the center – the land. In keeping with Native storytelling, this
analysis will, as Silko and Momaday do in their storytelling, begin at the outer
edges and move inward to the center. The unity of these elements comprises
the understanding of identity, which will be analyzed in the following works:
Silko's 1988 novel Ceremony and her 1989 autobiographical narrative
Storyteller, Momaday's 1968 novel House Made of Dawn, his 1969
autobiographical narrative The Way to Rainy Mountain, and his 1989 novel
The Ancient Child.
4
In their novels, Native American writers Leslie Marmon Silko and N. Scott
Momaday spin fortifying and enduring webs of identity using the threads of
healing ceremony, storytelling, and land.
As critic Paul Beekman Taylor
observes, these elements unite to provide both the understanding of identity,
one’s “essential idea of self,” and the healing of the spirit for the protagonists
in these narratives (226).
According to Silko, “human identity…and
storytelling are inextricably linked to the land, to Mother Earth” and to the
stories Silko tells (Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit 21). Likewise,
Momaday observes that, as a Native American writer, he maintains a close
connection with the land to preserve his Native American identity and
maintain his heritage through oral tradition and ceremonies. As he explains in
a conversation with writer and critic Lawrence J. Evers, “One of the things
that distinguishes the American oral tradition . . . is the understanding of the
landscape” (38).
Although differences of gender and tribal origin exist for Silko and
Momaday, similar influences appear in their writings. Silko’s Laguna-Pueblo
heritage is richly linked to the land, just as Momaday’s Kiowa culture
maintains a close connection with land. This paper critiques the ways the
intermingling threads of healing ceremony, storytelling, and land spin
harmonious webs of understanding and identity in the works of Silko and
Momaday. This analysis focuses on the following works: Silko's 1988 novel
Ceremony and her 1989 autobiographical narrative Storyteller; Momaday's
5
1968 novel House Made of Dawn, his 1969 autobiographical narrative The
Way to Rainy Mountain, and his 1989 novel The Ancient Child.
This analysis will likewise weave repeated strands of ceremony,
storytelling, and land consistent with Silko’s Laguna-Pueblo heritage and
Momaday’s Kiowa perspective. For both writers, ceremony is the ritual
practice and the reenactment of cultural stories that encompass oral tradition.
Connected to this is the layer of storytelling in which the content of the stories,
traveling through the generations, is passed down through retelling. The final
element is land, the physical object that encompasses a spiritual place within
native belief and is central to understanding native identity.
For Silko and
Momaday, the repetition of these three elements is a necessary and integral
part of the telling of story and the keeping of tradition. In his critical analysis of
Silko's novels, Taylor asserts that repetition of healing ceremony and
storytelling act as curative elements in the restoration of identity (224).
Unlike traditional Western approaches, this analysis will, as Silko and
Momaday do in their storytelling, begin at the outer edges and move inward to
the center. In this way, healing ceremony, the web’s outer ring, intertwines
with the inner strands of storytelling and unites at the center – the land.
Through the perpetual weaving of one’s identity web, memories and heritage
are merged with the current moment, as the strands continue to spin healing
ceremony, storytelling, and connection with land for the protagonists in Silko’s
and Momaday’s novels. Through this analysis, the spider eternally spins her
intricate web.
6
Silko’s Development of The Outer Web of Ceremony
In “Whose Dream is it Anyway?” from The Sacred Hoop, Laguna
Pueblo/Sioux author and literary critic Paula Gunn Allen defines ceremony as
“the outer web of ritual, a procedure whose purpose is to transform someone
or something from one condition or state to another” (80). In this way, healing
powers are shown through the regenerative and restorative ceremony in
Silko’s novel Ceremony. Silko informs the reader that “in the belly of this
story / the rituals and the ceremony / are still growing” (2). For Silko, these
healing acts comprise the outer ring in this identity web because of the
curative properties of ceremony. This is portrayed when Thought Woman,
the spider, explains, “the only cure/I know/ is a good ceremony” (3). Allen
argues, however, that not only does ceremony preserve and communicate
tradition and culture of the past with the present, but ceremony is also
believed to reestablish completeness (116). Allen further emphasizes that in
Native American literature, “[h]ealing chants and ceremonies emphasize
restoration of wholeness, for disease is a condition of division and separation
from the harmony of the whole” (117). In this way, ceremony links one’s
concept of self and tribal identity through healing of the sickness and
incompleteness within. In his analysis of Silko’s Ceremony, Taylor makes a
similar argument, contending, “repetition of ceremony, as well as the repeated
linking of timeless myth with time-bound plot makes a pattern of return and
retrieval of something essential which has been lost or hidden” (228).
7
This focus on repetition is a central element in Ceremony. Repetition
itself is a required component of native ceremony, as the repeating of words,
songs, phrases, and prayers intensifies the healing power of the ceremony.
In this novel, Silko portrays Tayo’s recovery by first making him sick. To heal,
Tayo must have the pollutant dreams and memories of the war released from
his mind; therefore, ceremony is needed to heal the sickened spirit.
Recently returned to his Laguna Pueblo home, feeling alienated from
himself and his culture, weary from the battles and Japanese jungles of World
War II, Tayo is severely ill, suffering from a mental breakdown. Silko uses
elements of verbal and sound repetition to connect the disjointed dreams in
Tayo’s tortured mind to the elements of repetition within the ceremonial cure
he endures. Lost and isolated, Tayo lies in his bed too weak to get up, unable
to keep solid food on his stomach, and tormented by fevered dreams. He is
unable to distinguish between reality and nightmarish images of the past.
As the novel’s title implies, ceremony is at the very center of Tayo’s
world and provides the key for the healing process he endures. Though the
repetition of the rain dripping, the bed squeaking, the Japanese soldiers
screaming, the men singing, “loud voices rolling him over and over again like
debris caught in a flood” tortures his mind, it is freeing him of these memories
by bringing them to the surface (5). A small patch of sunlight on the wall is
his only link to separating haunting memories of the jungle and the darkness
of his loss of identity to memories of home, comfort, and healing. Just as the
sounds in his dark bedroom become an iterative presence in the silent room,
8
voices in his mind are confused and surge like waves crashing against the
shore: “the fever voices would drift and whirl and emerge again” (6). Silko
portrays his healing as a destructive process, as the tribal cure must kill the
illness that threatens to destroy its child. The repetition of elements is further
described, as fever racks his body with shivering and entangles his memory,
and Tayo feels deep in his skull “the tension of little threads being pulled and
how it was with tangled things, things tied together, and as he tried to pull
them apart and rewind them into their places, they snagged and tangled even
more” (7). This emphasis on the entangled threads of the tortured fibers of
Tayo’s mind is representative of Silko’s use of verbal and sound repetition.
Repetition is a required element of ceremony, which Silko emphasizes
through the iterative occurrences that are part of a healing ceremony in
Tayo’s mind. Silko demonstrates Tayo’s disillusionment with the repetition of
examples of his confusion between reality and present with the repeated
images of jungle rain. Sounds of rain, leaves dripping rain, the air itself heavy
and saturated with rain flood Tayo’s mind as he recalls haunting memories of
his imprisonment on the island as “the sound of the rain got louder, pounding
on the leaves, splashing into the ruts; it splattered on his head, and the sound
echoed inside his skull” (12). Silko’s effective repetition of sounds and images
emphasize and reinforce, not only Tayo’s feelings of loss of identity, but also
the sounds themselves, as they reverberate, shiver, and drip.
As these examples indicate and as Taylor notes in his analysis, the
effect of Silko’s use of repetition of certain words and phrases “weaves all
9
these elements into a large design of ceremony, a healing reattachment of an
individual to the land, his family, and community” (224). Silko’s symbolic
repetition of these elements represents the ceremony that will slowly heal
Tayo’s spirit. The sounds that flood his memory and past are being purged
from the recesses of his mind, surfacing as though coaxed from the repeated
prayers and ritual practices, pulling Tayo into a search for his lost (discarded)
identity.
Tayo’s isolation from reality and his struggle to recover his cultural
identity continues to be portrayed through the ceremonial purging of yet more
twisted memories. The narrator’s reiteration of the images of fog, smoke, the
color gray, and invisibility symbolize elements of his cure. Again, these four
elements contradict Tayo’s healing — much as the four directions do in
Laguna ceremony.
