His mother, who at one point lived in near-poverty and was a source of shame to Auntie, died when he was fairly young. The focus of the narrative then switches to Tayo's memories of his family.
After returning from the war, the sensitive Tayo had attempted to kill a fellow Laguna veteran named Emo, who was known both for his bloodthirsty ways and for his contempt for Tayo's half Native American, half Mexican heritage. A fellow veteran named Harley seeks Tayo out in his remote residence and invites him for beers Tayo accepts, but remembers an earlier altercation at a local bar. Tayo, however, occasionally accompanies the other young men who returned from the war on drinking binges. At the start of the novel, he lives apart from his relatives Auntie (Rocky's mother) and Old Grandma. Tayo suffered from nausea, weakness, and feelings of severe depression and alienation after his return. He is haunted by his memories of his cousin Rocky the two of them had fought together in the American campaign against the Japanese, but Rocky had been captured by the Japanese and executed. Tayo, a young World War II veteran and member of the Laguna Pueblo American Indian community, has just spent a restless night on his community's reservation. After this, the main prose narrative begins. Ceremony begins with a poem invoking the constructive power of stories, and calling on ritual and ceremony as forces that can stand against evil influences.
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