Chapter 1: Culture and Communication

Elite Culture

          Cultures in our society today can be defined as many things to different people. In the earlier centuries the elite culture and the popular cultures (mass culture) categorized people in class based on their wealth. "The elite culture consisted of fine art, literature, and classical music. Folk culture consisted of street carnivals, tavern drinking, and folktales "(Culture and Communication 4). This culture was specifically referred to as the "rich and famous" culture where they came from a lot of money. During this time the two main cultures couldn't come into each other's standings. The popular culture is referred to as a society that is for actions everyone that consists of our daily actions including things that entertain and our behaviors conditions. "... our attitudes, habits, and actions: how we act and why we act; what we eat and wear; our buildings, roads, and means of travel; our entertainment and sports; our politics; religion, and medical practices;our beliefs and activities and what shapes and controls them. In other words, it is to us what water is to fish: It is the world we live in"(Culture and Communication 4). When Ray B. Browne states this he means that all the things we do on a daily bases is automatically mass culture related society. As years and generations go by the cultures become less and less categorized than they were in the 19th century. In our society today all cultures are mass-produced by the help of technology and mass media. People usually recognize businesses by different brand types when glancing at the symbols. "Most of today's popular culture is mass-produced and is disseminated through the mass media. Popular music, cheap paperback novels, soap operas, videocassette movies, and a myriad of advertised products from designer jeans to disposable razors make up our everyday environment. Stephen King novels, Levi's jeans, McDonald's golden arches are instantly recognizable symbols or icons of contemporary pop culture"(Culture and Communications 4). We recognize these businesses all around the U.S. by just the icons and signs we remember from an everyday glance. Looking back at the culture from the early 19th century to now is very liberal and doesn't depend on the class people come from. As we still view some elite culture from time to time out society today has come to become a mass-produced culture that is present in our daily actions and behaviors.

Mass Culture

         There's a significant amount of time that goes into a communication process in which some people don't know about but hear about daily. There are different types of communications including intrapersonal and interpersonal communications but the steps to communicate an interpersonal takes a lot more exertion than intrapersonal. It takes several people to be able to communicate a news report starting with the source then the messenger, to the channel, and followed by the receiver."When communicators select symbols for their messages, they must keep in mind that each person has a different frame or reference and, as a result , certain symbols may mean different things to different people"(Culture and Communication 8). When sending a message to a big audience it is important to pick specific pictures that mean the same meaning to different types of people. When communicating to other people, pictures do a better job of understanding the message being applied than words. The receiver getting the message from the messenger sometimes has a hard time understanding the concept of the message being sent causing misunderstanding usually from the description of the pictures shown. If the message is misunderstood there's a feedback person who corrects the receiver if he/she has gotten the concept wrong."...a word takes on connotations or emotional meanings that are based on experiences rather than on the word's dictionary meaning. Take the words liberal and conservative. These words mean different things to different people, based on individual political points of view"(Culture and Communications 10).  If one thing means a certain thing to another person it might mean the exact opposite to a different person. We all think different things. This process can have some issues concerning communication noise. There are three different noises that could make everything go wrong. The three including the channel noise, semantic noise, psychological noise, and selective exposure which all lead to misunderstanding and miscommunications in between the communication process. "... we expose ourselves to information that reinforces rather than contradicts our beliefs or opinions... Selective exposure also helps to explain why people with extreme political views have difficulty getting their ideas across to the general public..."(Culture and Communications 11). When certain people have strong political views it can change the way the receiver will receive the message being delivered.

