Ceremony Poem XXV Summary

The song Tayo hears is about how the "winter people" come from the north and west and go to the south and east.
That's the way the cattle were escaping. Coincidence? We think not.
The song also mentions "antlers of wind" and "hooves of snow." Sounds like the man is singing the praises of an animal that's around in the wintertime. Something with antlers, like a deer or an elk, maybe.
Tayo recognizes the song as one that the hunters sing while they wait for the deer to be driven down from the mountain by the snow.
Soon the singer comes into view. He sees Tayo and smiles. Good sign!
The man has been hunting, and he has a small buck across his shoulders. Let's call him "the hunter."
The hunter has an old-fashioned hairstyle, like the woman who lives at the bottom of the mountain. He's wearing a beautiful thick cap that looks like mountain lion skin.
After they exchange pleasantries, the hunter starts singing another tune. This time it's not a Laguna song, and Tayo doesn't recognize it.
Tayo wants to ask the hunter where he's from, but he doesn't want to interrupt.
At the bottom of the trail, Tayo starts looking for signs of the cattle, but the hunter tells him to come inside and have something to eat. Tayo can look for the cattle later.
Wait a second . . . does this hunter live in the same house as the apricot tree woman?
Yep, that's what it looks like. The woman helps the hunter prepare the Ceremony of the Deer. We can feel Tayo's heart breaking. Poor guy!
The hunter points out that the apricot tree is covered in snow and tells the woman to "fold up the blanket before the snow breaks the branches" (XXV.12).
This sounds pretty mystical. Does the woman's storm blanket control the weather?
Tayo sees that the blanket is spread out on the bed, and he watches as the woman folds it up. Then he goes outside to shake the snow off the branches of the apricot tree.
By the time Tayo finishes shaking off the snow, the storm has passed.
Tayo is happy to see that his mare is OK. She's in the corral. Her legs are scraped up from the fall, but she's not lame.
Tayo can't help but watch the woman as she combs out her pretty hair. But he tears his eyes away before the hunter walks in.
The woman starts teasing Tayo, saying: "Aren't you going to ask me?" Tayo thinks she's referring to the night they slept together, and he gets embarrassed.
But the woman is really talking about the horse and the spotted cattle.
Tayo refers to the woman's "husband," and she starts laughing.
The hunter comes in and tells Tayo that the woman has Tayo's cattle. The hunter is smiling. He seems OK with the idea that Tayo and the woman have met before. Hmm . . . this isn't how Tayo expects a jealous husband to act.
The woman has caught the spotted cattle, who came running down the arroyo yesterday afternoon into her cattle trap. All she had to do was shut the gate behind them.
The woman takes Tayo to look at the cattle. He can see Auntie's brand through their winter coats.
The woman says Tayo is lucky to have gotten this many of the cows back again, because the cattle have scars from Texas roping (steer roping).
Steer roping involves jerking down a steer running at full speed, which often knocks the animal unconscious and may injure or kill it. Tayo thinks of steer roping as a perversion—something cruel that aging cowboys do for "sport" and fun (XXV.42).
Tayo promises to come back and get the cattle as soon as he can.
He wants to tell the woman how good it feels to stand close to her, but he remembers the hunter is in the house.
He does manage to brush up against her a little bit, and she smiles.
The woman tells Tayo that the mud and snow will freeze tonight. She seems to be an expert on the weather.
Tayo says goodbye, and she says "I'll be seeing you." Sounds promising, right? She wouldn't have said that if she didn't like him . . . right?
Big page break.
Robert stays in the truck while Tayo goes to the door of the apricot tree house. There's no one home and Tayo goes inside.
It looks like the woman and the hunter must be out of town. Everything's packed up.
Tayo finds an old war shield hanging on a wall. It's painted black with small white spots. He realizes it's a map of the Big Star constellation that Betonie drew in the sand.
The cattle had been driven into the corral. Robert notes that somebody has been taking really good care of them.
Page break.
Back in Auntie's house, old Grandma remarks that Betonie did some good, and that Tayo is all right now.
But Auntie is watching Tayo, like she's waiting for something bad to happen. Why is Auntie such a killjoy?
Page break.
These days Tayo dreams of the woman, which is much better than dreaming about fighting Japanese soldiers in the jungle. Much, much better.
