In Ceremony, Tayo is a boy of the Laguna Pueblo people who suffers from severe guilt. He is a mixed blood, someone who is half-Indian and half-white, and for most of his life he has been made to feel a burden to his family because of his impure bloodline. When Tayo and his cousin Rocky enlist to go to war, Tayo promises he'll look out for Rocky and bring him back safe. However, Rocky ends up dying from a grenade blast, and Tayo returns home with extreme mental trauma, feeling he has let down his family and that he was the one who should have died, not his cousin. This is intensified by the fact that upon his return, he finds out that his uncle Josiah has died, and Tayo's promise to help out with his uncle's cattle herds is also unfulfilled. He is left to deal with his problems alone until he finally accepts the help of a medicine man who will enact a complicated ceremony to heal him. 

      This relates to the plight of the Laguna Pueblo people in several different ways; Tayo's mistreatment as a half-blood could show a conflict in the Laguna tribe. Many times Silko mentions the guilt of the Laguna people throughout the book, talking about how the tribe blames themselves for having sold away the earth. Silko states that the Laguna people feel as though it is their own fault for selling away the land. They feel that their disrespect and mistreatment of the land is what led to the situation they are in today, and it is their punishment for betraying the earth; Silko writes "The blame on the whites would never match the vehemence the people would keep in their own bellies, reserving the greatest bitterness and blame for themselves" (235). This can be related to Tayo because he blames himself for his own mixed blood, and for having brought so much shame to his family.

      It is also significant that Tayo's healing ceremony is more of a “hybrid ceremony” than a traditional one. Betonie, the medicine man, mixes many old world items with things that can only be found in the new, such as calendars and shopping bags (111). Silko states that the medicine man and his ceremonies had been criticized for being new and different, but the medicine man tells Tayo that "after the white people came, elements in this world began to shift, and it became necessary to create new ceremonies"  (116). He continues to tell Tayo that all things must change, and if the Indian tribes don't continue to progress and adapt, they will suffer and die: "Things which don't shift and grow are dead things... But [growth] has always been necessary, and more than ever now, it is. Otherwise we won't make it. We won't survive" (116). However, it is also notable that Western medicine alone failed to cure Tayo, and he needed to return to his roots before he could begin to recover. This instance in the book could allude to the idea that before the Laguna people can heal themselves -- or all Native Americans, for that matter -- they need to reconcile their traditional heritage with the new Westernized world. Silko's message, in this sense, is that holding onto the past and waiting for the old ways to return may not be healthy for the Native American tribes, and that they should look to the future and try to combine the two. Tayo had to come to terms with his mixed blood and guilt before he could find forgiveness for himself and happiness.

      In the end, Tayo states that the lie that had poisoned him was the same lie that was poisoning the white people, and through Silko's writing, it can be interpreted that the lie is separation, the idea that some races are superior to others, and that we were made different from each other: "You don't write off all the white people, just like you don't trust all the indians" (118). What Tayo learns by the end of the book is that we are all the same, that there are Indians who are bad just as there are white people who are good. It is racism and tradition that separate the two, and in a sense, those are the lies that are most damaging.

      As Tayo recovers step by step through the book, Silko shows us how the Laguna people must also recover from their own guilt and shame. Ceremony is not just a book about the struggles of a Native American boy, but of an entire nation and people. Although Silko's message is not necessarily the only way the Native American tribes can recover and move into the 21st century, it is definitely a prevalent one, and worthy of some consideration. At least for Tayo, finding forgiveness for himself is what allowed him to find happiness and, finally, peace.