Smoke Signals

          Victor and Thomas are two young adults that live on an Indian reservation in Plummer, Idaho and connect through Victor's father, Arnold that Thomas calls a hero. Throughout this film Smoke Signals there are several symbols that appear to be based around the whole story. Since the fire had happened Thomas always called Arnold a hero for saving him but for Victor he always had trouble getting along with his father. "You know there are some children who aren't really children at all, they're just pillars of flame that burn everything they touch. And there are some children who are just pillars of ash, that fall apart when you touch them... Victor and me, we were children of flame and ash"(Smoke Signals). Fire and water is very symbolic throughout this film because the way fire can help with protection but can also hurt and kill things. As it is the opposite for water it embellishes the fire also a source in protecting and healing things from burning. Another symbolic appearance in the film is when Thomas compares Victor's father to a salmon towards the end of the film. Since July 4th, the day of the fire Victor and Thomas has never got along well. "Thomas I wish that fire had killed you"(Smoke Signals). Victor always hated Thomas because he thought that Arnold had saved Thomas instead of his own son but then finally realized towards the end of the film that he saved both of them. When it finally came to dumping the ashes in the river Victor gave some of his dad's ashes to Thomas like he was a brother to him."Victor I am going to make one more trip to the river and I am going to toss these in and your Dad's ashes will rise and rise into the heavens, just like the salmon. Funny I was thinking about doing the same thing myself. I mean I never thought of my dad like a salmon but it would be just like cleaning out the attic, like throwing things away when they have no more use"(Smoke Signals). When Thomas relates Arnold to a salmon because of how salmon swim upstream and spend their whole life swimming upstream and get beaten against the rocks. With Arnold being a native and growing up around natives they struggle daily through these obstacles about being different from other people. Like salmon, Natives spend their whole life trying to fit in because of what other people think of them but in reality we are all the same. 

         

          Natives are known to have a certain stereotype of being alcoholisms but that can be present with any other race as well. Throughout the film Arnold always found alcohol to be a pain reliever from what had been done in the past with him being in the war and setting the house on fire killing Thomas's parents. "Thomas you don't even know my father. Did you know that my father was the one that set your parent's house on fire? Did you know that my father beat my mother? Did you know that my father beat me too? All I know is that when your father left your mother lost you too"(Smoke Signals). Victor and his mother were the only ones that saw the true Arnold and the main reason of why he left. Arnold was very violent towards Victor, his mother, and even Thomas but Thomas only looked at him for being a hero. It was hard for Victor to like his dad as much as Thomas did and that's why Victor would get mad at Thomas for saying those things. "I never had a drop of alcohol in my life, not a drop. What kind of Indian are you?"(Smoke Signals) This is an important quote from the film because Natives are known to drink all the time and being a son of a native Victor didn't want to become like his dad. When sheriff asked if he drank he was very surprised that he had never drank before in his life because of the stereotype that natives have. "Do we forgive our fathers in our age or in theirs? Or in their deaths, saying it to them, or not saying it? If we forgive our fathers what is left?"(Smoke Signals) This last quote that Thomas said in the film was that even when our closest loved ones sometimes may be violent and mean we can always find a way to forgive them. 

The Ceremony (Pg. 187-244)

Healing From Nature
          Nature can help people and things physically and mentally. Throughout the entire book Tayo sees that simple things including nature, Old Betonie, and Ts'eh have healed Tayo in many ways that has made him become a stronger and more willingly human being. "He lay in a shallow depression and heaped piles of dry leaves over himself until he felt warm again. He looked up through the branches and leaves, which were yellow and soft, ready to fall; the sky was heavy and dark, and purple veins striated the gray swollen clouds dragging their bellies full of snow over the mountaintop"(Silko 189). By the leaves covering Tayo like a blanket reminds him when he was carrying Rocky rapped in a blanket before his death took place soon after. Nature whether it's trees, leaves, grass, etc. symbolizes Tayo's journey he had gone through in his past life and the negativity that he was surrounded by turned out to be a healing sensation for him. But seeing dead bodies was another thing." He wanted to kick the soft white bodies into the Atlantic Ocean; he wanted to scream to all of them that they were trespassers and thieves. He wanted to follow them as they hunted the mountain lion, to shoot them and their howling dogs with their own guns"(Silko 189). Tayo had always disliked the hunters because they were destroying not just the nature but the living things around it. The imagery of the dead bodies triggers Tayo back fighting in World War II and referencing them as an allusion."The snow was covering everything, burying the mountain lion's tracks and obliterating his scent. The white men and their lion hounds could never track the lion now"(Silko 190). Tayo was realizing that nature was actually helping the mountain lion from getting killed by covering his tracks and scents from prey tracking the animal down. There are many ways in which nature can help certain things that people wouldn't realize. Without the natural surroundings people and animals would be in danger.