As he recuperates in the hospital, smoke from the
ancestral fire that is part of curative ceremony intertwines in his subconscious
with images of doctors and nurses. The narrator describes Tayo’s journey,
into a world leaden and gray, entangled in a confusion of visions and
memories. Colors become muted to grays and shapes become outlines as his
reality becomes distorted beyond his understanding. In this shape-shifting
world, Tayo’s doctors speak with “the invisible scattered smoke,” and Tayo
sees “outlines of gray steel tables, outlines of the food they pushed into his
mouth, which was only an outline too, like all the outlines he saw” (14). As
Tayo attempts to thrust himself into coherence, he feels “he inhabited a gray
winter fog” as “the smoke had been dense; visions and memories of the past
10
did not penetrate there, and he had drifted in colors of smoke” (15). While
Tayo believes he is enmeshed in fog and smoke, the narrator portrays the
process of healing through reiteration of these elements as they slowly
untangle in Tayo’s mind.
Within this context, Silko adds the significance of storytelling as central
to the healing process and sets Tayo on a path of narrating his own
wholeness. Through his dreamlike state, Tayo tells the doctor of himself: “He
is invisible. His words are formed with an invisible tongue, they have no
sound” (16). Just as Tayo feels his substance is lost, he also feels he is
unable to offer a coherent thought or conversation. Continuing this repetition
of word and image, as that of his disconnection with his own identity, the
narrator observes that Tayo “would be lost in smoke again, in the fog again as
his invisibility afflicts him” (16). Yet his stories are beginning to provide
grounding.
The iteration of place and light are also found during the blue corn
ceremony through which the healing power of Ku’oosh’s ritual will restore
Tayo to wholeness. The darkness of a cave of black lava rock yields to
emerging light symbolic of Tayo’s ability to receive the healing powers of
ceremony. Silko suffuses Tayo’s spiritual transition with opposing images of
darkness and light.
The creatures of the night such as singing crickets,”
“snakes hunting after sundown,” and bats emerging from the caves are
repetitious as they are antithesis to the conclusion of the ritual with the
crowning of dawn’s light, “cloudless sky,” and early morning sun (35).
11
The reiteration of these elements is symbolic of the cyclical nature of
life. Just as life is a series of complicated, intermingling events, Silko uses
the metaphor of the spider web to relate this complex, yet delicate, structure.
The old medicine man’s ritual words spoke of “the intricacies of a continuing
process, and with a strength inherent of spider webs woven across paths
through sandhills where early in the morning the sun becomes entangled in
each filament of web” (35). Ku’oosh’s dialogue describes the frailty of life as
a warning for Tayo to accept this responsibility of being human in the world he
is seeking to regain.
Silko’s use of iterative light imagery is portrayed through dialogue that
connotes silvery threads of the spider web reiterating the cyclical nature of
life, and Tayo’s process of healing.
Repetition of the sunlight motif
symbolizes Ku’oosh’s ceremonial cleansing of Tayo’s diseased spirit,
prompting his initiation into healing life. Silko’s use of words and images such
as “morning sun,” “filament,” “cloudless skies” emphasize the ceremonial
purification, paralleling a day illuminated with sunlight as Tayo’s healing and
recovery continue.
For Silko and for Tayo, “the essential feature of healing ceremony
throughout Native American practices is repetition, often in the form of story”
(Taylor 221). The passage itself is iterative in form; as Ku’oosh’s narrative is
repeated to Tayo, it emphasizes the narrative’s repetitive nature through a
chant. “The way I heard it was in the old days long time ago” portrays the
12
continuing process of the adding to and the sharing of the story (Ceremony
35).
Taylor’s idea is further represented through Ku’oosh’s sharing of the
ritual corn story with Tayo, through the narrator’s understanding that certain
elements must be repeated, habit-like, in order to be restorative. “The flute
and dancing/blue corn meal and/hair-washing. All these things/they had to
do” (38). Thus, the repetition of Pueblo ceremony heals and reunites the
individual with the world around him/her. As Native American author and
critic, Joseph Bruchac, explains in Our Stories Remember, “through
ceremony, we may both acknowledge and restore that balance” (57).
Similarly, Taylor proposes that ceremony and storytelling involve
“repairing and shoring up native cultural identity” (227). The mending had
commenced in Tayo’s weakened web of identity, yet it was far from complete.
To strengthen and preserve cultural inheritance, it is necessary to bring new
knowledge and hope to the tribe. The narrator tells this story again when
telling how the wise medicine man, Betonie, helps Tayo realize his healing
would be possible through the learning of and understanding of his heritage,
“that his cure would be found only in something great and inclusive of
everything” (Ceremony 126). As Silko emphasize in this narrative, in those
moments when the world expands and moves away from native tradition, it is
imperative that all aspects of the culture be adapted.
Thus, it becomes
essential that Betonie inform Tayo that some of the rituals must change in
13
order to be preserved for “only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong”
(126).
The convergence of present reality with past history throughout this
novel is a mode of rejuvenation that reaffirms the individual’s connection with
his/her culture, via repetition of ceremonial practice.
Taylor affirms this
principle when he states, “Traveling back through time is the path home,
toward source and instant of emergence” (Taylor 227). The narrator presents
this principle again when Betonie performs another healing ceremony for
Tayo, climbing the hills to the mesas where his people practiced their
ceremonies from the beginning of their history. In the merging of the curative
properties of the blue corn pollen, the bear-paw prints, the ceremonial hoops,
as well as the piercing of the scalp ceremony, Betonie recites a prayer saying
in his effort to bring Tayo back to his roots, to his heritage, and to himself: “I
will bring you through my hoop,/ I will bring you back . . . return to long life
happiness again” (Ceremony 143). As the medicine man reaches out to Tayo
with his therapeutic rites, he reminds Tayo of the importance of the
“ceremonies, for the chants, and the stories they grew from” (150).
This
would strengthen and fortify Tayo’s weakened spirit. For Tayo, the repeating
of this ceremony merges his present with tribal past.
Another mode of repetition is presented through the element of color
reflected in stories and through the emphasis on the role of storytelling within
the narrative (Taylor 235). An example of this is Betonie’s narration of the old
Pueblo story of the young woman of the blue shawl who had come for the
14
ceremonies as well as the old stories. Betonie describes the story of Ts’eh,
Yellow Woman, the woman spirit of the mountain whose golden flowers
surround her in the desert. Iteration of vibrant shades of yellow abounds in
this passage as Silko weaves this brilliant hue into the scene through the
vividness of images: “yellow is the sun, corn pollen, and sand” (Ceremony
221). In the ritual, Tayo is surrounded by “yellow petals,” bumblebees,
sunshine, “the yellow spotted snake,” and “sunflowers”, “yellow sandstone
cliffs” (221).
In addition to the significance of color, the repetition of the character of
the mother figure is an important aspect not only in Silko’s Pueblo-Laguna
culture, but also in Tayo’s healing.
As with the female personification of
Mother Earth, the spider woman, and the stories of the Yellow woman
heroines, Silko’s representation of the importance of femaleness is significant.
As Ts’eh makes love with Tayo, and guides him to a new appreciation of the
land, “she enables him to discover a new/renewed self through oneness with
her, with Mother Earth, and with the stories,” observes Robert M. Nelson
(128). Further, “she opens her heart, body and spirit to help Tayo heal,” just
as Mother Earth nurtures and rejuvenates (129). Through her healing love,
Tayo is given the powers to defeat the witchery. Tayo’s story has merged
with the stories of his heritage, and all are strengthened and rejuvenated.
Through the valued rituals and ceremonies, healing has been accomplished,
and Tayo’s web of understanding identity is beginning to be restored.
15
The healing aspects of ceremony portrayed in Silko’s Storyteller are
strengthened by the sharing of old tales with new generations. Critic and
author Linda Krumholz argues in her article “Native Designs: Silko’s
Storyteller and the Reader’s Initiation” that a ceremony “demonstrates the
fragile balances needed to maintain productive relations within the world”
(72). As the narrator spins the old tale of how “all the people were fooled by/
that Ck’o’yo medicine man” Silko reiterates the importance of maintaining a
balance in one’s life (Storyteller 113). The people must not be tricked by new
magic into abandoning the age-old, necessary ceremonies. She also warns
of those who “grow away from the earth . . . they see no life . . . the world is a
dead thing” (133).
However, Silko, through the voice of the narrator,
emphasizes the making of the yucca ring destroyed the evil power of witchery
by continuing to pass on tribal ceremonies.
Silko develops this same significance in the final story of the rain
section of Storyteller, “The Man To Send Rain Clouds.” Finding the deceased
old Teofilo, the men “tied a small gray feather in the old man’s long white hair,
Ken gave him the paint” (182). Next, they threw “pinches of corn meal and
pollen into the wind” as they implored, “send us rain clouds, Grandfather.”
