Ceremony Characters

Tayo is a wounded hero. He hasn't been feeling very well ever since he got back to Laguna from the Pacific Island where he fought in WWII. And it's no wonder: he watched his cousin die and survived...

Ts'eh, the woman of old Betonie's vision, plays an important part in Tayo's journey of healing. We know immediately that she's going to be important, because her appearance is marked by several sig...

Emo is Ceremony's big bad wolf. There is seriously nothing likable about this guy: he's a sadistic killing machine, a racist, and he tells bad jokes. But when a guy like Emo tells an unfunny joke,...

At the opening of the novel, Tayo's uncle Josiah is already dead. Nevertheless, he's an extremely significant character because his death is the catalyst for Tayo's mental breakdown. (We don't know...

The Night Swan is a former cantina dancer who moves to Cubero, a town near Laguna with a good view of Mount Taylor, or Tse-pi'na. She lives in an apartment above Lalo's bar, where Josiah and his ne...

The first thing we learn about Tayo's cousin Rocky is that he died during the war. He and Tayo were very close—like brothers—and Rocky's death is the culmination of the tragedy that Tayo experi...

Old Betonie is a Navajo medicine man who performs the ceremony that leads to Tayo's recovery. He lives surrounded by junk in the hills overlooking the Ceremonial Grounds in Gallup. That lifestyle,...

Tayo's drinking buddies are a lot like him in many ways. They're all from the same place—Laguna, New Mexico—and they all went through a similar traumatic experience fighting in WWII. They all k...

Auntie is the classic martyr. She actually enjoys suffering because it means she gets to complain about her problems and show people how virtuous she is. The term "martyr complex" is a reference to...

Old Grandma is a lot like the family's old mule: blind and stubborn. But although she has her annoying qualities (she's team Auntie when it comes to ragging on Josiah for going out with a Mexican w...

When Tayo first comes back from the war and is feeling too sick to get out of bad, Grandma calls old man Ku'oosh, the local medicine man in Laguna. Ku'oosh is an expert in Laguna Pueblo traditions...

What can we say about Robert? Well, he's quiet. So quiet, in fact, that when he, Josiah, Rocky, Tayo, Auntie, and Grandma were all sharing one big house, he sort of seemed to disappear. Now that Ro...

Tayo encounters the hunter briefly on his way down from the mountain where he found the spotted cattle. The hunter is singing a Laguna hunting chant, which he follows up with a song from another tr...