I Need a Ceremony: Reading Laguna Literature in Palestine
Nearly 20 years after completing my undergraduate degree, in fall, 2024, I was accepted into a graduate program at Al Quds Abu Dis University, in the West Bank of Palestine. This was the same university where I had done my previous studies, but this time, my focus was much different. Instead of physical education, I now chose to focus on American and Indigenous studies, which had always been of much interest to me. As part of the curriculum, one of the courses focused on US culture and identity, taught online by Dr. Beverly Voloshin.
We were assigned to read a novel written by Laguna Pueblo member Leslie Marmon Silko. The 1977 novel, Ceremony, focused on the experiences of a Laguna young man, Tayo, who was suffering so much, experiencing PTSD as a result of his experiences in World War II, along with the racism of his daily experiences. I found remarkable and shocking similarities between the experiences of the book’s main character, Tayo, and my own life as a Palestinian man in the West Bank in today’s world.
As a Palestinian graduate student in American and Indigenous Studies, wanting to deepen my understandings of US culture and social landscape, I put my voice alongside the fictional Tayo, the protagonist in the text Ceremony, a young man in pain, seeking relief in numerous ways.
For me, the story of Tayo was like looking into a sorrowful mirror. I have many points of connection with Tayo, this Indigenous man in the US. Our similarities include:
- our deep relationship with the land;
- the witnessing of shocking violence;
- stomach problems;
- the importance of elders;
- the connections to food;
- PTSD;
- the presence of colonizers;
- the history of systemic and systematic genocide;
- the denial of access to water;
- and more, more, more.
In my journal, I wrote, “I realized Tayo was very familiar to me, like a mirror. His identity as a Laguna Pueblo Indian has a lot in common with my identity as a Bedouin Palestinian. Tayo suffered, as I suffer. I’m so happy Tayo had a new kind of freedom, thanks to his ceremony. I wish this for me and my people, too.”
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The author Silko mixed prose with poetry, and shifted between memories, dreams, hallucinations, and the current moment. The way Silko used blurred timelines made the text demanding, but still, I found multiple points of connection, especially as war rages in Gaza,and the West Bank is increasingly under attack from settlers (colonizers) as well as by the occupying army. Tayo is not real, but still, he is my brother.
In my journal, I wrote,
As a Palestinian Bedouin, I connect my personal life to Tayo and his story. He has a tribe, the Laguna, and I have a tribe, the Tammari. His land and his life on the reservation reminds me of my own Bedouin camp, with the desert, the sheep, the cattle, and the shepherd. I feel my life connected in so many ways. Just like Tayo, my own stomach has problems, related to stress, because my own land is right beside my house, but I cannot visit it because of settlers. I cannot harvest my own olives because the settlers banned me and the other members of my community from visiting our own property. Just like Tayo in New Mexico, we also need more rain, because my olive trees, the trees I planted with my father, are dry and dying because the settlers do not permit us to look after the trees. I can see my land drying, crying, and dying, just as Silko wrote, “The people and the animals were thirsty. They were starving” (Silko, p. 30).
Drawing connections between the historical realities in Ceremony with the contemporary experiences for Palestinians in the West Bank, I conclude with my own poem.
I am Tayo, but in a different era, in a different region, in a different fashion, in a different style — but our identity is the same.
I get lost, just as he gets lost.
He was lost because of the Second World War, but I was lost because of an Israeli bullet when I was coming home from school in 2002.
I was young, a student in high school, only age 16, with no ID yet.
I can see my friend.
My friend was killed in front of me, by a soldier.
I became lost.
Just like Tayo, I am very confused, too.
Am I a human being, or am I white smoke?
I need an explanation from the universe.
I need a ceremony.