(183). As the final step in the ceremony, the men asked the priest to sprinkle
some water over the grave, ensuring that “now the old man could send them
big thunder clouds for sure” (186).
Ceremony, like many of Silko’s short stories and poems, tells the same
story of the necessity of maintaining ceremony, reiterating the healing powers
16
found in maintaining a balance between the traditional ways and the new.
These moments of ritual and ceremony lead to the restorative healing of
individuals within their cultural ties. These acts of restoration move inward,
whereas the development of the outer web of ceremony in the novels of N.
Scott Momaday maintains a durative presence, moving outward because it is,
after all, always lying beneath the surface waiting to be seen by those who
understand.
Momaday’s Development of the Outer Web of Ceremony
For the protagonists of N. Scott Momaday’s novels The Ancient Child
and House Made of Dawn, ceremony is situated as the ever-present,
outermost strand in the web of identity. Through continued practicing of their
native ceremonies, these once-lost characters in Momaday’s novels find
paths through which they rediscover their cultural identities. To portray the
healing power of ceremony, Momaday’s protagonists experience the
ceremonies themselves. The duality of repetition of ceremony as it is handed
down and practiced by previous generations is reflected in the subtle
repetitions of various elements and images within these works.
Understanding Momaday’s narrative style requires an understanding
of elements of his Kiowa heritage. In the Kiowa culture, numerous
ceremonies are related to the bear, deer, night chanting, corn pollen, the
ghost dance, buffalo, and the peyote vision. The narrator of The Ancient Child
understands the curative power of ceremony and weaves into the story
17
several of these narrative/rituals related to the healing of the novel’s
protagonist, in particular, the bear paw narrative. Likewise Momaday’s unique
perspective as the traditional storyteller is reflected through the healing power
of the Kiowa creation myth/ritual and the ceremony of transferring the
medicine bundle in The Ancient Child.
The Kiowa story of the ancient bear, the creation myth of Tsoai,
represented in the preface of this novel, is significant as it is the first of
several ancient ceremonies that bring healing qualities to its recipients. In
this tale, a boy suddenly becomes transformed into a bear. As the narrator
explains, the people were “restored to well-being” by the bear child, who had
been “offered to them in the child’s stead” (Ancient 121). According to critic
Susan Garcia-Scarberry, the significance of this moment becomes apparent
when the “bear’s life at once provides a model of transformation into
wholeness, and a warning that the healing process realized through bear
ritual” (61).
As Silko does in Ceremony, Momaday repeats certain words within his
depiction of this ceremony to emphasize the duality of its significance in
aiding Set’s spiritual recovery as he struggles to find his identity. To stress
the continuing need for repletion of tradition and ceremony for cultural survival
and strength, the narrator emphasizes the word “again,” using it repeatedly in
the telling of this story. He begins by again telling the story of the bear,
developing Set as the boy seen chasing his own identity through the
ceremonies of his people, running after his sisters: “And they began to run
18
again, and again he took up the chase” (10). This, then, becomes a pattern
that has been enacted before, with the repetition “again” signaling to the
reader that this is neither the first nor last time the pursuit of identity has
ensued. This durative contrast is significant to this story and to Momaday’s
larger understanding of ceremony and transformation.
Momaday’s repetition of images and sound and their healing properties
in Set’s spiritual voyage are evident in the transferring of the medicine bundle
ceremony. Instrumental in Set’s eventual healing is Grey, the young healer
who inherits medicine womanpower from Kope’mah.
As repetition of
elements occurs in ceremony, Momaday infuses this passage with various
elements of repetition. Grey, herself, is a character who functions as an
example of repetition, as she steps into the tradition of native healers to
continue the ceremonies and cures. Through this ceremony, the power of
healing is transferred from Kope’mah to Grey, Grey to Set, to continue on his
path of recovery. Taylor observes, “Grey’s imagination contains the medicine
of repetition” (Taylor 230). The passing of powers is an act that has been
performed and that will continue to be performed; an ancient repeated
ceremony. Momaday’s uses specific iterative moments to further reflect this:
the rhythmic sounds of the old woman’s breathing become erratic, rasping in
time with the falling rain, the flashing lightning, and the sound of the night
insects croaking outside the tent. Through this ceremony, Momaday is linking
the repeated elements of ceremony and the character as he becomes ever
closer to regaining his cultural identity.
19
Sound and imagery repetition connote this transfer of spiritual potency
and capability through the repetition of strong action words, thereby
emphasizing power and constancy of the words and ceremony. Nature is a
canvas of repeated action and movement, signifying Set’s spiritual
strengthening as demonstrated through powerful action verbs in the following
passage:
Light appeared as a crumpled surface of dark water on the
grasses, then it deepened to sand, then to copper – the wings of
a ground dove – and then to squash, to dry gourds. Leaves
shivered in the clear, cold light. The night wind lay low in the
shifting grain.
Grasshoppers bounded and struck and
rebounded, glancing and popping on the earth. The two women
caught their breath. A timeless rejoicing entered into their veins,
into the current of their common blood. (Ancient 34-35)
Momaday’s skillful manipulation of nature’s noises and visual images
reinforces the power of ceremony, as a beam of light transforms into a solid
surface, deepening in color as it becomes the earthen sand. Mingled with this
are the wispy sounds of a bird’s peaceful wings as they caress the sand; their
constancy of nature’s cycle as certain as the words of ceremony, as
Momaday illustrates this transcendence of healing energy through sound and
imagery repetition.
In addition to Momaday’s use of sound and imagery repetition is his
development of verbal repetition, of the ways that Set’s name is repeated
20
during the ceremony. With each murmur of his name, Set becomes more
completely linked with the ancestors whose name he shares: “The
grandmother Kope’mah had begun to speak names: Set-pago, Set-tainte,
Set-angya, Set-mante.
Set-mante.
Setman.
Set” (35).
The narrator’s
iterative calling of names emphasizes that Set does have heritage, that his
ties to his people are strong; this naming locates him in a line of ancestry,
thereby helping him recover his spirit. Through this iteration of the names of
Set’s predecessors, their strength is passed to him. This ritual is
representative of the transcendence of culture and identity through ceremony.
Similarly, Taylor states, “Ceremony, then, purges the old and makes way for
the new; and so it is not surprising that the typical features of ceremony are
repeated within one story or from one story to another” (230).
The repeated invocation of Set’s name throughout this ritual mimics
the repetition of the prayers and words in ceremony, again reinforcing the
need for repetition of the elements within ceremony and of the ceremony
itself. Through this ritual, the healer has emerged in Grey, simultaneously
linking Set’s lost spirit to the one who now has the power to heal.
With the
completion of this first healing ceremony, Momaday portrays Set as a
successful yet jaded man, in search of himself. “There were times when the
disillusionment was so great that he wept” (Ancient 27). The curative process
again draws the illness to the surface, making the ailing sicker before getting
better. Though his spiritual recovery is not yet complete, Set is being led to
his ancestors and rediscovering his heritage.
21
In Momaday’s novels, as in the works of Silko and many other
contemporary Native American novelists, as the protagonist searches for
his/her lost identity and heritage, he/she is plagued with inner strife and
doubt, as everything that had once defined his/her concept of self is called to
question. This search is complicated in Ancient Child when, weary of the
conflicts and struggles within his life and art, Set feels his work no longer
reflects his inner growth.
That Set is becoming increasingly jaded and
drained of his own self-understanding is essential to his imminent recovery.
The separation he feels from his father’s people and heritage will render his
newfound knowledge even more powerful when his journey is complete.
Though “Set had an incomplete idea of himself,” in order to save himself, he
realizes he must discover his heritage and identity (52). His chase for identity
has ensued, and the strands of healing ceremonies and rituals explored, as
his journey of rediscovering self through his identity web begins.
The spiritual healing of those who are lost is also accomplished by the
passing of ritual practice and ceremony through the generations, perpetually
preserving the link with native identity in House Made of Dawn. For the
protagonist, Abel, the performance of certain rituals will “reconstruct the
wholeness of the cultural life-ways whose coherence promotes healing,” as
Scarberry describes (5). Momaday’s use of word, image, phrasal, repetition,
and combinations of these elements are evident in the ceremonies Abel
undergoes throughout his healing process.
