Witchery In The Ceremony

In Leslie Marmon Silko’s, Ceremony, Emo liked to point out the “dusty wind,” the white people had left with them and to say “’Look what is here for [the Indians]’” (23). Emo’s attitude toward the wind and the white people shows a desire to experience the white peoples’ lives rather than his own culture. Throughout the novel, Silko establishes that this desire is a product of witchery that the Indians created. Moreover, throughout the novel the appearance of wind often correlates with the appearance of witchery. Thus, Silko utilizes the wind as a tool to demonstrate the effect of witchery on Tayo’s world. Throughout the novel, Silko establishes that the wind is a tool of witchery. During Tayo’ meeting with the medicine man of Gallup, Betonie …show more content…
During the recruiter’s visit, Tayo states that there was “something relentless in the way the wind drove the sand and dusty ahead of it” (59). The army recruiter exhibits how white people are used as witchery’s tool of separation. In an effort to convince Tayo and Rocky to the join the army, the recruiter continues to separate the Laguna people from white people by referring to the boys as “you,” and the white army as “we” (59). The continued use of micro aggressions by the army recruiter is a tool used by white people to separate the Native American from themselves. This separation between the boys and the recruiter mimics the force used by the wind to drive the sand because it is a relentless way to distance different races of …show more content…
As Betonie preforms the Scalp Ceremony he describes Tayo’s war experience as going “to the place where the whirling darkness started its journey” (132). The “whirling darkness,” is a reference to the force that brought the white people into creation. Thus, Betonie implies that Tayo has journeyed into the core of the witchery that is now plaguing the Earth. This darkness the white people are acting on is attempting to separate the Native Americans from their cultural identity. Moreover, Tayo and Ts’eh’s last night together, Tayo attempts to “lock out the moaning voices of the dark whirling winds” (216). The “whirling winds” once again refers to the forces of separation witchery created. This demonstrates that after the initial ceremony Tayo is still overcoming the witchery placed upon him, but he his prospering over witchery because his ability to lock out the sound mimics his ability to recognize and block out the separation witchery is attempting to