The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

cattle and fields because Rocky seemed destined for college and
a job in the white man’s world.
With Josiah and Rocky dead, Tayo’s sense of where he fits in
is gone. The guilt and loss of self that their deaths arouse are
more than he can bear. He retreats into psychosis that manifests
itself as “invisibility” and the belief that he can neither speak nor
be heard.
Many of the characters in Ceremony suffer from the effects of
alienation, which they experience in their perceived
powerlessness to control their own destinies, their isolation
from the old ways and its attendant homogeneity, the growing
meaninglessness of the traditions and traditional understandings,
and the lowered self-esteem that being an Indian in a white
man’s world too often creates.
Rocky shows the effects of the process by determining to
study scientific methods of ranching, spurning the older ways of
dealing with weather, disease of livestock, and breeding. He
feels that his people are superstitious and ignorant, and he does
not intend to be like them. His mother turns from a tribal
connection and acceptance of herself to Christian modes of
thought. She models her life on simple concepts of good—
sacrifice, struggle, and quiet martyrdom, “wishing to show those
who might gossip that … above all else, she was a Christian
woman.” 13
But if Tayo and his counterparts at Laguna are examples of the
destructive aspects of alienation caused by half-breed status,
Betonie, the breed Navajo shaman, is an example of the creative
possibilities of mixed blood. Betonie accepts his heritage for the
strength it gives him and looks to basic causes for the situation
the whole world is in. Betonie is aware that alienation is a
common sickness, not confined to the reservation or its urban
extensions, and he identifies “the witchery” as its source.
Because he is comfortable with his integrated cultures and