Emo
          Although Emo seemed to be an innocent friend in the being of the Ceremony he turned out to be an evil person who turned against Tayo."In the moonlight he could see Harley's body hanging from the fence, where they had tangled it upright between strands of barbed wire. Harley's brown skin had gone as pale as the cloudy sandstone in the moonlight, and Tayo could see blood shining on his thighs and his fingertips"(Silko 233). Little did Tayo know that all of his friends turned against him and were actually trying to kill him. But if Harley, Pinkie, and Leroy didn't do as Emo said then they would get tortured that's exactly what Harley did. He had to pay the consequences of failing them. "The destroyers. They would be there all night, he knew it, working for drought to sear the land, to kill the livestock, to stunt the corn plants and squash in the gardens, leaving people more and more vulnerable to the lies; and the young people would leave, go to towns like Albuquerque and Gallup where bitterness would lose their hope and finally themselves in drinking"(Silko 231).  After finding out that Harley, Pinkie, Leroy, and Emo all turned against Tayo then the night they started to burn everything it all clicked for him. Them four were the destroyers all along, the destroyers that Tayo has been talking about for all these years."Was Emo there? Tayo asked. Well he was the one! He did it! Pinkie was standing there, washing dishes in a pan on top of the stove. The others were sitting around the tale drinking. They say there were empty beer cans and wine bottles all over the place. Anyway, they say they got to playing around with that rifle Sarracino keeps there"(Silko 241). Emo had killed Pinkie unnoticeably.

The Ceremony(Pg.164-186)

     

New Beginnings 

          There are certain things that some people never believe that can be fixed but little do they know that that something can. For Tayo he felt that he couldn't fix his post traumatic stress healed from the war he once served in and experiences he had to deal with. "...feeling the instant of the dawn was an event which in a single moment gathered all things together--the last stars, the mountaintops, the clouds, and the winds--celebrating this coming. The power of each day spilled over the hills in great silence. Sunrise. he ended the prayer with "Sunrise" because he knew the Dawn, people began and ended all their words with "sunrise"."(Silk 169). In this quote "sunrise" plays a big symbolic roll expressing the fact that everything always end and begin again. This healing for Tayo indicates the past memories he has dealt with being in the war where "sunrise" symbolizes the start of venturing on to something new and "dawn" resembles the end to his past war experiences that has left him guilt and regret. But there's always something that can help by keeping his mind off of those specific things. "He did not expect to find Josiah's cattle near Herefords, because the spotted cattle were so rangy and wild; but without Betonie he wouldn't have hoped to find the cattle at all. Until the previous night, old Betonie's vision of stars, cattle, a woman, and a mountain had seemed remote; he had been wary, especially after he found the stars, and they were in the north"(Silko 173). Tayo had found healing through hunting and not drinking alcohol and realizing that there's something that can change the way he feels about his past actions without putting him in danger. Its as if finding the cattle is Tayo's escaping and forgetting the past in now focusing on what matters. "He had been so intent on finding the cattle that he had forgotten all the events of the past days and past years. Hunting the cattle was good for that. Old Betonie was right. It was a cure for that, and maybe for other things too. The spotted cattle wouldn't be lost any more, scattered through his dreams, driven by hesitation to admit they had been stolen, that the land--all of it-- had been stolen from them"(Silko 178). Tayo and his post traumatic stress has given him remembrance of the things that have put him through hell when he went to the war and this quote expressed the healing process in which Tayo has remembered things can be good again. And how it's okay to forget about the past and focus on the present and the things that matter to him. After Tayo's healing process with Betonie he came to the conclusion that he can focus on the good things in his life and new beginnings will come and go.

