Returning to Laguna: Place, Memory, and Belonging in Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70088/5maj0690Keywords:
Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony, place, cultural memory, Native American literatureAbstract
The American West has often been understood through the idea of the frontier myth, which celebrates freedom and individual achievement. Yet this vision leaves little space for Indigenous relationships with land and other ways of remembering history. Silko's Ceremony (1977) follows Tayo, a Laguna Pueblo veteran, as he returns home and deals with the psychological and cultural consequences of conflict. This paper argues that Tayo's return to Laguna is a process of rebuilding connections among land, community, and cultural memory. Focusing on Laguna's geography, ritual practices, storytelling traditions, and uranium landscapes, this paper examines how Tayo's identity is reshaped through his changing relationship with place and history. Rather than recovering an unchanged past, Tayo's healing emerges through a renewed understanding of history and place.References
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