Traditions In Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko presents to us that there is a necessity for ceremonies and traditions in the world that we live in. She teaches us that forgetting those traditions and ceremonies can bring hardship, that traditions and ceremonies must be constantly changing with the world, and that blindly going through the motions of a tradition can bring dangers.
Tayo, the main character, learns the hard way that forgetting ceremonies and traditions can cause hardships. Towards the beginning of the story, Tayo blames himself for the reason there is drought. He thinks that it is his fault because he forgot the tradition and importance and decided to curse the rain instead. Silko says “He damned the rain until the words were a chant, and he sang it while he crawled through the mud…he wanted the words to make a cloudless blue sky…he could hear his voice praying against the rain” (Silko, 12). Tayo was upset that the rain was causing so much hardship, so he got angry just like any other human would’ve. Later, we are still unsure if Tayo’s curse was really the reason why there was a drought, but it was important thing for him to learn. Through ceremony he understood that he needed to respect the rain. Once he fully respects the rain it returns. …show more content…
He is visited by an old medicine man named Ku’oosh. He performs a ceremony on Tayo to try and heal him from the effects of the war. He tries all that he knows how and says, “There are some things we can’t cure like we used to, not since the white people came” (Silko, 38). Ku’oosh could not cure an illness that was brought about by a current event because he had not changed his ceremony. Later, Tayo turns to Betonie for help. Betonie is another medicine man who teaches Tayo that you must change your ceremonies and traditions overtime, little by little, to help meet your needs. He tells