22
Abel is running after his identity, chasing it through the snow-covered
hills and ice-encrusted dunes. Having returned to his childhood home,
disoriented and dazed, Abel is disconnected from his surroundings, his
heritage, and himself. He does not know of his father, save for being told he
was an outsider, making Abel “somehow foreign and strange” (House 11).
Suffering a broken spirit from the horrors of World War II, Momaday depicts
Abel as being shell-shocked and dispossessed: “The intervention of days and
years without meaning, of awful calm and collision, time always immediate
and confused, that he could not put together in his mind” (23).
Through the repetition of the word “light” and images of lightness,
Momaday shows the purging of destructive and diseased memories from
Abel’s mind. For the spirit to be cured, he experiences an awakening of the
senses that symbolizes the rebirth of his spirit. As Taylor notes, Abel’s ability
to recall restorative and positive images represents “the healing process itself
(which) involves moving backwards in time from the present moment to the
beginning of his troubles (228). The use of the brilliant yellow sun imagery
represents Abel’s tribal song of purification. Bright shafts of slanting light,
splintering light, “shafts of reddish-gold final light,” set in contrast to the
yellows of Silko’s Ceremony, emphasize Momaday’s effective use of
repetition of light imagery (House 22). He describes an epiphany in Abel’s
memory with images of dawning degrees of light as shocking, mottled images
of war are replaced by the brightness of present reality. “He saw it swell,
deepen, and take shape on the skyline, as if it were some upheaval of the
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earth, the eruption of stone and eclipse, and all about it the glare, the cold
perimeter of light” (25). This initial personal ritual marks the beginning of
Abel’s quest toward healing and reestablishing his identity.
Momaday inserts a more formal ceremony into Abel’s recovery which
incorporates prayer and chant as Abel continues on his healing path.
According to Taylor, Momaday’s “phrasal repetition” is found in Abel’s ritual
prayer (229):
Before me peaceful,
Behind me peaceful,
Under me peaceful,
Over me peaceful,
All around me peaceful. (House 171)
These ancient ancestral iterations provide a pathway toward the tranquility of
healing, which is also demonstrated through the repetition of old chants and
prayers by Ben Benally. This character has the power to restore Abel to
wholeness, as he himself is whole, represented by the iteration of “Ben” within
his own name, Ben Benally.
As Scarberry notes, through his songs and
stories, Ben serves “as a kind of conduit for a healing force in the universe,”
encouraging Abel to seek reunification with the homeland of his people (103).
Taylor emphasizes the ritual chant as an “essential repeated feature of
ceremony and ritual.”
To provide strength, healing, and a pathway for
rediscovering identity, the ceremony and the chants within it need repeating
throughout the generations (Taylor 231).
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Momaday portrays a key aspect of ritual healing through collaborative
participation in ceremonial group healing. Repetition of language once again
fortifies the spirit of the weakened soul, as both Benally and Milly narrate
more links to his identity for Abel. According to Scarberry, “the presence of
these multiple voices telling a collective story contributes to the novel’s
healing power,” for tribal members must be actively involved in the healing of
one of their own; if an individual falls ill, the group is weakened (73). As the
group’s ceremonial words permeate Abel’s subconscious, they provide
tenacity and strength in his healing.
Combining these elements to reinforce the iterative nature of these
healing links to identity, Momaday also portrays the frequent repetition of light
imagery and sound through group healing in the peyote ritual performed by
Tosamah. In this important ceremony, the tribe participates in the brother’s
healing as the world of darkness merges gradually with the brilliant light of
dawn. Scarberry writes, “the healing properties of Tosamah’s ceremony are
literally being spiritually extended to the ‘outside world” (107).
Momaday
merges the colors of the dawn with its emerging sounds, as rain falls, rocks
slide, drums beat, and thunder rolls. Sounds rush and tumble against one
another as the voices of the participants rise in prayer to reach salvation for
their injured child. This sound iteration is evident as “the drumbeats gathered
in the room and the flame quivered to the beat of the drum and thunder rolled
in the somewhere hills.
The sound was building, building” (House 113).
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Through the invocation of his people’s strength through this prayer ceremony,
Abel is being restored to health.
The Center Web: Storytelling
The continued telling of stories from generation to generation is
important in providing a connection to preserve heritage and identity. In the
retelling of the old legends, the spirit of the stories gives regenerative life to
native culture. Despite differences of tribal origin of Silko and Momaday,
common to both authors is the idea that the retelling of a tale renews and
restores its sanctity, as meaning is continuously passed through the
generations to the present.
Through recoding and retelling the old stories, Silko joins her voice
with the ancient storytellers of her past, helping to preserve and renew their
sacred truth. For her predecessors, verbally sharing the stories was enough
to ensure their survival. For Silko’s generation, much more of a storyteller is
needed to recreate and make sacred the stories, as they are a part of cultural
identity.
According to Silko, the stories “are always bringing us together,
keeping this whole together, keeping this family together, keeping this clan
together” (Yellow Woman 52).
The stories become intermingled, as they
formulate the identity of the people. In Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the
Spirit, Silko states, “we know who we are. We are the Lagunas . . . We are
the people of these stories” (50-51). Her goal is to be a clear narrator of
26
stories, and at the heart of her heritage and background lays the ability and
innate quality of being a storyteller. For Silko, “the old stories contain the
truth, the old verities . . . one should treasure the story of traditional material”
as they provide a link to understanding identity (33).
Heritage and identity are discovered through the sharing of tribal
stories. The Pueblo people and their stories are inseparable. Ellen Swango,
Native American literary scholar writes that to achieve and maintain the union
of cultural history, land and identity, “it is necessary to return to and preserve
the Laguna oral traditions of storytelling and rituals of the past” (Oral Tradition
1). Many of the old tales and legends are considered sacred to the clan’s
identity. Clan stories sustain the people as a community as they breathe
coherence and life into certain events, persons and location. Although some
question the writing of what was formerly only an oral tradition, Silko must be
praised for her moving her culture’s stories into printed text. Two concerns
with the writing down of Native American stories are that real life is separated
from the story and that they are isolated from those who would currently tell
the story. However, through writing, reading, and retelling the original story, a
modern storyteller such as Silko, “creates a new occasion and context for oral
storytelling” (“Spinning” 108).
Though the stories remain unchanged, the new context in which they
are shared recreates their essence as it renews their connection with identity.
A sense of harmony and unity of all things is woven into the tapestry of Native
American narratives and chants. However, in retelling the original stories,
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Silko alters her representations slightly, not allowing the sacredness of the
tribal narratives to be violated. According to her, various stories are carefully
guarded among the Pueblos. Therefore, in the retelling of the clan stories,
she “recode(s) sacred lore into new sacred forms that renew old sacred
powers” (Storyteller 31). The repetition of “sacred” in this statement reflects
the cyclical nature of oral tradition. As narrator, she is able to retrieve ancient
myths while beginning new stories, thus continuing the narrative.
Silko assumes the storyteller role in Ceremony. Numerous Laguna
Pueblo narratives are reflected through the stories of Tayo and his people,
such as mythic storyteller, Thought Woman, or Ts’its’tsi’nako. Initially, Silko is
an outside observer or third-person narrator, rather than participant, so when
she places herself in the center of the creation myth of Ts’its’tsi’nako, Thought
Woman, she imbues the ancient storyteller’s power to not only create a story
with words, but to simultaneously bring the story into being through her
thoughts. “Ts’its’tsi’nako, Thought-Woman, is sitting in her room and whatever
she thinks about appears” (Ceremony 1).
Placement within the myth
signifies an individual’s ability to commune with the story, and to breathe an
ancient story into the present, thus unifying cultural history and memory.
At this point Thought-Woman is the primary storyteller, creating the
characters and bringing them to life through the narration of the story. Silko
expresses this as she writes, “She is sitting in her room/ thinking of a story
now/ I’m telling you the story/ She is thinking” (1). Through this transition Silko
rejuvenates the Laguna myths with new life as the voices of her ancestors are
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heard again through the stories she tells. The story becomes the mode for
the spiritual restoration of Tayo, as Silko recodes this sacred story by
blending it with Thought-Woman’s narrative voice.