Actually, the text says Tayo dreams WITH the woman. It's feels like she's actually with him all night, and when Tayo wakes up he feels her presence.
Every day at dawn, Tayo says a sunrise prayer, and it makes him feel like he's living with the woman.
But Auntie continues to be a downer. She's always staring at Tayo like she's remembering the way he was when he was sick.
Big page break.
Tayo helps Robert out now. They go to check on Pinkie at the sheep camp.
Pinkie is sullen and seems anxious to get out of there. He's already stayed at the camp a week longer than he ever had before. They drop him off at the highway.
Pinkie plans to go "up the line" to Gallup and back, spending his money at all the bars along the way. (XXV.70)
Big page break.
One night Tayo is dreaming of the woman when he is woken up by rain on the tin roof. He's overwhelmed by the love he feels for this woman; outside he watches the dawn and knows he will find her again.
Page break.
A few days before the end of May, Tayo announces that he's going to stay up at the ranch.
Robert thinks this sounds like a helpful idea, but Auntie looks satisfied because she's sure Tayo is going to start raising hell with the other guys. This will disgrace the family and give her something new to suffer about.
Grandma just wants him to bring her back some Indian tea.
She also mentions that old man Ku'oosh came looking for Tayo the other day, hoping that he'd have something to tell the old men soon.
Page break.
The ranch is different this time around. There's plenty of water, and the valley is green, but not the suffocating green color of the jungle.
The old blind mule is dead.
Tayo's room is the same, but the dreams he has on the creaky bed are much nicer this year. The nightmares have been "uprooted from his belly," and in their place are sweet dreams of making love to the woman. (XXV.76)
Tayo has a new perspective this year. He used to be terrified by loss, but now he knows that he hasn't really lost anything.
The mountain is far greater than the loggers who kill the trees and the animals.
Likewise, love is greater than death. Josiah and Rocky will always be close to him, and he can still feel their love.
It's been a year since he and Harley rode to the bar on muleback.
Tayo takes a walk and gathers some yellow pollen. Everywhere he looks, "the world [is] alive" (XXV.81).
Page break.
Tayo sees the woman walking through a field of sunflowers, wrapped in a blue shawl. She looks at him like she's been waiting for him. His heart beats fast.
The woman is camped by the spring in the canyon. (Could this be the same spring Josiah told Tayo about? The spring Tayo visited the summer before the war? We think so.)
Tayo follows her to her camp and takes a nap in the sand. He dreams he is making love to her.
When Tayo wakes up, the woman is gone. He looks for imprints of her feet and skirt in the sand where she was sitting. What if he can't find any? Did he dream her?
The imprints are there. Whew.
The woman calls to him from the east side of the canyon, and he scrambles over the rocks to find her. He's afraid she'll disappear as quickly as an echo.
The woman is gathering roots and leaves in her shawl.
The two of them climb up a steep trail to the top of the mesa. They feel like they've stepped into the sky.
Tayo finally asks the woman her name. About time, we'd say!
Her name is long and complicated. You can call her Ts'eh Montaño for short. (Yes, this is a very significant name. Check out our discussion of "Names" under "Characterization.")
Ts'eh tells Tayo about her brothers and sisters. Looking toward the Black Mountains in the south, she says they are a very close family.
At this point we know Tayo understands the hunter isn't her husband . . . he's her brother. (It's like when Han Solo finds out that Luke and Leia are twins. The romantic confusion is all cleared up. We're so relieved!)
Ts'eh has three more siblings, who all live in different directions. One sister is married to a Navajo.
She laughs and says: "You know what they say about the Montaños!" But Tayo can't remember ever having heard of her family. (XXV.94)
Then she says, "Up here we don't have to worry about those things." (XXV.95) Tayo agrees. They can let people like Auntie worry about silly things like lineage, clan, and family name.
Big page break.
As they walk back to the camp, they can see the spotted cattle scattered in the valley.
Tayo asks Ts'eh how she knew he'd be there, but she says she's been there a week already. How did she know he'd be there?
Big page break.
Ts'eh teaches Tayo about roots and plants.
She's very respectful of nature. She even makes sure not to disturb any ants when she sits down.
There's one plant that Ts'eh uses as a kind of rain redistribution device. She'll take it from this valley and plant it in another place where it hasn't rained in a while. Is she some sort of weather goddess?
The spotted cattle have finally stopped trying to run south. They seem happy in this valley.
