Cememory Part 2
“This has been going on for a long time now. It’s up to you. Don’t let them stop you. Don’t let them finish off this world” (Ceremony Leslie Silko). This is getting to the end of the novel when Tayo feels as if the Cermony is curing him and tries to give Betonie money and this is what he tells Tayo as he refuses the money. After this Tayo get picked up by his friends Leroy and Harley and go back to the bar where they feel nothing and reminisce about the war. Tayo ends up at a women’s house where he washes his horse and she invites him for supper. Then they have sex and he leaves in the morning searching for his cattle. He finds the cattle in a white man’s fence and makes a hole in the fence so they could get out. While he is doing so two people that are patrolling the area catch him and when they notice mountain lion tracks they rather bring that to their boss instead of an Indian.
After Tayo gets the cattle is finally becomes a full member of his family and he can return to his home. When he and the mountain lion were face to face they were almost the same person or could be the same person, they both didn’t want to see each other, both were pray by the patrol men, and both trying to get some things done, lion feeding and Tayo getting the cattle.
He meets up with the women again, she tells him she is camping, and he follows her to where she is camped. They spend the summer together and he Uncle Robert reaches him and lets Tayo know Emo is spreading rumors and he and the white police are coming after him to take him back to the hospital. He runs and hides from hiding spot to hiding spot, he soon gets picked up by Leoroy and Harley and thinks his friends are there for him. Soon he notices they are capturing him and flee from them. As he is hiding he sees his old Army friends and wants to go out and kill Emo but can’t. Tayo goes home and the ceremony is finally complete, he then learns that Harley and Leroy are dead. And Emo kills Pinkie. Story ends with a poem.
Tayo is not just doing the ceremony for himself, but he is doing it for everyone, his people and all the soldiers. He has to accept the fact that they are losses in life is his only way to complete the ceremony. Since Tayo has successfully completed the ceremony the rain will return, and drought will be no longer. The last lines of the book are exactly how the book stated, and ending almost seems like a dedication.
Silko, Leslie. Ceremony. New York 1977.
