Ceremony Response, Pages 1-51

Explain why Tayo blames himself for the six year drought.

He feels guilt because he prayed for the rain to end while he was in the jungle at war. The rain began to drive him mad. Because of this praying, Tayo feels guilty he refused one of Mother Earth's greatest gifts, regardless of the situation. He feels like because he prayed for it to stop, now the earth is angry at him and is sending his people a six-year drought out of some sense of spite or ability to "get even". He feels he brought this drought back with him from the war. Tayo is fraught with self-guilt. He puts all the burden of the drought's guilt on himself, which does not help his spiritual and physical healing.

Describe, as best as you can, Auntie’s attitudes about Tayo, mixed blood, and religion.

Auntie loves Tayo because he is family, but does not truly accept him. However, she cannot agree with her sister's mixing of Indian and white blood in Tayo. She is ashamed of this. This is a more traditionalist standpoint, but Auntie still adheres to it. Now, Auntie loves Tayo for more than being family. She is all she has left after the death of her son. She is a little bitter, though, that he returned and not Rocky, a "good" full-blood. Auntie, however, worries about jeopardizing the purity of the tribe's blood, but herself is a Christian. Does she even believe in the medicine man's powers when they bring him up? I doubt it. Auntie is a traditionalist hypocrite, in short.