They've introduced a yellow bull to the herd that cousin Romero rescued from a rodeo. Hopefully they'll start breeding soon. When Tayo sees the calves playing, he can see Josiah's vision emerging like a story taking form.
Big page break.
Ts'eh shows Tayo a plant she needs him to gather in case she has to leave before it's ready.
This is the first Tayo has heard of Ts'eh's plans to leave.
Ts'eh has tears in her eyes. She explains that out there, things are always moving and shifting.
Why would that mean Ts'eh has to leave? Is she responsible for maintaining some sort of balance in the world?
The special plant that Ts'eh needs contains the light of the stars and the moon. Tayo promises to remember it and gather it for her if she's not there.
Big page break.
Tayo and Ts'eh spend their days together in a sort of idyllic love fest. But their honeymoon has a certain gravity to it. In other words, this is a very serious love affair!
Tayo doesn't skip around with happiness; he cries because she loves him so much.
Yeah, he's pretty emo.
OK, we'll stop making fun of Tayo. We're happy for him.
Big page break.
Robert comes to see Tayo at the ranch at the end of the summer. He looks uneasy and tells Tayo that people are worried about him. They think he might need to see a doctor again.
Old man Ku'oosh and the other old men are wondering why Tayo hasn't been to see them.
And Emo is talking trash, saying Tayo has gone crazy and is living alone in a cave.
Oh, and the army might send someone to take Tayo back to the hospital.
Robert suggests Tayo come home for a while so that everyone can see he's OK.
Tayo nods, but he's feeling disoriented and lightheaded. He thanks Robert, and Robert leaves.
Page break.
Tayo and Ts'eh find a dead calf in the arroyo. Ts'eh explains that, "Death isn't much . . . Sometimes they don't make it. That's all." (XXV.129)
Death is never very far away, Ts'eh explains. There are things much worse than dying.
The destroyers try to "gut" human beings while they're still alive, so they'll never feel anything again. This is waaay worse than death. (XXV.133)
Ts'eh says that "When they finish, you watch yourself from a distance and you can't even cry—not even for yourself" (XXV.133) This sounds a lot like what Tayo experienced when he was in the hospital in Los Angeles.
Ts'eh says that, for the people who have been gutted by the destroyers, "Only destruction is capable of arousing a sensation" (XXV.135). Every time they destroy something they feel less, but they want to feel more.
Sounds a little like Emo, don't you think?
Is there any way to stop the destroyers? "It all depends," Ts'eh says. "How far you are willing to go?" (XXV.137)
Page break.
It's autumn again, and the sun is in a transitional place. (That means it's been a year since Tayo met Ts'eh under the apricot tree.)
Tayo can "feel" where Ts'eh came from, and where she will always be. (XXV.140)
Big page break.
Ts'eh shows Tayo a cave painting of a beautiful pregnant she-elk. Before the war, the priests would paint the she-elk every year. Then they would cry to the she-elk, A'moo'ooh, "You are so beautiful! You carry all that life!" (XXV.141)
But no one has been to paint A'moo'ooh since the war.
Ts'eh tells Tayo that as long as he remembers what he has seen, nothing is lost. It's part of the story they have together.
Page break.
At night, by the campfire, Tayo sees that Ts'eh is crying. He wants to comfort her but he doesn't feel like he's in control of his body. His mouth speaks without his permission.
He asks her angrily why she is crying. She looks surprised.
She says she's crying because the destroyers want to change the end of the story. They want it to end here, with Tayo fighting to his death alone in the hills.
Ts'eh tells him the alternate end of the story: doctors from the hospital and the police come looking for Tayo. Emo has told them that he's crazy, that he lives alone in a cave and thinks he's a Japanese soldier.
Friendly voices call to Tayo. If he comes quietly, they'll take him and lock him in the hospital. But if he doesn't come, they'll hunt him down.
Tayo asks Ts'eh how she knows this. Suddenly he knows that she's like Betonie: she can see visions and hear voices in the night.
Ts'eh explains who the real bad guys are. Only Emo and a few others have gone over to the destroyers. Everybody else is just a tool, including the army people and the old men from Laguna.
Ts'eh explains that if they don't find Tayo right away the white people and the old men will get impatient and go home.
That just leaves Emo and his buddies.
Page break.
