Ceremony

Ceremony is a drama-based novel by Leslie Marmon Silko. Ceremony tells the story of Tayo, a young man of mixed Laguna and white descent who overcomes his wartime post-traumatic stress disorder by reconnecting to his Native American heritage. Ceremony follows a half-Pueblo, half-white man named Tayo after his return from World War II. His white doctors say he is suffering from the "battle fatigue".

Tayo's story in the present, the novel flashes back to his experiences before and during the war. A parallel story tells of a time when the Pueblo nation was threatened by a drought as punishment for listening to a practitioner of "witchery"; in order to redeem the people, Hummingbird and Green Bottle Fly must journey to the Fourth World to find Reed Woman.

Tayo is struggling with the death of his cousin Rocky during the Bataan Death March, and the loss of his uncle Josiah, who died on the Pueblo while Tayo was at war. After several years at a military hospital, His fellow veterans Harley, Leroy, Pinkie, and Emo drink with him, discussing their disappointment from fighting in a white man's war and having nothing to show for it. It is revealed that Tayo once stabbed Emo with a broken bottle because Emo was bragging about taking the teeth of a slain Japanese soldier.