In the novel Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, Tayo suffers from shell-shock and has lost himself. Betonie is a medicine man who is trying to help Tayo find a way out of his suffering and back into his life before the war. Betonie takes Tayo through a traditional healing ceremony where sand paintings play an important role.
A traditional ceremony occurs on the Hogan, which is a Navajo earth-covered wooden dwelling. It is carried out by the singer, also known as the hataali, who sings and draws figures that attract Holy People. The hataali is traditionally male, as it is believed that a woman’s menstrual cycle represented a powerful spiritual event and could disrupt the ceremony. The person who is going through the ceremony, the patient, sits on the sand painting and the singer takes the sand from the figures and applies them to the that person. This is done to transfer the healing and protective power of the Holy People. The sand painting is then erased or destroyed after the ceremony is completed.
Photographs of true sand-paintings are difficult for that very reason. Because the painting is a sacred object, and once used contains the toxic remains of an illness, they are usually destroyed within 12 hours of creation. A medicine man will rarely let an outsider sit in on a ceremony as a photograph may distract the chanter or disrupt the entire ceremony. Most sand paintings that are for sale online or in stores are deliberately modified reproductions with reversed colors and calculated errors. To produce a true sand painting only for display or distribution would be considered a profane act.
Traditional American Indian healing techniques have a large emphasis on art. These techniques are extremely important because many American Indians barely visit psychiatric hospitals, mental health clinics, and special education in schools because of social, economic, and environmental pressures of racism, poverty, alcoholism, substandard reservation housing conditions, and hostile education systems. Ritual is the expression of all the arts brought into one expression. All art forms are indistinct from one another. Myths, prayers, songs, chants, sand paintings, and music are all used to bring who wants to be healed back to the source of tribal energy. Spirituality, medicine, and art are combined to return origins, confront and manipulate evil, death and rebirth, and restore the universe. In Navajo sand painting ceremonies, origin myths in song, prayer, and sand painting is used to heal the person into wholeness and of mental health by having them identify with the symbolic forces that once created the world (Navajo…”).
Much of urban and reservation American Indian life is marked by alcoholism or suicide. A way to reduce these problems is to bring back many customs and traditions of the culture. Public Health Services has noticed that some of the ceremonies are beneficial and allow medicine men and women to work in collaboration with physicians, counselors, educators, and other helping professionals. It is believed that combining more technological and spiritual forms of healing will be most beneficial to American Indians because it can allow a better grasp on culture and their identity. There is close relation between physical and mental health so it is important to rebuild self-esteem, a sense of belonging, and cultural pride.
Resources
Coleman, Victoria D., Phoebe M. Dufrene. “Art and Healing for Native American Indians.” Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development July 1994. Academic Search Premier. Web. 13 Nov. 2010.
“Navajo Paintings in Sand.” UNESCO Courier Dec. 1996. Academic Search Premier. Web. 13 Nov. 2010.
Parezo, Nancy J. Navajo Sandpainting: From Religious Act to Commercial Art. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1983.
Reichard, Gladys A. Navajo Medicine Man: Sandpaintings. New York: Dover Publications, 1977
Your research really makes it clear how significant the healing ritual of a sand painting ceremony is to American Indians. The emphasis that is placed on these ceremonies shows how important Tayo's journey throughtout the book is. By the end we realize how cultural ceremonies like this help to tie oneself back to their origins as well as combat the witchery in the world we live in. We cannot overcome the pattern of witchery we face unless we remain connected to the times in which witchery did not succeed, which are times often talked about in myths, songs, and cultural practices. Tayo had lost connection to these guiding principles in his life and therefore fell into a pattern of witchery and violence.
ReplyDeleteI think your research greatly reflects how the sand paintings are portrayed in the book. In the book the only person that they think can cure Tayo is Betonie, which is done through the sand painting ceremony. Spiritual ceremonies are always connected with American Indians, and I think that this certain one is a great way to connect the witchery and the ceremonies which rid the world of this evil. Even in today's society there are problems that people have which cannot be cured from medicine. Sometimes the only way to find the problems is to return to your roots, and be connected with nature as Tayo does in this book.
ReplyDeleteYour research is very interesting and accurately depicts what is portrayed in Ceremony. Tayo undergoes a sand painting ceremony which helps him combat witchery. By the end of the book, Tayo shows that he is healed when he ends the perpetual cycle of killing by not stabbing Emo. When American Indians are healed through sand, they are forming a connection with the earth which is an important part of traditional life.
ReplyDeleteI think this research on these sand painting ceremonies is interesting in how they apply the sand to the person to transfer the protective power to the person, but what is left behind contains the illness. This is interesting in the book because Tayo undergoes one of these ceremonies. However, he still seems to retain the illness past the sand painting interval up to the point he decides to reject the witchery cycle by not killing Emo. This suggests that he received the protective power during the sand ceremony which gave him the capability of rejecting the cycle. At the time of this rejection(when he does not kill Emo) the illness leaves him, and also completes the ceremony.
ReplyDeleteI think another massive reason for the outcasting which Native Americans experience is the still-present racism in our culture, which the book obviously outlines. I remember being very surprised about a conversation I had with a friend of mine a few years back, in which he told me about the animosity which white students and Native American students had for each other. This was in Boulder Junction, just a few hours north of here. I was quite surprised to hear about this, as Native American racism is not something which is talked about much in today's culture.
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