Ceremony part 5

Within this section of reading the idea of stolen land was a major subject. Tayo is going though his process of healing and dealing with both his trauma from war but also trauma from his cultures history. "They were never the same after that: they had seen what the white people had made from the stolen land. It was the story of the white shell beads again... stolen from a grave and found by a man as he walked along the trial one day" (Leslie Marmon Silko 156). Nobody really owns anything, procession is just a state of mind. The land was not stolen it was just used in a new way. To the Indians it seemed as if it was stolen because the new way did not match their ways and they felt they had no control over that. "Every day they had to look at the land from horizon to horizon, and every day the loss was with then; it was the dead unburied, and the mourning of loss going on forever. So they tried to sink the loss in booze, defending the land they had already lost" (Silko 157). They drink to deal with the loss of land and only blame white people for taking it away. Defaulting to drinking only reassure the stereotype and solidifies the white mans reasoning to why they deserved the land over the Indians. With every loss, there are multiple factors that pays apart in it. "And it was then the Laguna people understood that the land had been taken, because they couldn't stop these white people from coming to destroy the animals and the land. It was then too that the holy men at Laguna and Acoma warned the people that the balance of the world had been disturbed" (Silko 172). It was not necessary that the land had been taken but the way of life in that area changed. It went from the natives ways to the white cultures so quickly and without integration that the Indians felt they had been wronged.

Tayo is starting to heal and it takes many factors to accomplish this. Betonie is helping him see that other ways to heal outside his culture. "Caterpillar spreads out dry corn husks on the floor. He rubbed his hands together and tobacco fell into the corn husks" (Silko 167). The caterpillar is helping the corn, witch is the way of life for both Pueblo and Navajo tribes. In Pueblo culture the caterpillar is believed to be bad and hurt the corn, where in Navajo culture it is believed to have great powers and help the corn. Tayo need aspects of both cultures to help himself heal. Many people are helping Tayo heal as well. "Being alive was all right then: he had not breathed like that for a long time" (Silko 168).  After spending the night with the women Betonie had told Tayo about, he had a new, brighter outlook on life. She had helped him live in the present and focused on that and not his traumatizing past. The lost cattle have also lead Tayo towards healing. "He had been so intent on finding the cattle that he had forgotten all the events of the past days and past years" (Silko 178). Focusing on the cattle gave Tayo an outlet to escape his past and replace it with motivation and good memories. Many things have to work together in order for true healing to occur and that is finally happening for Tayo.