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Ceremony
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Ceremony
FEAR=DESTRUCTION "They fear They fear the world. They destroy what they fear. They fear themselves." "They will kill the things they fear all the animals the people will starve." "They will fear what they find They will fear the people They kill what they fear" (Silko 136). Leslie Marmon Silko uses these three short passages taken from an ancient Indian story included in the novel Ceremony to express and convey the idea that the white man’s fear was the primary factor contributing to their negative actions toward the Indian people. The ancient Indian story that the passages are pulled from also explains how Indian witchery led to the invention of the white people and all the evil inside of them, causing them to destroy the world and everything else that inhabits it. When the wind blew the white people across the ocean, thousands of them in giant boats (Silko 136), they were faced with the unfamiliar culture of the Indian people. Besides the fact that the Indians were in their way of expansion and development, the white man feared what they found. They feared an unknown language that they had never heard before and could not understand. They feared rituals and ceremonies that seemed strange and suspicious. They feared a social unity of sharing and togetherness that they found alarming and intimidating. The Indians woke up one morning to find that the lands they once belonged to were no longer theirs. The deeds an...
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