Colors of the Sky

We all remember Pocahontas, right? And how she sang about painting with all the colors of the wind? Well, Ceremony has a pretty similar message: There's a lot more to colors than you might think.

Yellow, blue, and white—the colors of the sun, sky, and clouds—are sacred colors in Ceremony. They show up in the ceremonies performed by Ku'oosh and old Betonie: Ku'oosh prescribes blue cornmeal to make Tayo feel better, and old Betonie paints yellow, blue and white bear tracks on the ground in order to walk Tayo back to health. Ts'eh, too, uses all three colors when she pairs stones and plants as a sort of blessing of Tayo's journey (XIV.4).

Yellow, the color of corn and pollen, is associated with the important figure of Corn Mother and also with the offerings of pollen that the people make to her. It's also the color of the sun, which sends "the dawn spreading across the sky like yellow wings" (XXIII.5). (The sunrise becomes an important spiritual sign for Tayo. See our discussion of this in "What's Up with the Ending?") When sunlight casts a yellow shade on an object, such as the cottonwood trees, the river, and the spotted cattle, it seems as though those objects are blessed and full of life.

Characters and animals that are associated with the color yellow are always good. Ts'eh, for example, has "ocher eyes": brown with a tinge of golden yellow. When Tayo first meets her, she's wearing a yellow skirt. The mountain lion that saves Tayo on Mount Taylor is yellow, and his eyes reflect "glittering yellow light" (XXIV.38).

Yellow in nature is a sign that health and life are returning: yellow flowers bloom by the spring, even in drought, and a yellow snake appears to Tayo to let the people know that the world is alive (XXV.81). Yellow is the color of the sandstone mesas that serve as literal high points on Tayo's spiritual journey of healing. (For more on the significance of mountains and high places in Ceremony, check out "Setting.") And at the conclusion of Tayo's ceremony, when we know all is right in the world, the scene is flooded with yellow:

The sun was [ . . . ] sending yellow light across the clouds, and the yellow river sand was speckled with the broken shadows [ . . . ]. The leaves of the big cottonwood tree had turned pale yellow; the first sunlight caught the tips of the leaves at the top of the old tree and made them bright gold. (XVI.32-33)

But what about the "powdery yellow uranium, bright and alive as pollen" that the destroyers use to make their weapons of mass destruction? In Tayo's world view, even these beautiful rocks are alive and a part of nature. It's the destroyers who have corrupted their essential goodness.

As with yellow, we see blue associated with nature, life, and spiritual healing. Blue is the color of the sky and the color of dark rainclouds that promise an end to drought and the return of life. It's also the color of mountains seen from a distance, like the "smoky blue ridges of the mountain haze at Zuni" (XV.3). In an afternoon of prayer, Tayo observes dragonflies "all colors of blue—powdery sky blue, dark night blue, shimmering with almost black iridescent light, and mountain blue" (XI.43).

Again, characters associated with blue are definitely on the side of the good guys. In this story, feeling blue would probably have a positive connotation. The Night Swan has blue clothes, blue sheets, and a bright blue door. Betonie wears a blue work shirt. Ts'eh has morning glories "the color of the sky, with thin white clouds spreading from the center of the blossoms into the bright blue" planted outside her house. The second time Tayo meets her, she wears a blue shawl and collects plants "the color of the sky after a summer rainstorm" (XXV.101). Isn't there a song about this?

White is the third color in the triad of sacred sky colors that show up again and again in the rituals of this novel. But Silko doesn't make as many references to white in nature. Maybe that's because white is also associated with the forces of death and destruction: with "white skin people like the belly of a fish" who come to kill the animals, poison the water, and steal the rivers and mountains (XV).