Tayo and Ts'eh spend one last romantic night together.
Page break.
At dawn, they go look at the cattle. The early morning light and the cattle's eyes are yellow, which tends to be a good color for Tayo.
Ts'eh examines the cattle and pronounces that they're coming to the end of the story. How does she know? Is she reading the cattle like tea leaves?
Page break.
That evening Tayo helps collect Ts'eh's clean laundry while she packs up to leave. They joke around a little bit and he walks her to the road.
Tayo is really sad that Ts'eh is leaving. He wants to say "Don't leave me!" but he holds it in.
Ts'eh tells Tayo to remember everything and waves goodbye.
Page break.
Tayo wakes up in the middle of the night from a bad dream about the jungle.
Now's as good a time as any to start running from the police, we guess. Tayo starts climbing the mesa. He avoids the road and tries not to make any noise in case the people coming to look for him are nearby.
When he gets to the top of the mesa, Tayo lies on his belly and listens for his pursuers, but he doesn't hear anything.
He keeps running.
Eventually Tayo stops to sleep off the rest of the night in a culvert (a kind of drain or ditch). His plan is to hitch a ride out of town the next morning.
Right before dawn Tayo wakes up and walks out to the road. He's being extra cautious in case his enemies are lurking about somewhere.
Tayo looks at Enchanted Mesa and it seems like everything converges there, both good and bad. Roads and trails, canyons, memories of Josiah, and cliff paintings, but also the poisonous weed that killed the mule, deep caves, and black markings on the cliffs.
At dawn on this autumn morning, everything is balanced: night and day, summer and winter, good and evil things.
Tayo feels the sunrise on his face and thinks he might make it after all.
He walks along the road and feels the vibrations of an approaching vehicle.
Should he hide? He feels strong now, and things seem less scary now that the sun is up. Maybe he was just being paranoid last night?
But at the last minute Tayo dives behind some juniper trees.
He watches as a pickup truck appears. It's moving very slowly.
It's Leroy and Harley!
Tayo Tummy Update: Tayo's belly "smooth[s] out," and he relaxes. His friends have come just when he needed them most! (XXV.183)
Harley's driving because Leroy's so drunk he can barely open the door for Tayo.
Harley hands Tayo a beer and says he's just in time for the party. (Keep in mind it's still really early in the morning.)
Harley says they're celebrating the day they enlisted. He asks Tayo when he and Rocky signed up, but Tayo doesn't remember.
Suddenly Tayo doesn't feel so good.
Harley is driving fast now and pushing Tayo to have a drink. He has the accelerator all the way to the floor and he takes his hands off the wheel to open the can of beer.
Leroy says he and Harley were driving around drinking all night long.
But Harley contradicts him. They weren't driving around—they were in Gallup last night. He doesn't look at Tayo when he says it.
Hmm . . . we get the feeling Harley is trying to hide something.
Tayo starts to catch on. The pickup had come from the wrong direction to be coming from Gallup.
What's going on? Aren't Harley and Leroy supposed to be his friends?
Leroy said they were driving around all night, and they had come from behind him, like they were following him. Tayo has a really bad feeling about all this.
He decides he needs to relax so he can think. These guys are his friends. He has another beer, and it calms him down.
The beer starts to make the ceremony and his anxiety seem kind of silly.
Tayo starts to rationalize his present course of action. Without friends he doesn't stand a chance of completing the ceremony, right? And what could be more normal than riding around drinking with his buddies? They wouldn't think he was crazy then.
Page break.
Tayo wakes up in a sweat. The truck is parked and Harley and Leroy are gone.
Tayo feels awful, but he starts walking and looking for his friends' footprints.
Maybe it's the hangover, but right now it's not very easy to believe in Ts'eh and Betonie's stories. It's much easier to believe the rumor that he's just a crazy Indian.
Tayo finds the footprints and starts following them up a hill, when . . .
Tayo Tummy Update: Tayo has a realization that hits him in the gut and spreads through his chest.
He suddenly knows that Harley and Leroy are not his friends. They have betrayed him.
Tayo is crying, but he's not sure whether it's because they betrayed him, or because they are lost.
Tayo hears voices, and he's afraid. But fear helps him remember important things.
Tayo sneaks back down the hill.
He knows why he had felt weak and sick and doubted the ceremony.