A transformation within the story’s structure is another way the tribal
tales are recreated. The unique form Tayo’s story assumes is seen through
the unpredictable nature of native stories. In “Spinning a Fiction of Culture,”
Elizabeth McHenry references a meeting at which Silko cautions her
audience about the form her presentation would take, which similarly and
accurately describes the erratic structure of Ceremony:
For those of you accustomed to a structure that moves from
point A to point B to point C, this presentation may be somewhat
difficult to follow because the structure of Pueblo expression
resembles something like a spider’s web—with many little
threads radiating from a center, criss-crossing each other. (101)
Similarly in Ceremony, individual and cultural myths overlap as the
story emerges. A tribal story intermingles with the present as Ku’oosh takes
Tayo on a purgative hunt. As the hunters traipse through the woods, Tayo’s
shell-shocked mind leads “him through the fallen jungle trees and muddy
craters of torn earth to show him the dead” (Ceremony 37). Silko implants an
old story into Tayo’s consciousness as he struggles with the understanding of
what should be done to honor the dead: “The way/I heard it/was/in the old
days/long time ago/they had this/Scalp Society/for warriors/who killed/or
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touched/dead enemies” (37).
This ancient story becomes part of Tayo’s
rehabilitation, as it begins to bring clarity to his confused mind.
Silko parallels the transformation of the stories as symbolic of the
recoding of Tayo’s life experiences. He is being reprogrammed to reclaim his
lost identity, by distinguishing between the stories of the Indian school and
those of his culture. In the old story, it is believed, the green-bottle fly sought
forgiveness for his people and “since that time the people have been grateful
for what they fly did for us” (101). In contrast, Western belief contends that
flies are insignificant and carry disease and infection, while Native stories
regard the fly as a necessary part of life.
This difference in worldview
accounts for Tayo’s confusion and illness. Having been instructed by nonnative teachers not to believe in the old stories, Tayo relinquishes his tribal
narrative of the green-bottle fly with the teacher’s admonishment “not to
believe in that kind of ‘nonsense” (19). Through the layers of stories and
experiences, Tayo reconciles a part of his heritage. Tayo’s addition to these
stories that have already been told gives regenerative life force to the
members of his pueblo, as well as rejuvenating his own tortured self.
Likewise, Silko weaves the thread of the interconnection of all things in
her aptly titled collection of poetry, essays, and mythic tales - Storyteller. In
her analysis of this work, McHenry states a similar idea, as “the making of
Storyteller asserts Silko’s conviction that the retelling of stories is also the
primary mode by which individuals regenerate themselves” (“Spinning” 113).
Storytelling enables individuals to understand their connection with other
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living beings, as well as their life’s purpose. In “Generation, Regeneration,
and Continuance” Allen states that storytelling “lets people realize that
individual experience is not isolate, but is a part of a coherent and timeless
whole, providing them with a means of personal empowerment and giving
shape and direction to their lives” (Allen 100). Silko’s purpose in Storyteller is
to preserve and perpetuate the memories, myths, and traditions of herself and
her Laguna Pueblo people, as she recodes and renews them.
To continue the stories, by joining her voice with the powerful narrators
of her heritage, Silko adds to the narratives.
In the following quote from
“Storyteller”, Silko describes this as she writes, “the oral tradition depends
upon each person/listening and remembering a portion/and it is together/all of
us remembering what we have heard together/that creates the whole
story/the long story of the people” (7). Fond childhood memories enrich the
pages of photographs and stories of her ancestors, nurturing her history,
family, culture, leading to understanding of her own identity.
For those who participate in a communal psycho spiritual belief, Silko
merges multiple narrative voices of her ancestors’ with the present tellers’ as
she renews their sacredness. Her Aunt Susie, personal narrator of numerous
stories of old, is one such revered ancestral voice channeled by Silko. Of her
aunt, Silko says, she “was of a generation/the last generation here at
Laguna/that passed down an entire culture/by word of mouth/an entire
history/an entire vision of the world/which depended upon memory/and
retelling by subsequent generations” and is heard throughout the pages of
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this work (8).
The joining of the voices of her people in the stories
strengthens communal identity.
Native American writer and professor,
Maurice Kenny reaffirms the significance of this oral narration as he states in
Backward to Forward, “In an unbroken continuum, the oral tradition reaches
down to our day. Medicine people, elders, singers, poets, storytellers, and
even the children carry this strong commitment, this obligation, to ensure the
longevity of oral tradition” (95).
Silko’s participation in the stories of her
heritage assisted in the shaping of her work in Storyteller.
By conjuring the voices and language of those who created the stories
and passed them to her, Silko reinvokes their communal spirits. The subtle
touches of tellers such as Aunt Susie influence the meaning the listener
attributes to the story. As she writes, Silko hears the timbre in her aunt’s
voice, the particular expressions that she used, and recreates them, as she
now tells the story. McHenry furthers this by observing:
Also important, is the proper acknowledgement of Aunt Susie’s
language; it is not altered to contribute a sentimental quality to
the text but remains faithful to a vocabulary that moves between
her own memories of stories she heard and that of the ‘books
and papers’ on the kitchen table. (108)
The creative, energizing life force in every line of Silko’s work of diverse
stories and verses reflects the native belief in the power of the stories.
Varied as the written pieces of Storyteller are in content and form,
“they share a common thematic concern: the nature of language and its
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function in maintaining identity, especially in a world of conflicting cultures,
values, religions and idioms,” as literary scholar Helen Jaskowski states in her
article, “To Tell a Good Story” (87).
Similar to the stories of Tayo, the
characters of these short stories and poems also reflect the significance of
the story in aiding the individuals in their quest toward self-knowledge and
belonging.
McHenry observes that Storyteller suggests how the narrator (Silko)
began to discover her own identity through the storytelling of her relatives, as
Silko (the narrator) was “able to see herself” in that narrative (“Spinning” 106).
Silko also expresses this observation in an interview with Sun Tracks: “People
tell those stories about you and our family or about others and they create
your identity” and a person is known “by the stories that are told about you”
(106). By including her own original stories in this narrative, Silko enhances,
not only her identity with the community, but also the identities of every
member of the clan.
The significance of storytelling as a mode of recreating and re-ensuring
the survival of the Pueblo culture is portrayed in the short story “Storyteller” in
which the Yupik girl becomes a part of the myth of her community as she
establishes her identity. As the dying old man retells the story of a colossal
bear that preyed upon a solitary hunter deep in the Alaska wilderness, the
young girl realizes she can avenge the white man’s murder of her parents.
She is able to become the power of the story, and through her oneness with
the frozen land around her, to realize “it was time” (28). She instinctively
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knows her place, her time, her identity, and is able to tell the story “the way it
must be told, year after year as the old man had done” (32). By becoming a
part of the story, its strength has infused her spirit, and she now has the
ability to resist the destructiveness of Anglo culture.
Similarly, Momaday agrees that retelling, recoding, and renewing the
sacredness of the stories is an important aspect of understanding identity. As
he states in critic William T. Morgan’s article, “Landscapes: N. Scott
Momaday,” “there is nothing more important, I think, no function more
important than that of storytelling within a given society. That really is the
life’s blood of the society” (47). Momaday discusses the connection between
storytelling and identity and emphasizes the importance of preserving the
stories as a means of understanding one’s self (Schubnell 34).
In an interview with Professor at the University of Texas, Matthias
Schubnell, Momaday explains that as a Native American storyteller, he reenergizes the tales and re-invokes those whose voices constructed the
stories, thereby renewing their sacredness.
Of the stories of his people,
Momaday says, “My father told me stories when I was little . . . they were very
special, that they had never been written down, they came from a real
experience of people in touch with the land and with each other” (83).
Through his transcription of, as well as his passing on of the old tales,
Momaday enhances and enriches the Native American oral tradition and
provides a path for understanding identity. This perpetual weaving of the
stories into the thread of Native American culture continues to preserve the
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traditions and culture. While on sabbatical at the University of New Mexico,
Paul Taylor developed an interest in Native American writing, notably that of
Momaday. He notes that the retrieval and rejuvenation of sacred stories is
the “writer’s, singer’s, dancer’s, or painter’s memory of his own experience
conjoined with the lore of ancestral or communal experiences” (232).
For Momaday, storytelling is a special part of rediscovering one’s
cultural heritage. One particularly revered aspect of native identity and
storytelling is the sanctity that exists in the relationship between the storyteller
and her/his audience. In an interview with writer and scholar Bettye Givens,
Momaday explains, “Language is so creative in itself, it is intrinsically so
powerful that storytellers, people who use language, are in possession of a
great power. When the storyteller tells his listeners a story, he creates the
listener, he creates a story. He creates himself in the process. It’s an entirely
creative process” (Givens 89). Momaday also reaffirms that oral tradition is
vital to the survival and preservation of a culture, and tradition is key to
identity and timelessness. A storyteller indelibly understands the sacredness
of this tradition, and, as Givens relates, s/he “becomes someone whose
whole being is there for that particular purpose and no other. It’s like a spell .
