The Lie - An Excerpt from Ceremony

An excerpt from "Ceremony" by Leslie Marmon Silko. This is deep into the book about Tayo, a half Laguna half Mexican, as he is tracking a herd of lost cattle owned by his dear deceased uncle in the central mountains of New Mexico. It is soon after he has visited a half Navajo half Mexican medicine man in the sandstone hills above Gallup, NM to cure his post-war "sickness." During this healing "ceremony", Betonie, the old medicine man, explains to Tayo that the destroyers who practice witchery are out to destroy the people, the world as it has been known, maybe the world itself. But it does not have to happen. The new world requires an evolved healing ceremony, different from what the people have known. The stakes are higher, the weapons more destructive, the agents of witchery more deceptive. But if you step through the five hoops, representing the 5 worlds, you will see again and the worlds will come back to you, and you will be able to continue. In this case, the white man is the agent of witchery unleashed by one of the destroyer gods, and is living, in most cases, the Lie that perpetuates the destruction of the other peoples, animals, the earth mother herself. But, Betonie, makes sure that Tayo understands that you cannot judge the entire race for the deception of the Lie, as they are deceived too and under the influence of the witchery. It is in the waking up and being present with the Mother, whether it be Indian or white or any other race or creed or mixture thereof, that unmasks the witchery and prevents the destruction (of everything). Although at once harsh and beautiful, and certainly an indictment of the history of the white race on this continent, it is also hopeful, in the sense that there is the possibility of waking up.

"The lie. He cut into the wire as if cutting away at the lie inside himself. The liars had fooled everyone, white people and Indians alike; as long as people believed in lies, they would never be able to see what had been done to them or what they were doing to each other. He wiped the sweat off his face onto the sleeve of his jacket. He stood back and looked at the gaping cut in the wire. If the white people never looked beyond the lie to see that theirs was a nation built on stolen land, then they would never be able to understand how they had been used by the witchery; they would never know that they were still being manipulated by those who knew how to stir the ingredients together: white thievery and injustice boiling up the anger and hatred that would finally destroy the world: the starving against the fat, the colored against the white. The destroyers had only to set it in motion, and sit back to count the casualties. But it was more than a body count; the lies devoured the white hearts, and for more than two hundred years white people had worked to fill their emptiness; they tried to glut the hollowness with patriotic wars and with great technology and the wealth it brought. And always they had been fooling themselves, and they knew it."