Tayo tries to hotwire the truck with a rusty screwdriver, but he can't remember how and it's taking too long. He slips the screwdriver into his pocket and starts running. Run, Tayo, run.
Big page break.
Years ago the U.S. Government had paid the reservation five thousand dollars not to ask questions about the test holes they were drilling in the desert.
They didn't say what kind of mineral they were looking for.
The people on the reservation figured it was no big deal. Ever since New Mexico took half of the land grant, there hasn't been enough land to feed the cattle anyway. And since the drought has already killed off most of the cattle, who cares if the government takes another square mile of land?
The land is blocked off with barbed-wire fences and signs in Spanish and English warning people to keep out.
In 1943, the mine floods, and the Government workers bring in big pumps to dry it out.
But the next time the mine floods, they don't bother—they already have enough of what they need.
The barbed-wire and guards remain until 1945. By then it's no secret what they were doing there. They were mining uranium.
(A brief history note: The U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, on August 6 and 9, 1945. The bombs required uranium, so the cat was sort of out of the bag.)
Big page break.
Tayo is running for his life. He's on automatic pilot. Only his memory of running and breathing keeps him going.
At sundown he finds himself lying in the sand.
Page break.
Tayo crawls through some strands of barbed wire. Wait a minute . . . is he hiding out at the abandoned uranium mine? What a creepy place for a final showdown!
Tayo scoops some water from a trough. It's bitter. Maybe the uranium makes it taste that way.
The dirt from inside the mine is piled in mounds in long rows, "like fresh graves."
Oh, and it's getting dark. Yeah, this place is definitely creepy.
Page break.
Old Grandma told Tayo a story while he was still sick in bed about something that happened while he was away at war.
She had gotten up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and she saw a flash of light through the window.
It was so big and bright that even Grandma could see it—and she's blind.
Grandma thought she was seeing the sunrise again, but it faded away.
All the dogs started barking.
Grandma says there was something in the paper about it later. It was the biggest explosion that ever happened.
But she still doesn't understand what she saw. Why would anyone make something like that?
Tayo didn't know at the time. But now he does.
Page break.
The history of the atomic bomb helps Tayo to realize how the fates of the Native American peoples and the Japanese are intertwined.
He's been so close to the places where the destroyers first developed the atomic bomb that he's never really stopped to think about it before.
Trinity Site, where they exploded the first atomic bomb, was only 300 miles away. And Los Alamos, the top-secret lab where the bomb was invented, was only a hundred miles to the northeast.
Basically he's been living at the ground zero of the destroyers' biggest, most evil project. This is "the point of convergence where the fate of all living things, and even the earth, had been laid" (XXV.221).
Now it makes sense why Tayo had mixed up the Japanese and Laguna voices in his dreams, and why he'd seen Josiah die when they shot the Japanese soldier in the jungle.
Everyone, of every race, is threatened by the destroyers' witchcraft. We're all in this mess together, "united by a circle of death" (XXV.221).
Page break.
Tayo walks to the mine shaft and knows that the pattern of the ceremony is completed there.
The ore rock is streaked with yellow uranium, which looks as bright and alive as pollen.
The rocks are beautiful, but the destroyers have laid them in a monstrous design and used them for evil purposes.
Tayo cries with relief at finally having seen the pattern. Now that he understands how all the stories fit together, he knows he isn't crazy.
He had never been crazy. He had only seen the world for what it was, without boundaries of distance and time. There are no boundaries, only transitions.
A transition is about to be completed right now. It's the night of the autumnal equinox, which marks the passage from summer to winter. (At the equinox, day and night are roughly the same length—they're "balanced.") XXV.224
Tonight the priests will be praying for the continuation of the universe, but evil forces will also be working for the universe's destruction.
Tayo sees Betonie's constellation in the north sky, directly above him.
We finally understand the significance of this star pattern: Tayo sees the pattern of the ceremony in the stars. He sees how the constellation forms a map of the mountains in the directions he has gone for the ceremony.
For every star in the constellation, there is a night and a place. This is the last night and the last place.
Tayo sees his protection in the sky, in the position of the sun and the pattern of the stars.
All he has to do is make it through the night. If he can keep the story out of the hands of the destroyers for a few more hours, their witchery will turn back against them.
This is it—the final act, Tayo's last stand. We can't wait to see how it turns out.

Ceremony Poem XXV Summary

Tired of ads?