Sherman Alexie: This Is What It Means To Say Pheonix, Arizona

In this short story, Sherman Alexie writes about the way which the main character Victor deals with the death of his father. This is a unique situation because it not only describes Victor's struggle mourning for his father's death, but also his struggle to find forgiveness for his father's mistakes. Living on the Spokane Reservation in Washington, Victor travels with his childhood friend Thomas to Phoenix to retrieve his father's remains.

The ceremony in this story is the process of learning to forgive and say goodbye. Victor struggles to do this because he had little empathy for his abusive alcoholic father, who ran away and was absent for most of his life. In order to accomplish this, Victor and Thomas talked about the old days and their different experiences with Victor's father, and the memories they had with him. The ceremony is completed when Victor gives Thomas half of his father's ashes, and they release them over the Spokane Falls. This ceremony is concluded by Thomas when he says,

"I'm going to travel to Spokane Falls one last time and toss these ashes into the water. And your father will rise like a salmon, leap over the bridge, over me, and find his way home. It will be beautiful. His teeth will shine like silber, like a rainbow. He will rise, Victor, he will rise"(Alexie, 74).

Leslie Marmon Silko: Ceremony

Many native cultures use oral tradition as a way to maintain and preserve cultural identity. In the novel Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko uses oral tradition to show the connection between human identity and the land. The novel tells the story of Tayo, a young native american war veteran, and his struggle to overcome post traumatic stress disorder. Tayo goes to a mental institution, and a traditional medicine man, before finding health with Betonie, a more progressive medicine man. Betonie preforms a scalp ceremony, which rids Tayo of the memories of the Japanese that had been haunting him. Betonie's ceremony differs from the first medicine man Tayo saw because Betonie understood societal advancements and worked with the progression of society. Betonie explains this to Tayo on page 116:

"The people nowadays have an idea about the ceremonies. They think the ceremonies must be performed exactly as they have always been done, maybe because one slip-up or mistake and the whole ceremony must be stopped and the sand painting destroyed. That much is true. They think that if a singer tampers with any part of the ritual, great harm can be done, great power unleashed... That much can be true also. But long ago when the people were given these ceremonies, the changing began, if only in the aging of the yellow gourd rattle or the shrinking of the skin around the eagle's claw, if only in the different voices from generation to generation, singing the chants. You see, in many ways, the ceremonies have always been changing...At one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was then. But after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create new ceremonies. I have made changes in the rituals. the people mistrust this greatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong"(Ceremony, 116)

After the scalp ceremony, Betonie helps Tayo realize the importance of connecting to his environment. Tayo completes the ceremony by finding and recapturing Josiah's cattle, meeting the woman, and traveling through the uranium mine as he watched his friends kill one of their friends. Through all of these actions, Tayo journeys across the reservation and reconnects to the land. Tayo is reminded that the community he belongs to includes animals, earth, elements, and finds solace in their everlasting presence. Silko describes Tayo's reconnection to the land,

"The magnetism of the center spread over him smoothly like rainwater down his neck and shoulders; the vacant cool sensation glided over the pain like feather-down wings. It was pulling him back, close to the earth, where the core was cool and silent as mountain stone, and even with the noise and pain in his head he knew how it would be: a returning rather than a separation" (Ceremony, 187).

This passage shows the deep connection between man and the earth, and the importance of being aware of this connection.

Rudolfo Anaya: Bless Me, Ultima

"I bless you in the name of all that is good and strong and beautiful, Antonio. Always have the strength to live. Love life, and if despair enters your heart, look for me in the evenings when the wind is gentle nd the owls sing in the hills. I shall be with you-" (Anaya, p. 261)

Ultima's job as a curandera is to heal. In the novel, Bless Me, Ultima, Ultima uses this power twice to save the lives of family and friends of Antonio's family. Ultima's magic to save Uncle Lucas is preformed through a ceremony. The ceremony begins with Ultima creating a potion that Uncle Lucas struggles to drink. Antonio feels his struggle, and uses his innocence to help him heal. In order toc ompletely rid the body of the evil spirit, Uncle Lucas must vomit it out. Ultima mixes herbs and allows them to simmer on the stove, creating a healing potion. She also creates three clay dolls, which she covers with melted wax (creating the illusion of flesh), and dresses the dolls with bits of cloth. Ultima then spoke to the dolls, "You have done evil/ But good is stronger than evil,/ And what you sought to do will undo you..."(p. 101). After this chant, Antonio is surprised to see the dolls squirm and appear to take life. Ultima then dipped three pins into the potion, and stuck them a pin into each doll. She then forced Uncle Lucas to drink the remaining potion, which caused him to scream and shake. Uncle Lucas continued to be sick, and scream, until he eventually cries out "¡Dios Mio!"and vomits "a huge ball of hair...hot and steaming and wiggling like live snakes" (p. 103) Ultima completes the ceremony by burning the hair, vomit, and other remains created during the ceremony in the dark field which the three sister's curse was originally cast.



Ultima also uses her power to help the Téllez family rid their home of cursed ghosts. Ultima tells Antonio how the spirits who haunt the house were the three Comanche Indians Téllez's grandfather hung. The three men were not given a proper cultural burial, and thus their spirits were left to roam the land. Their spirits were manipulated by brujas (witches). In order to break the curse, Ultima had to provide the spirits with a proper burial. Ultima had Antonio and his father erect a platform from juniper branches. Ultima also gathered and created a mix of herbs. Ultima placed three mysteriously heavy bags on the platform, and burned them all to white ash. This mimicked the original death ceremony the spirits should have originally received, freeing them, and making them one with the dirt once again.