Leslie Marmon Silko

+Matriarch Monday+

Leslie Marmon Silko

Ceremony 

I will tell you something about stories,'
[he said] 
They aren't just entertainment. 
Don't be fooled. 
They're all we have, you see. 
All we have to fight off illness and death. 
You don't have anything
if you don't have the stories. 
Their evil is mighty, 
but it can't stand up to our stories. 
So they try to destroy the stories, 
but the stories cannot be confused or forgotten. 
They would like that. 
They would be happy
because we would be defenseless then.
[He rubs his belly]
I keep it in here,
[he said] 
Here, put your hand on it. 
See? 
It is moving. 


Ts' its' tsi' nako, Thought-Woman,
is sitting in her room
and what ever she thinks about
appears.
She thought of her sisters,
Nau' ts' ity' i and I' tcs' i,
and together they created the Universe
this world
and the four worlds below.
Thought-Woman, the spider,
named things and
as she named them
they appeared.
She is sitting in her room
thinking of a story now
I'm telling you the story
she is thinking. 

Ceremony is a novel by Native American writer Leslie Marmon Silko, first published by Penguin in March 1977. The title Ceremony is based upon the oral traditions and ceremonial practices of the Navajo and Pueblo people.

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