New Life

       

Mother Nature 

          Women today and in years past have always gotten a reputation to always look their best everywhere they went. And Ts'eeh a women Tayo meets isn't that typical girly girl who cares about what she wears. "She was wearing a man's shirt tucked into a yellow skirt that hung below her knees. Pale buckskin moccasins reached the edge of her skirt. The silver buttons up the side of each moccasin had railbirds carved on them"(Silko 164). She isn't trying to impress anyone like a typical women would her age. Tayo starts to begin by connecting with mother nature and relating it to this women and Night Swan. "He went on dreaming while he moved inside her, and when he heard her whisper, he saw them scatter over the crest of a round bare hill, running away from him, scattering out around him like ripples in still water"(Silko 168). This quote is describing Tayo's relationship with himself, this women, and Night Swan and how this all relates back to the symbolic aspect of the color blue and the ocean itself. "The dark yellow plant from the rocky mesa stop smelled like wet tobacco; she laid it beside the ocher sandstone. And then she pulled out a long vine covered with tiny white flowers with six sharp petals like fallen stars"(Silko 170). This represents nature and the process of how rocks become stone overtime by water. Throughout a rocks life span before becoming a stone it stumbles upon other objects when it moves through the water. It is known that sandstones are a form of a rock with a different shape and size to it. It slowly makes transitions from rock into a smooth stone and this expresses how this symbolizes Tayo transforming into a new and different man.

Transformation

The Ceremony( Pg. 141-163)

Bar where Harley and Leroy picked up Helen Jean

         After a late night out Tayo's friends Harley and Leroy picked up a young woman by the name of Helen Jean from a bar. Helen playing a major role in the Ceremony is a typical Native American who is trying to find a job that would be able to pay for her rent and ended up getting pulled into the the prostitution aspect of it all. "The way the men looked at her tensed Tayo's hands into fists. He didn't feel the fun or the laughter any more. His back was rigid; he sat down stiffly in the chair Leroy pulled out for him. Harley kept Helen Jean between himself and Tayo, and away from Leroy"(Silko 148). Tayo started to realize that Helen Jean represents his mother by the way she presents herself to men and how men were all over her. He is very protective over Helen because of the similarity he felt between his mother and Helen."Monday she borrowed Elaine's blue dress, and she went down to the Kimo theater to apply for the job they advertised in the theater window...She looked at the doors that said PRIVATE and OFFICE and tried to imagine what the desks looked like and what kind of typewriter they had... At the end of the corridor he pulled open a door, and she saw a push broom, and a scrub bucket"(Silko 150). Helen Jean finds herself to be an intelligent human being that could do a job that any other white people could do. But being a Native American like she is coming from the Towac reservation she was treated the same as any other Indian would be treated. By the end of her recognition of the low paying wage and her boss that wanted sexual appearance from Helen Jean she decided to quit. She thought that her ability as a typewriter was so superior to the rest of her race that she could find a job that would top all the rest of them would ever dream about.

Kimo Theater 

         

