40 Fun Facts About Ceremony (Leslie Marmon Silko)

Leslie Marmon Silko wrote Ceremony, a novel of the dry Southwest, in a rain-soaked town in which US state?

Alaska was where Silko began the book in 1973, in the town of Ketchikan. She said the lack of sunlight there left her fighting bouts of depression.

In Silko's Ceremony, Tayo comes home to the Laguna reservation traumatised by service in which conflict?

World War II took Tayo to the Pacific as a soldier. Ordered to shoot captured Japanese soldiers there, he believes he sees his uncle's face among them.

In Silko's Ceremony, Tayo's cousin dies as a prisoner of the Japanese during which wartime atrocity?

The Bataan Death March forced more than 70,000 American and Filipino prisoners to walk to Camp O'Donnell. Tayo never forgives himself for failing to bring his cousin home.

In Ceremony, Tayo believes that cursing the jungle rain as a soldier caused which disaster back on Laguna land?

A drought has parched the reservation for years by the time Tayo comes home. An old story woven through the book describes the same punishment falling on the people long ago.

In Ceremony, which Navajo medicine man keeps old telephone books and calendars among his prayer sticks and herbs?

Betonie uses the clutter to build new rituals that combine symbols from several cultures. He argues that ceremonies have to keep changing if they are to stay strong.

The climax of Ceremony takes place at an abandoned mine near Laguna Pueblo that once dug which mineral?

Uranium ties Tayo's homeland to the atomic bomb. A real mine on Laguna land, opened in 1953, grew into the largest open-pit uranium mine in the world.

Ceremony helped Leslie Marmon Silko win which award, nicknamed the genius grant, in its very first year?

The MacArthur Fellowship went to Silko in 1981, when the programme named its first fellows. That was four years after the novel was published.

Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony sets out its old Laguna stories on the page as what?

Poetry carries the traditional stories while Tayo's own life runs alongside in prose. The book also does without conventional chapters.

The Laguna Pueblo reservation where Silko grew up and set Ceremony lies in which US state?

New Mexico is home to the Pueblo of Laguna, whose Spanish name means small lake. The lake it was named for has since dried up.

In Ceremony, Tayo is treated as an outsider at Laguna because his absent father was what?

A white man fathered Tayo and did not stay to help raise him. Silko, herself of mixed ancestry, said growing up neither white nor fully traditional was at the core of her writing.

In Ceremony, which fellow veteran rattles a bag of teeth taken from dead Japanese soldiers and hunts Tayo?

Emo keeps the teeth as war trophies and brags about how much he enjoyed killing. Tayo once went for him with a broken bottle over the boasting.

In Ceremony, which uncle of Tayo buys a herd of Mexican cattle and dies while Tayo is overseas?

Josiah teaches Tayo about horses, cattle and how to live. After his death the herd goes missing, and recovering it becomes the task at the heart of Tayo's healing.

In Ceremony, which mysterious mountain woman shelters Tayo and helps him recover his uncle's stolen cattle?

Ts'eh calls herself a Montano, and the book hints that she is a spirit of the mountain rather than an ordinary woman. She also shows Tayo how to gather plants and herbs.

In Ceremony, which star athlete raised in the same house as Tayo enlists with him and never comes home?

Rocky wants one thing above all, to leave the reservation and succeed in the wider world. He trusts the teachers who tell him not to let the people at home hold him back.

In Ceremony, which Catholic relative raises Tayo while never letting him forget his mother's disgrace?

His aunt, known simply as Auntie, takes Tayo in when his mother gives him up. She treats him as one more burden and frets constantly over gossip about the family.

In Ceremony, which term do army doctors use for Tayo's illness, known today as post-traumatic stress disorder?

Battle fatigue was the army's label in the 1940s, and its doctors can do little for Tayo. The book treats his sickness as part of something larger that needs a different kind of cure.

Ceremony opens with which spider creator of Laguna tradition, who brings things into being by naming them?

Thought-Woman, also called Spider Woman, is imagining the story as the book begins. Her Laguna name, Ts'its'tsi'nako, is the first word of the novel.

In Ceremony, which animal's tracks distract the patrolmen who catch Tayo on a white rancher's land?

Mountain lion tracks send the cowboys off on a hunt, and they lose interest in arresting Tayo. Earlier he had met the animal face to face and left an offering in its pawprints.

At the end of Ceremony, Tayo tells his story to the Laguna elders inside which ceremonial chamber?

A kiva is the room Pueblo peoples use for rites and meetings, traditionally round and sunk below ground. Being heard there marks Tayo's acceptance by his community.

In Ceremony, which hard-drinking friend arrives on a burro to coax the ailing Tayo out to a bar?

Harley was where the whole book began. Silko first set out to write a comic short story about his drinking, until the minor character Tayo took over.