. . the storytelling situation is unique . . . never the same thing twice” (89-90).
Momaday tells the story of his Kiowa heritage in his autobiographical
account of his journey as he retraces his ancestral steps in The Way to Rainy
Mountain.
Through his pilgrimage, Momaday sought to discover himself
through the myths and legends of how his people came to be.
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He told
Schubnell, “In The Way to Rainy Mountain I was more concerned to reveal
something to myself than to anyone else.
In the process I acquired an
identity, it is an Indian identity” (Conversations 40).
Though Momaday’s
explorations were largely self-oriented, he recognizes that the stories must be
recorded, continue to be retold, in order to be preserved. The stories exist in
every moment of everyday struggles, which Momaday relates through this
journey.
One important trait of Kiowa stories captured in this work is the
preservation of culture and identity through the retelling and sharing of tribal
stories.
Although people are mortal, through story, their memory can be
immortalized, as is a character in a book. This ensures the continuity not only
of the narratives, but also of the culture. Momaday presents this in the story
of the woman buried in a pecan grove near his grandmother’s home. Though
no living person knows where she was buried, for her grave is unmarked, she
is not forgotten. Still a part of the legend, “the body of the Kiowa woman in
her attire incarnates time and story. It is enough, for the moment, that she is
remembered so that, wherever she is, she can be regenerated in story,”
(Taylor 26).
Likewise, the identity of Set, in The Ancient Child, is reaffirmed through
remembrance of the stories, though he is on the path of becoming restored.
Set is “a man in confusion and pain . . . verging upon collapse” (Ancient 247).
Through the retelling of the ancient Kiowa tale, Grey instills the power of the
mythic bear into the weak body of the twentieth century Set, enabling him to
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begin to find his identity. The sacred lore of the tribe will regenerate and
extend through the healing of the modern-day Set.
This transformation tale has duality of meaning; in a physical sense,
within the story as the ancient story becomes a part of Set’s healing process,
Set himself lives the story as it is being narrated to him. On a spiritual level,
Set is able to join himself with his ancestral past. By listening to its medicinal
words, the story is reborn as it infiltrates his body and mind, thereby
regenerating cultural identity for Set and his people. Through the retelling of
this tribal tale, its healing properties infuse his body and spirit as his cultural
identity is slowly recovered. Set’s transformation from weakened human to
mythic story is symbolic of the healing power of the stories. As Set draws
strength from renewed connection with the Indian land of his father and the
bear paw medicine, Set actually becomes the bear, the myth reincarnate of
the ancient bear/boy who had long ago visited his tribe. As Set’s father, Cate,
retells the ancient words of the mythic boy/bear transformation story, the story
and tribal identity are re-created and Set is drawn into the story and into his
own native culture from which he was severed after his father’s death.
The story is analogous to Set’s physical/spiritual transformation from
human to animal, as Cate ponders the child’s link in his family history. His
ancient consciousness wonders what became of the child. “In his brain was
there something like thought or memory? Did he feed upon his own boy’s
heart, and did he dream? Was there behind his eyes, like thought, the image
of children playing?” (122). Cate’s questions will be answered through Set’s
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transformation in reclaiming his identity. Momaday portrays this when Set
looks into the mirror and is able to see through the mask-like uncertainty of
his lack of identity, to the truth of himself. “Set? He looked into the glass and
spoke to himself. Set? The reflection in the glass is the transparent mask of
a man. I am he. I am that man” (131). As this creation myth merges within
the mind and body of Set, the narrator author reunites with the power of the
story, and he begins to feel he belongs. As the story fills his reality, Set
recognizes himself in relation to where and from whom he has come.
Through his communion with the myths of old, with the ancient child
and the all-powerful bear, Set is not only being cured and rediscovering his
identity, but he is also able to achieve harmony with all living beings. His
story will provide new, fortifying strength to connect with his people. The
timeless Kiowa myth of the child turned into a bear is imbued with restorative
power and strength, as it provides an additional episode to be narrated by the
recipient of the story. Thus, the cycle of oral tradition is perpetuated.
An important aspect of oral tradition within Kiowa culture is that it does
not merely involve a single storyteller, but many. The continued retelling of
stories through oral tradition provides a connection with ancestors, voices
from those of generations past. According to Professor of English at the
University of New Mexico, James Thorson, storytelling encompasses “a
whole way of seeing yourself, the people around you, your life, the place of
your life in the bigger context . . . in terms of what has gone on before, what’s
happened to other people” (Thorson 283). As with the stories told to Grey by
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her grandmother, numerous elements are brought together through repetition,
ensuring that the culture and people would thrive. The telling of the stories,
old and new, is eternal, for, as the elders believed, remembering the stories is
a sign that everything is right with the clan. “And Set remembered. It is an
important story, I think, Cate said, all those years ago. And it is old” (118).
As long as the people have, and can remember the stories, the continuity and
identity of the community is preserved.
The life-stories that re-energize their native cultures continue to
provide invaluable services as seen through Abel in House Made of Dawn.
Though struggling to find himself, his healing continues as he is imbued with
stories. During the eight years he was a part of the white world, while serving
in the United States Army, then searching for work to support himself, Abel is
drawn into the repercussions of the Anglo culture and of alcoholism, sex and
violence in which he finds himself trapped. In and out of alcoholic binges,
Abel can only recall “days and years without meaning . . . confused” (23). He
finds himself trapped by his loneliness and loss of connection with his past.
He can no longer remember the stories of his heritage that his grandfather
had relayed to him as he was maturing.
According to Native American literary critic Linda Hogan, Momaday
“draws on the American Indian oral tradition in which words function as part of
the poetic processes of creation, transformation, and restoration” (169). From
his use of poetic language from the Night Chant to heal, the author enables
his protagonist to visualize and comprehend the interconnection of all things.
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Through the stories of the Priest of the Sun, Abel’s healing continues as he
realizes his history and relationship or place within his tribe. He recalls his
grandmother was a storyteller of old, and it was she who “taught me to listen .
. . how to live among the words . . . I did not know what all of them meant, but
somehow I held on to them, and I remember them now” (House 94). Hogan
emphasizes that this process of visualization in the ailing individual “builds
momentum (as) language takes on the power of generation” through verbal
repetition (169).
The stories provide a link between past and present,
between the individual and the culture.
A distinguishing characteristic of Native American storytelling is that of
imaginative vision.
The healing properties of the lore lie not just in the
repetition of the words but also in the channeling of those who spoke the
language in the past. As the stories continue to be retold to Abel by Ben and
the Priest of the Sun, Abel places himself within the stories of his past, a step
furthering his recovery in native culture. He experiences an awakening in his
mind, recalling how his grandfather had told him the tribal stories, as he was,
“right there in the center of everything . . . where you were and had to be”
(House 157). The ability to envision language and the stories instills healing
as the oneness of all becomes visible (Hogan 171).
Not only does imaginative vision have the power to rejuvenate body
and spirit, it also situates the individual within his own present reality. When
an idea is borne of whom the individual is, which is embodied in language,
that person places himself in the present through awareness of his
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relationship to his past and to those who will succeed him. Similarly, when
this awareness “is realized in language, can man take possession of himself”
(Meredith 405). This realization enables Abel to be receptive to his tribe’s
prayers of the Night Chant. According to Scarberry-Garcia, as he continues
the Night Chant, “Ben Benally functions as Abel’s singer by chanting prayers
over him that engage the powers of restoration or self-healing (92). Through
this chant, elements are put back into balance as Abel’s voice is being
restored. Abel knows then “it was going to be right and beautiful,” for he will
be going home (House 170).
Energized by the rush of old tribal stories and
songs which cause the adrenaline to race through his veins, Abel begins to
understand how the rediscovery of his identity intertwines with the stories of
his people, thus placing himself once again within his tribal culture.
Momaday infuses the text with imagery of light and repetition of the
word “running,” as Abel runs toward his people on the horizon, now being
healed. Momaday symbolizes the merging of Abel with the past, his story,
and his people. The pale light forms a “swell of light” which leads to patterns
of “slanting light” which in turn awaken the earth to a new day. Together
these are symbolic of Abel’s spiritual awakening (211). As he merges with
the dawn, the stories infiltrating his healing mind, and “he had only the words
of a song,” those of his people (212). His greatest legacy is the narration of
the tales of old, promoting the continuation of the tribal lore and history. With
each story or poem that is remembered and passed on, the legacy is
regenerated, living on in every listener.
