The passage between Tayo and the cattle is possibly the boldest of all. Like a hoop encircling the story, Silko uses the spotted cattle as a metaphor for Tayo’s transition, and of Tayo’s struggle to find himself and to finish the story. Through Tayo’s relationship with the spotted cattle, we can follow Tayo’s progression. First, with Tayo’s experiences away from home and then with his experiences while at home. The spotted cattle are everywhere in Ceremony, but they are nowhere by accident. Like Tayo, they are part of the pattern and there are two particular places in the book where Silko uses them to point to an evident link to Tayo.

The link that Tayo has with the spotted cattle first begins when Josiah and he go to buy the cattle from Ulibarri and they are separating the goo

d cattle from the bad when Tayo notices some distinct features, “memorizing each cow the shape of the long curved horns, the patterns of the brown spots on the ivory hides, their size and weight” (Silko 74). Here Silko makes the connection with Tayo and the spotted cattle, by their appearance. As we know Tayo is a half breed (white and Laguna Indian) not the “ideal” Laguna man, nor is he the “ideal” white man, soldier, or nephew. In fact, he seems to fit nobody’s ideal, least of all his own. Like the spotted cattle, Tayo carries two brands; his light colored eyes and his brown skin simultaneously mark him as belonging (or not belonging) in two different worlds.

In recovering the cattle, Tayo is able to rebuild the connection between him and the land. If he had not rebuilt this connection, Tayo would have not been able to survive as he was. He had to learn and adjust with his past memories into his present life. Without change he would have just died like the rest of his friends from the war. His progression through his life as a boy, a young adult, and now a man was an important part of who he was and who he became in connection with his environment and nature. Also, without this connection he would not have been able to see the pattern, or to prevent the plan of the witchery through his inaction. In the highly effective strategy of drawing a connection between the cattle an

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