s to remember those who helped them become who they are, and their first true national heritage - that of the Native American - which is still alive today.
There is a passage in Silko's Ceremony which emphasizes the importance of storytelling within the Pueblo culture:
I will tell you something about stories
They aren't just for entertainment
all we have to fight off illness and death
but it can't stand up to our stories
So they try to destroy the stories
let the stories be confused or forgotten
Because we would be defenseless then (Silko)
This passage accurately portrays the repeated attempts by White people to decimate the Pueblo culture by destroying its ceremonies from 1540 to the 1930s. Despite these attempts, the basics of Pueblo myth and ritual have survived, even after having to fight new attempts to conquer them in more subtle ways from World War II to the present day.
The Pueblo Indians is a collective name referring to the many native people of the Pueblo crescent in the Southwestern United States, stretching from Taos, New Mexico to the Hopi areas of northeastern Arizona, and the Laguna Pueblo Reservation, the setting for Silko's story, is located about 35 miles from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and 70 miles from Los Alamos, where the first atomic bomb was developed (Austgen). All important affairs, such as wars, medicine, hunting, agriculture, etc., in Pueblo Indian society are controlled by priesthoods and secret societies, and their public ceremonies have always made up a large part of Pueblo life (Mooney). Their religion is animism, appealing to the powers to control the rain, crop fertility, hunting, and success in war. Their myths are often long, full of poetic imagery and highly dramatic ceremonies, and both sex and color were ascribed to the cardinal points. Belief in witchcraft is universal, and in old times, the execu
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