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The intent of Momaday is not merely to relate secrets of the past Indian
lore in his literary works, but to “re-create, re-conceal and re-sacrilize” his
Indian past, states Taylor (33).
Through his writings, Kiowa storytelling
traditions have been restored and rejuvenated. As the delicate web expands,
its strands envelop the recipient into their weave, renewing the sacred
connection and continuity between individual and tribal community necessary
for the understanding of one one’s identity.
The Inner Web: LAND
Traveling inward from the strands of ceremony to those of storytelling,
the web of identity continues to be examined at the core: land. Just as
maintaining oral tradition rejuvenates native cultures and enables individuals
to recover lost identity and to discover a place where they belong in their
world, connection to the land is the final element necessary for wholeness
and unity with one’s world. Silko states, “[T]hink . . . of the land, the earth, as
the center of a spider’s web. Human identity, imagination, and storytelling
were inextricably linked to the land, to Mother Earth, just as the strands of the
spider’s web radiate from the center of the web” (Yellow Woman 21).
In the
works of both Silko and Momaday, land provides the history, cultural heritage,
as well as the link to the future. Without the land, Mother Earth, the web of
identity would be unable to be completed.
For the Pueblo, the land and the people are inseparable, thus the
individual and his/her cultural identity are indelibly joined with landscape (14).
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Since all things return to dust in this belief, all things are part of the earth.
Rocks, clay, the remains of plants and animals, all these things are “treated
with respect,” for in their “becoming they are once more joined with the
Mother” (27). Numerous native tribes viewed the land as being sacred earth,
an entity that can neither be bartered nor traded. The soil is not merely earth,
but the bones, blood, and flesh of native ancestors (Bruchac 29).
Many contemporary Native Americans view land as being the creative
source of their collective and individual selves.
When that wellspring of
identity is tampered with, the sense of self is also tampered with” states Allen
(The Sacred Hoop 24). In Ceremony, this is exemplified as Tayo continues
his path toward eventual healing. Reestablishing a close connection to the
land is central to his search for healing and identity.
This sense of
communion has been lost from Tayo, as his illness is in large part due to his
separation from the ancient unity of person, ceremony, heritage, and land.
Despite feeling “hollow” and “invisible,” from the sheer shock of war and the
loss of his beloved cousin, when Tayo views the mesas and valleys of his
people, his connection to the terrain and the heavens is tenable: “He believed
then that touching the sky had to do with where you were standing and how
the clouds were that day” (Ceremony 19).
Although suffering from physical and spiritual weakness, Tayo
instinctively begins to realize that he would only find himself, his direction, by
placing himself in the land of his people. Although he remains seriously ill in
body and spirit, Tayo begins to feel solidly rooted in tradition. Kenny agrees
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that “touching earth, the mother of us all,” is integral to retaining communion
with oneself (Backward 96).
In his essay, “Locating the Uranium Mine,” author James Tarter
describes the concept of communion as “belonging with” the land of one’s
people (100). Feeling the earth in his hands and spirit, Tayo experiences this
sensation as he begins to realize he has an historical relationship to the land.
Tarter affirms this as he states: “Tayo’s personal history with this particular
place begins to reconnect him with Laguna culture, but it also begins to
connect him, perhaps uncomfortably, with an extensive history” (100).
To complete this healing journey, Silko places Tayo on the land of his
ancestors, situating him physically and spiritually within his cultural history.
She relates Tayo’s rejuvenation as he communes with the land around him.
Clinging tenuously to the soil, Tayo recalls memories of his uncle, as he had
pointed “around at the narrow canyon,” saying, “this is where we come from,
see. This sand, this stone, these trees, the vines, all the wild-flowers. This
earth keeps us going” (Ceremony 45). Ever so slowly, Tayo comes to realize,
it may not be the end after all, as “he tasted the deep heart rock of the earth”
(46). Recalling his experiences with the land and remembering his ancestors
who once defended it from the government which took it from them, Tayo
comes to understand the earth as he would understand another human being.
He experiences both the sense of belonging to a people and with a place.
It is only through the merging of the land with his spirit and identity that
Tayo could be healed. The life-giving history of his people continues to be
44
linked with Tayo’s recovery and with the land. Tarter explains that it is only
“when Tayo regains his sense of place” as well as when he “properly
envision(s) his connections with others” (99). The landscape itself is a living
narrative in which he connects with his ancestors and identity. In his journey
toward regaining oneness with the land, Tayo was able to recognize the
vitality and goodness of the earth: “It was a world alive, always changing and
moving; and if you knew where to look, you could see it, sometimes almost
imperceptible, like the motion of the stars across the sky” (Ceremony 95).
The earth infuses wounded spirits with its powerful energy, reestablishing
harmony and oneness.
By unifying the once-sick Tayo with his homeland, Silko reaffirms
Tayo’s intrinsic connection with the place of his people.
Now that he is
restored in body and spirit, he is able to interact with his community, their
stories and history, and the land. “For Silko, a commitment to place, or as
she puts it, a ‘belonging with’ place (Ceremony 117), provides a way to at
least articulate, manage, and negotiate – but not exactly overcome — cultural
differences such as race and ethnicity” (Tarter 98). Though Tayo has been
torn between the Anglo world and his native world, through his reconnection
with the land, he is able to accept and understand the differences. Tayo
provides this justice to the land, as his communion is made with his
homeland. Demonstrating the connection between the land and culture, Allen
states the individual’s culture and heritage are the modes of communication
between the land and the people” (The Sacred Hoop 120).
45
Through the ceremonies, heritage, and communion with land, the
strands of Tayo’s identity web are restored and fortified.
At the web’s
epicenter, he is again a part of Mother Earth and it within him. Allen asserts,
“Tayo’s healing is the result of his recognition of this unity” of the person,
story and land that he had regained” (The Sacred Hoop 128). Through his
journey, Tayo is healed; his reunification with the land of his heritage
reestablishes his identity.
In addition to achieving oneness with the land, understanding the
individual’s relationship with it is a distinct characteristic of the Native
American oral tradition in Storyteller.
Whether sandstone cliffs, hovering
hulks of trees, or huge boulders shaped in a particular way, the native
description of place in the collective memory of the tribe is integral to
reestablishing connection with the past. Additionally, recognizing the
landscape through an historical relationship is necessary for the individual to
be whole and restored to wellness.
Vivid descriptions of the land, as well as specific incidents and
changes within the area all belie an intimate understanding of place and
heritage in Storyteller: the “great pieces of the cliffs that long ago crashed
down from long mesas” provide the sacred burial place of Ayah’s dead infants
in Silko’s “Lullaby” (47), just as “the giant red boulder that had tumbled down
from the red sand-rock mesa throughout the centuries of rainstorms and earth
tremors lend clarity and identification in her sad story” (51). As Ayah recalls
the song of her grandmother, “the earth is your mother, /she holds you. /The
46
sky is your father, /he protects you. /Sleep, sleep,” the everlasting terrain is
printed indelibly in the mind’s eye (51).
An aspect of native literature that Silko portrays through these words
and others in Storyteller is the belief that land is timeless. Even if human
beings are not able to enjoy it, the land will persevere with life and beauty as
the generations pass. The continuity of the land provides both generational
history as well as innate knowledge of one’s place in the land and tribal
culture. The connection between land and heritage is significant in the story of
the young Yupik girl. So profound is her intrinsic connection with her ancestry,
the young Yupik girl identifies with the land of her people and instinctively
knows how she is rooted in the land; “somewhere the sea and sky met” when
the “cold came,” with no boundaries separating the heavens and the earth
(27). All the unforgiving power of the frozen landscape merges within the
narrative of the girl who is seeking to avenge her parents’ deaths. “The white
man failed to account for the conjunction of the landscape with the woman”
for she “had never seen herself as anything but a part of that sky, that frozen
river, that tundra,” (46).
The Yupik girl’s narrative could not be changed; it
was part of the land, and “it must be told, year after year” the same way (32).
As with the story of this young girl, the strength of a people’s harmony is
found in their land.
As with Silko’s writings, Momaday’s novels provide a connection
between land and identity. In Ancient Child, Set is attracted to the mythical
bear tale of his tribe, for this connection is the link to his identity. As Taylor
47
states, “You can be separated for a hundred years, for two hundred . . . for a
thousand years, from what is essentially your mythology, but the separation is
a veneer. The myth will always emerge. It has to surge out and be known,
because you carry it with you” (Taylor 26). This is the case with Set as the
newly restored memories of the past begin to initiate his connection with the
land, from which he had so long been separated. Set’s agonizing loss of
identity and connection with the land of his father overcomes his fragile
existence as “the memory of words his father had spoken long ago” once
again loom to the forefront (Ancient 52). From childhood, although largely
unaware if it, the past history of his tribe had continued to be a part of him, the
inheritor son. To accomplish his quest for identity, Momaday emphasizes that
Set must find communion with the land of his forefathers to which he must
return.
