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Ceremony (Silko novel)Ceremony is a novel by writer Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo), first published by Viking Press in March 1977. The title Ceremony is based on the oral traditions and ceremonial practices of the Navajo and Pueblo people.

Plot
Ceremony follows a half-Pueblo, half-white man named Tayo after his return from World War II. His white doctors say he is suffering from "battle fatigue," which would be called post-traumatic stress disorder today. In addition to Tayo's story in the present, the novel flashes back to his experiences before and during the war. A parallel story tells of a time when the Pueblo nation was threatened by a drought as punishment for listening to a practitioner of "witchery"; in order to redeem the people, Hummingbird and Green Bottle Fly must journey to the Fourth World to find Reed Woman.

Tayo is struggling with the death of his cousin Rocky during the Bataan Death March, and the loss of his uncle Josiah, who died on the Pueblo while Tayo was at war. After several years at a military hospital, Tayo is released by his doctors, who believe he will do better at home. While staying with his family, Tayo can barely get out of bed, and self-medicates with alcohol. His fellow veterans Harley, Leroy, Pinkie, and Emo drink with him, discussing their disappointment from fighting in a white man's war and having nothing to show for it. It is revealed that Tayo once stabbed Emo with a broken bottle because Emo was bragging about taking the teeth of a slain Japanese soldier.

Meanwhile, the Laguna Pueblo reservation is suffering from a drought, an event which mirrors the myth. Looking to help Tayo, his grandmother summons a medicine man named Ku'oosh. However, Ku'oosh's ceremony is ineffective against Tayo's battle fatigue because Ku'oosh can't understand modern warfare. He sends Tayo to another medicine man named Betonie, who incorporates elements of the modern world into his ceremonies. Betonie tells Tayo about the Destroyers who are bent on destabilizing the world, and says that Tayo must complete the ceremony to save the Pueblo people.

Believing that he bears responsibility for the drought, Tayo sets out to keep a promise he made to Josiah to round up Josiah's stolen cattle. While riding south after the cattle, he meets a woman named Ts'eh, whom he sleeps with for a night. He eventually finds the cattle on the property of a wealthy white rancher. Tayo cuts through the ranch fence, but is discovered by the ranch's employees. The tracks of a huge cougar�heavily implied to be a form of Ts'eh�distract them, and Tayo escapes. Ts'eh and her brother help Tayo trap the cattle in an arroyo so he can drive them back to the pueblo.

The next year, Tayo reunites with Ts'eh, and spends an idyllic time with her until Tayo's drinking buddies return for him. After a night of drinking, Tayo realizes he cannot complete the ceremony while drunk, and abandons the others after sabotaging their truck. Later that night, Emo tortures Harley near the site of the Trinity nuclear test, trying to lure Tayo out to settle their score. In contrast to their past confrontation, Tayo decides not to fight. A fight ensues among the other men that results in the deaths of Harley and Leroy.

Tayo goes back home to the pueblo and tells the elders he has completed the ceremony by recovering the cattle, abstaining from violence, and meeting a spirit woman in the form of Ts'eh. Meanwhile, in the mythic parallel story, Hummingbird and Green Bottle Fly find Reed Woman in the Fourth World. In each storyline, the act of ceremonial reunion brings an end to the drought, and the Pueblo are saved. Emo is banned from the reservation after killing Pinkie, and Tayo lives a content life tending to his herd of cattle.

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