Transformation from bad to good

          Healing in different variations follows the same rebuilding process in a certain situation which in this case Tayo is healing from his post-traumatic stress that he gained in his experience in World War II. After his transformation from Ku'oosh to Betonie his current medicine man he has begun his healing process."He thought it might be old Betonie telling him to get on his way, telling him that he'd slept too long and there were the cattle to find, and the stars, the mountain, and the woman"(Silko 155). Betonie was telling Tayo that he needs to live and not regret his life choices he made and live in the moment by not letting his past hold him back. One night after drinking the pain away Tayo learned that enough was enough."He gagged as he pushed the door open, and something gave way in his belly. He vomited out everything he had drunk with them, and when that was gone, he was still kneeling on the road beside the truck, holding his heavy belly, trying to vomit out everything--all the past, all his life"(Silko 156). Although this specific healing process of escaping the alcoholism portion of his life was painful and hard he knew it was the right thing to do. After this experience Tayo felt like it was a cleansing for him and his body and just getting rid of all the bad stuff that he has put himself in. Sometimes it can be very crucial knowing that the past is the past and letting things go is okay."He carried the beautiful white shell beads on the end of a stick because he suspected where they came from; he left them hanging in them, they haunted him; all he could think of, all he dreamed of, were these white shell beads hanging in that tree...He lost touch with the life he had lived before the day he was lost somewhere on that trail where he first saw the beads"(Silko 157). During this process of healing Tayo biggest concern is letting go of the past. In this quote this white shell beads symbolizes an experience that he can't forget about whether or not he decides he wants to or not. All of this evil is haunting him and following him wherever he went.

A start to new beginning 

The Ceremony( Pg. 106-140)

         
         

          There has come a time way back where race didn't matter and we all were one "tribal" group. Today starting from centuries ago we have come and reunited together and to not categorize races by putting ones in certain groups. As we all once knew white people was the favorable and minority group over all the other race groups but as we look back today they were like all the rest of the groups. Tayo holds a grin towards the white people and always has since they get first priority on everything they own. "For all the anger and frustration. And for the guilt too. Indians wake up every morning of their lives to see the land which was stolen, still there, within reach, its theft being flaunted. And the desire to stop them from destroying what they have taken"(Silko 118). Seeing these lands that were once owned by the Indians getting taken over by the white people is a piece of them that will be lost forever. Tayo blames the white people for stealing their lands forcing them to leave behind their memories and attributes in which they strived to obtain living on those specific lands."They want us to separate ourselves from the white people, to be ignorant and helpless as we watch our own destruction. But white people are only tools that the witchery manipulates; and I tell you, we can deal with white people, with their machines and their beliefs"(Silko 122). Race started to become a social construct where as a society gives people a certain meaning to which they are suppose to act upon those specific meanings. As it is mentioned earlier in the book that the Native Americans and the White were in separate schools teachers telling students untrue stories about each others' cultures. When this social construct had occurred the whites would have seniority getting the good jobs that paid well and owning lands taken away from the Native Americans that at one time called home. "The Gallup people knew they didn't have to pay good wages or put up with anything they didn't like, because there were plenty more Indians where these come from"(Silko 106). Indians were happy to have a job that paid but it was even better for the white people since they could pay them low wage. The Indians wouldn't argue to have a job because there are many others unemployed that would take a job if one was complaining about not getting paid enough. As we look back on times like these and realize that social construction gives everyone a new judgmental perspective on things.

          Betonie is another important character in The Ceremony. The Laguna Pueblo's medicine man, Ku'oosh that used to be Tayo's medicine man told Tayo to go see Betonie, a medicine man that is healing Tayo giving him new ceremonies in which Ku'oosh couldn't. "What kind of man lives in a place like that, in the foothills north of the Ceremonial Grounds? Auntie wanted to know. Grandma told her, never mind, Old man Ku'oosh knows him, and he thinks this man Betonie might help him"(Silko 107). Betonie is there to help Tayo with his healing but Auntie Thelma was very judgmental to begin with. She was quick to judge him on where Betonie lived and why he lived in such a poor neighborhood near the Navajo reservation. Betonie and Tayo have a strong connection because of their similarity in race. "Go ahead, old Betonie said, you can go. Most of the Navajos feel the same way about me. You won't be the first one to run away"(Silko 109). Betonie knows how Tayo feels to be a mix of different races. Being both Native American and white Betonie knows how it feels to not fit in. He's grown up in both the white and Native American societies and the whites targeted his race the most saying he didn't belong there. When Tayo finally comes to Betonie's house he noticed something very symbolic about a certain room in his house. "Tayo sat down, but he didn't take his eyes off the cardboard boxes that filled the big room; the sides of some boxes were broken down, sagging over with old clothing and rags spilling out; others were jammed with the antennas of dry roots and reddish willow twigs tied in neat bundles with old cotton strings"(Silko 110). This quote symbolizes oxymoron and that those boxes were there for a reason but contradicting specific terms that would usually not be paired together. Silko quotes this converting the meaning that at first Betonie comes across as being a hoarder to the readers. But actually Betonie placed those boxes in a specific placement that all fits together making the the hoarding room into a more symbolic room.