To the link one’s cultural identity in the present to that of the past, the
ailing protagonist in native literature must utilize and internalize the culture
and heritage of his/her father’s people. Momaday portrays the rejoining of
ancient tribal belief and land through its merging within the body of the
modern-day Set, thereby linking past and present, as Set realizes the tribal
recollection of the little boy who transformed into the bear and who “restored
the people to well-being,” is significant to rediscovering his identity (112).
Inexorably, the bear’s silent call to become one in a reunification with the land
of his people, beckons a bewildered, lost Set. Almost imperceptibly, the land
and history blend their voices until “the sound of the night is made of
48
innumerable voices on the earth and in the far reaches of the universe” (202).
Momaday illustrates the lost one’s communion with the land as a process
through which Set is physically and spiritually drawn to his homeland.
Transported even closer to the physical land of his forefathers, Set
recognizes “the richness of the Plains . . . the landscape was unending . . .
the great mystery and strength of the Plains” (221).
The importance of the land in regaining his identity becomes clear to
Set as the bear looms closer into his current existence, heralding him into his
past.
An impression of the power of the land emanates from “the odors of
bear grease and of mold, of death, of deep, humid earth run through with
bitter roots” (242). Momaday utilizes the elements of destiny, as they align to
provide Set the opportunity to perpetuate the myth, reconnect with his
ancestral land, and discover his identity. “Nowhere on earth was a more
perfect equation of freedom and space than this,” the “center of the world, the
sacred ground of sacred grounds . . . the destination and destiny of ancients”
(245).
By unifying Set with his heritage and homeland, Momaday again
illustrates the interconnectedness of all things.
The narrator portrays this communion as Set merges into the land of
his ancestors and feels the earth beneath his fingertips. His realization and
understanding of what it is to be alive is possible only because of his union
within the ceremonies, stories, and land of his people.
To further his
communion with the land in which he now feels “serene and refreshed in his
soul,” he begins to blend his voice with those of his ancestors’ (301).
49
The
synthesis of land and heritage provide the necessary link to rediscovering
identity.
This occurs also in House Made of Dawn, when Abel, in an attempt to
recover his voice and self-knowledge, must re-establish connection with the
land of his tribe.
One technique Momaday uses to communicate Abel’s
movement toward recovering his identity is that of verbal repetition in the
Night Chant ceremony. This repetition reinforces the healing message that
provides Abel with self-knowledge, which enables him to spiritually merge
with his people’s land. Iteration of the word “restore” in phrases such as:
“restore my body for me/ restore my mind for me/ restore my voice for me”
made Abel whole so he could rediscover his place in the land of his people
(147).
The union of restored identity and land in native culture is portrayed
when Momaday incorporates the use the incidental repetition through the
image of running, which is found at both the beginning and conclusion of the
novel (Taylor 221).
To relate the protagonist’s struggle with identity,
Momaday portrays Abel as chasing his identity due to his loss of the
narratives: “Abel was running. He was alone and running” at the novel’s
outset (1). Upon his healing, Momaday depicts Abel in a different light: “He
was running and there was no reason to run but the running itself and the
land and the dawn appearing” (House 211).
Another use of incidental repetition is through Momaday’s use of light
images that recur throughout the novel. The iteration of the light of dawn
50
illuminates the land with which Abel is being reunited. “Dry light of the valley,”
“sun-lit silver,” “splinters of light,” “trees edged with light,” reinforce his
connection with the earth (24). Momaday’s focus on the light is symbolic of
the reawakening of the protagonist’s senses of who he was in relation to the
land and his heritage. He has discovered his connection with the land. As the
dawn marks the beginning of a new day, so this light announces the rebirth of
Abel into the land of his people. “He could see the canyon and the mountains
and the sky, “house made of pollen, house made of dawn” (212). Abel is
home, at last.
Although he has stumbled meaninglessly through the years, he
realizes his life has been meaningless. However, having gained strength from
the ceremonies and stories of his people, Abel is at the threshold of
recovering his identity. To complete his journey, Momaday brings him to the
land of his people. Upon traveling back to his ancestral land in the canyons,
Abel finds himself “at the heart of the red mesa” where he “looked out over
the green and yellow blocks of farmland” and “for a moment everything was
all right with him. He was home” (30). Momaday’s placing of this lost soul
within the land of his ancestors is significant, as Abel has finally found his
place within the landscape of his heritage.
Abel’s healing can be attributed to his assimilation of the land and its
past. The internalizing of images of the land enables his reconnection with
the past (Scarberry 7). Deep inside himself, Abel senses he would only find
himself, his place in the scheme of things, through the history and memories
51
of the land. Momaday situates his character within the ancient and present
times, as he is linked to the past: “He could hear the distant sound of the
drums of the deep, welling voice of the singers” and he “could see where they
were in relation to the walls and the doors and the slope of the earth. He had
an old infallible sense of what they were doing and had to do” (House 86).
By joining a memory of Abel’s past with the present, Momaday relates
Abel’s communion with the land as he gradually comes to an awareness of
his place in the mesas around him: “That night your grandfather hammered
the strips of silver and told you stories . . . and you were . . . right there in the
center of everything, the sacred mountains . . . where you had to be” (157).
Thus, Abel answers the primal call to reconnect with his identity. The web’s
interconnected strands of ceremony, story, and land are strengthened, as
Abel's lost identity has been recovered.
At the heart of the web of identity lies the fortifying and eternal land
which when united with the strands of healing ceremony and storytelling
reveals one’s cultural identity. Through the assimilation of these elements, an
individual is able to rediscover who he is and understand his place among his
people. The necessary merging of these elements reinforces wholeness and
identity.
Conclusion
Through these works, Silko and Momaday continue to spin webs of
identity with threads of ceremony, storytelling, and land. As these authors
have in their storytelling, this thesis has explored the identity web by
52
examining first the outer strands of ceremony and storytelling as they
intertwine with the innermost of land.
Through the unification of these
repeated and intertwining elements, one is able to understand his/her own
identity, even the protagonist whose cultural self is lost. Through the pages of
their works, the drums of ancient tribal days echo throughout the ages to
present-day ceremony for the healing and refortification of the sick. Silko and
Momaday spin this olden element into the words of their ancestors through
the stories they retell and renew, as they resacrilize their histories to present
and future generations. Witness to all histories and heritage, and equally a
part of ceremony and stories is the land, the earthly mother who remembers
and recounts the footsteps of all who have trod the mountains and valleys of
her eternal face. Although the dust on the paths of the ancient ones lies
undisturbed on the everlasting land, it may be stirred and their steps may be
retraced through ceremony and the telling of stories. The strands continue to
interconnect, stirring ancient memory as the identity web spins.
Just as the spiritually restored awakens to understanding and
awareness through the successful interweaving of these elements, this thesis
has explored Silko and Momdady’s skillful intertwining of these elements as
they form intricate webs of identity for their protagonists. Like the identity web,
this thesis is a pattern to continue weaving the strands of these elements, to
further the perpetual cycle of memories and heritage, and explain the
significance of the presence of ceremony, storytelling, and land in these
works of Silko and Momaday.
For these authors, the protagonists of whom
53
they write, and those with whom they share their heritage, the individual
strands of the identity web are as integral to understanding identity as all
individuals are essential components of the cultural web to which they belong.
The perpetual weaving of the identity web continues its cycle as the strands
repeatedly intertwine, spinning memories and heritage into patterns of old and
new.
From old, a new design emerges as this thesis further spins the
elements of ceremony, storytelling, and land from Silko and Momaday’s
heritage into a new-fangled web of identity.
Elements essential to the
understanding of identity have been explored through this analysis of Silko’s
Ceremony and Storyteller and Momaday’s House Made of Dawn, The Ancient
Child, and The Way to Rainy Mountain.
This exploration of ceremony,
storytelling, and land allows a reaffirmation of these elements as they
continue to be woven into new-old webs and provide understanding of
identity. The ancient drums can still be heard, as ceremony continues to heal
the weakened spirit. Connection with the land is kept alive through telling of
the ancient tales, and, as the fires burn in memory, the identity web continues
to be woven.
54
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