In her novel "Power," Linda Hogan provides readers with a close look at how separatism and syncretism, or exclusion and inclusion, are complex ideologies that lead to complex decisions. A close look at the novel reveals that the tensions and sharp dichotomies between the traditional world of the Taiga elders and the European American world,…

Scholars Kali Tal and Cathy Caruth express the importance of trauma literature as "the need to tell and retell the story of the traumatic experience, to make it "real" both to the victim and to the community," and to tell "a reality or truth that is not otherwise available." In "Solar Storms" Linda Hogan vividly recounts the consequences of…

In "Drowning in Fire" (2001) Creek writer and scholar Craig Womack explores how an investigation of queer experience can open onto an accounting of the historic and ongoing imperial project of reorganizing Muscogee peoplehood. The novel foregrounds homoeroticism among the Creek people in the early and late twentieth century in ways that emphasize…

In Leslie Marmon Silko's 1977 novel "Ceremony" the "primacy of the geographical" has often been interpreted as a particularly holistic and healing sense of place--what the critic Robert M. Nelson has characterized as the "spirit of place." This heightened awareness of the spiritual and redemptive power of the natural and the imaginative in…

David Treuer's debut novel, "Little" (1995), is set on a Minnesota reservation, centering around a dilapidated housing tract that its small community of residents call "Poverty." Aptly named both for the condition and background of the housing, this name is the first pointer to the type of multifaceted reading that the novel…

A prolific and popular writer, James Welch has captured the attention of both Native and non-Native readers since his first publication of poems, "Riding the Earthboy," in 1971. One of Welch's stories, "Fools Crow," was of particular interest to this author as an academic researching Native Americans and health. "Fools…

Examines common themes in three Native American novels by N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, and Leslie Silko: the power of Indian women's femaleness, and reintegration of the alienated male protagonist through ancient rituals that awaken the realization of the feminine principle within himself. (SV)

Focusing on the natural world, the use of myth and ritual in the novel, and the formal design of the work, symposium papers present and analyze crucial themes and forms in Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony," a novel distinctively Indian in narrative technique, thematic content, and structure. (CM)

Tayo's war experiences have destroyed his reverence for the creatures of nature. His changed attitude of respect for animals, his acceptance of their apparently evil acts, and his imitation of them indicate his healing. By observing animals, Tayo learns what to accept and what to reject for his survival. (CM)

All stories, ceremonies, and rituals are attempts to confer "totality" or structure on experience; ordinarily unrelated objects and events are given definite connection. In "Ceremony," the disjointed parts are refocused through the traditional hoop symbol and converge in a circular pattern of restoration and genuine renewal.…

Outlines the Laguna (Pueblo) symbolic geography or world view as it is woven into Leslie Silko's novel "Ceremony." Explains the protagonist's spiritual journey toward health and harmony in terms of symbols and beliefs in Laguna mythology. Contains 21 references. (SV)

"Shell Shaker" (2001) by LeAnne Howe (Choctaw) is a novel that gives students an opportunity to learn that the history and culture of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma are alive today. Winner of the Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award in 2002, the novel deals with two parallel stories that converge in the present, one about the eighteenth…

Because of his mixed blood and his war experiences, Tayo feels displaced and estranged. Reoccurring bad memories have impaired his ability to function. He has forgotten the old stories which serve as guides to growth. His eventual recollection of the old stories is instrumental in effecting his healing. (CM)

Mythic (stated in poetic form) and contemporary (stated in prose) narrative shapes the events of "Ceremony." Medicine Man Betonie teaches Tayo to relate cause to effect through story. Tayo must bring the meaning of changed life experiences to the way he feels the story. (CM)

Focuses on the fundamental Native American idea that the land and the people are the same. Tayo's illness, a result of separation of person and land, is healed by their reunification. This is accomplished when Tayo makes ancient and new stories real in his actions (the Ceremony). (CM)