PART I: 1. This passage from Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony conveys the sense of evil as well as the sense of healing Tayo undergoes as he seeks to survive and grow in the cross-cultural crucible of American and Indian societies. The reference to "the dry skin
. . . still stuck to his body" (153) reminds the reader of the story told by the independent witch. In that story we learn that the evil witches wore "stinking animal skins, fur and feathers" (138). Earlier we read that "Witches crawl into the skins of dead animals" (131). The evil of the past, then, is upon Tayo, but it is not yet an ineradicable part of him. He is in danger of becoming bewitched, as we all are, white or Indian or other, by the evil in the world.
This is an important part of the meaning of this passage---that it is not merely the whites who are evil, just as it is not true that the Indians are all good. We know, by the time we read this passage, that tayo is not an evil man, and yet he is said to be encased in the dry skin which brings to mind the animal skins in which the witches cover themselves. The next lines, however, tell us that "the effects of the witchery of the evil thing began to leave his body" (153). Again, he lives in a world where evil dwells, where evil threatens to consume everyone and everything---unless he finds allies such as Betonie. Betonie is in the midst of healing tayo, but the healing is not finished. The message here, perhaps, is that the healing is never finished for any individual, that we are always in danger of being taken in by the evil in the world, or even in danger of creating that evil, as the story tells us that the Indians did in their "creation" of the white man. Betonie gives Tayo the clear message that he---that is, Tayo---is an important figure in the fight against this evil: "This has been going on for a long time now. It's up to you. Don't let them stop you. Don't let them finish off this world" (152).
Of c...