The Ceremony Part Three

New beginnings 

          There comes a time in everyone's life where they are willing to find love wherever it may be. Whether it's old or young love people live to find love and cherish it. In The Ceremony, Josiah, Tayo's uncle finds love to this woman by the nick name of Night Swam. When seeing this Mexican women at Lalo's store, right then Josiah knew that this women was his everything. "By late July Josiah divided his time between the cattle, which were past Flower Mountain then, still heading southwest, and this woman"(Silko 78). His love for cattle didn't matter as much when he met this women. Before he ever met this women his first priority was to take care of his cattle, finding food for them and water for them to drink but now it's her that he cares about most. The Night Swan resembled the ocean whenever she made love to anyone. She was the symbol for the season of spring and the how it is the start of new beginnings. Racist as Josiah's sister, Auntie is he didn't care about what she thought as well as a lot of other people. "I try to tell him to stay with our own kind; but he doesn't listen to me. That woman is after anything she can get now"(Silko 85). The age that the Night Swan and Josiah are at Auntie thinks that the Josiah's girlfriend is not in it for the right reasons. Auntie thinks that the Night Swan is trying to find anything she can get since she's getting old. "He held out the note. She smiled, but she did not look at it, She looked at him" (Silko 90). Little does Josiah know that his nephew Tayo made love with his lover when giving her a note written by Josiah. And that's the society that we live in today. We get so caught up in love that the torture it is giving to one another whether it's family or friends is horrendous. That's when the society of divorce and cheating on a wife or a husband comes in ruins oneself's life.

Night Swan's rocking chair 

       

Abandonment

          After realizing why the Night Swan made love to Tayo that night before he went to war was because she wanted to make a statement to him. This was a new beginning for Tayo when he finally realized after the war his abandonment that was given to him. After his mother, Laura gave Tayo up and had to live with Auntie Thelma he started to feel insecure and ashamed of himself. "He didn't remember much: only that she had come after dark and wrapped in a man's coat-- it smelled like a man-- and there were men in the car with them: and she held him all the way..." (Silko 60) Laura having Tayo with a man of a different race made Tayo not a normal kind. Tayo felt abandonment from his mother and never knew why until after he came back from the war and looked back on the healing process he went through with the Night Swan. "Right as the sun came up, she walked under that big cottonwood tree, and I could see her clearly: she had no clothes on. Nothing. She was completely naked except for her high heel shoes. She dropped her purse under the tree"(Silko 65). Although Tayo's mother was a prostitute and an alcoholic Aunt Thelma told this to Tayo as a kid. It was like Auntie was blaming her shame on Tayo. There was never a time where Auntie would tell Tayo something good about his mother. "Auntie, he said softly, what did she look like before I was born? She reached behind the pantry curtains and began to rearrange the jars of peaches and apricots on the shelves, and he knew she was finished talking to him"(Silko 65). The way Auntie talks about Laura to Tayo is very poorly. She never likes to talk highly of her sister and that's because she got stuck with taking care of a kid that is not even her own race. The reason why Tayo's mother's abilities are not spoken from Auntie is because she wants Tayo to feel the abandonment and the "hatefulness" that she gave to her own child.

Cottonwood Tree