In Ceremony, which traditional Laguna medicine man does Old Grandma send for before Tayo consults a Navajo healer?

Ku'oosh performs the old ritual, but it cannot reach a sickness born of modern warfare. He is the one who sends Tayo on to a healer with newer methods.

In Ceremony, which dancer living above a bar becomes the lover of Tayo's uncle and urges him to buy cattle?

Night Swan is an outsider at Laguna, as Tayo is. She tells him that people blame those who look different so that they do not have to face themselves.

In Ceremony, the Navajo healer's hogan overlooks which railroad town nicknamed the Indian Capital of the World?

Gallup, as the novel shows it, lives off tourists drawn by Native culture while pushing Native people to its edges. The healer's hogan stood in the hills before the town existed.

In Ceremony, Tayo tracks his uncle's stolen cattle onto which dormant volcano sacred to the Laguna and Navajo?

Mount Taylor is known to the Navajo as Turquoise Mountain and marks the southern edge of their traditional homeland. It was renamed in 1849 for President Zachary Taylor.

In Ceremony, Tayo realises that which first atomic bomb test took place in the desert not far from Laguna?

Trinity was detonated on July 16, 1945. In the novel, Tayo's grandmother remembers seeing a huge bright flash in the sky while he was away at war.

In Ceremony, Tayo is kept in a veterans' psychiatric hospital in which West Coast city before he returns to Laguna?

Los Angeles is where army doctors hold Tayo until a sympathetic one lets him go home. Back on the reservation, his family tries the cures the hospital could not provide.

In Ceremony, Tayo feels invisible in the veterans' hospital, as though his body were made of what?

White smoke is how Tayo sees himself at the start of the book, like a ghost. His grandmother's decision to call in a healer begins his journey back.

In the climax of Ceremony, which tool does Tayo grip while resisting the urge to attack his tormentor?

A screwdriver is in his hand as he watches from hiding, but he refuses to use it. By not striking, Tayo leaves the destroyers to turn on one another.

In the myth told through Ceremony, which bird journeys with Green Bottle Fly to the Fourth World to save the people?

Hummingbird and the fly act as messengers for the people in the myth. Their errand runs alongside Tayo's own quest, and both stories end with the land restored.

In Ceremony, the Navajo healer tells Tayo to watch for spotted cattle, a mountain, a woman and what else?

A pattern of stars is drawn for Tayo at the end of the healing ritual. When he later finds the same constellation overhead, he knows he is on the right path.

In Ceremony, which animal does Tayo cover with his jacket after a hunt as a mark of respect?

A deer that is not honoured, in Laguna belief, will stop offering itself to the hunters. Rubbing cornmeal on its nose is part of the same courtesy to the animal's spirit.

In Ceremony, which recurring symptom of Tayo's has been tied to the Pueblo idea that stories live in the belly?

Vomiting recurs throughout the book. On critic Jude Todd's reading, Tayo is purging himself of the lies he has been told all his life.

In a story told in Ceremony, Europeans are brought into being by the words of what kind of figure?

A witch, unnamed and of no known tribe, speaks the newcomers into existence in one of the book's verse passages. Silko drafted it in 1974 while a visiting writer at a middle school.

At the end of Ceremony, the veteran who tormented Tayo is banished from Laguna and leaves for which state?

California is where he is said to have gone after killing one of his own followers. Tayo, by contrast, settles into a contented life tending his herd.

Which N. Scott Momaday novel about a returning Native soldier opened the door for Silko's Ceremony?

House Made of Dawn won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969. Critic Kenneth Lincoln called that award the spark for the Native American Renaissance, the movement Silko's book belongs to.

Which Texan author of Western novels wrote the introduction to the 30th-anniversary edition of Ceremony?

Larry McMurtry, author of Lonesome Dove, wrote the new introduction in 2006. He and Silko had earlier collaborated on a screenplay that was never produced.

Which Silko collection of fiction, verse and family photographs followed Ceremony four years later?

Storyteller blends fiction, mythology and autobiography in a single volume. Many of its photographs were taken by her father, Lee Marmon.

Before writing Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko spent three semesters training to become what?

A lawyer was what Silko set out to be, inspired by a land claim her people pursued through her childhood. She quit after deciding the legal system was unjust, and turned to writing instead.

Which fellow Pueblo poet criticised Silko's Ceremony for sharing sacred stories meant only for the tribe?

Paula Gunn Allen argued that the stories were tribal knowledge not meant for outsiders. In 1990 she published an essay on the special problems of teaching the novel.

Laguna names such as Ts'its'tsi'nako in Ceremony come from which language shared by seven pueblos including Acoma?

Keres has no proven relatives. Counted as a single language, it would be the most widely spoken language isolate in the United States.