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.

Old Betonie, the medicine man, recalled a time when the white people were extremely fearful of Indians. He said, "I was at the World's fair in St. Louis, Missouri, the year they had Geronimo there on display. The white people were scared to death of him. Some of them even wanted him in leg irons" (Silko 122). Instead of appreciating Geronimo for his unique culture, he was disrespected and treated as a freak show exhibit. The white people did not try to learn about his background or interact with him because they were too fearful to look past his differences and accept him as a fellow human being.

As a young kid on the Laguna Pueblo reservation, Tayo and the other children were sent away to white schools, and it was mandatory that they did not speak in their native tongue or take part in any of their old ways. The teachers told them to forget what they had learned back on the reservation, that they had no reason to believe the superstitious stories any more. Now they should believe in books and science because they explained the causes and effects (Silko 94). The white man feared the different culture of the Indians, and they wanted the Indians to forget their past so they could easily influence them and make them conform to the white ways. An Indian story says,

And explode everything" (Silko 137).

The white man introduced alcohol (firewater) to the Indians in an attempt to control them, manipulate them, and take advantage of them. As the Indian people became more dependent on the alcohol, the white man fed the addiction with more alcohol, more bars, and more liquor stores. The Indian people turned to alcohol to ease

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Approximate Word count = 1108
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)