Blooms Literary Themes - THE TRICKSTER.pdf - ymerleksi - home

House Made of Dawn 95
through his empathy. Abel has been able to achieve this clarity because
of Tosamah’s actions as a trickster/shaman, not an uncommon combination
according to Karl W. Luckert, who indicates that the trickstershaman
was characteristic of the archaic Navajo traditions, which
were absorbed into Pueblo ceremonial practices (148). Later, we will
see how Tosamah also facilitates Abel’s healing through his other
trickster qualities as rogue or bully.
Th e clearest example of Tosamah’s use of ceremony to heal Abel is
the all-night peyote ritual over which he presides. He is identifi ed at
the beginning of the ceremony as “orator, physician, Priest of the Sun,
son of Hummingbird.” Th e “physician” designation is appropriate, for
the peyote ceremony is a highly structured ritual designed to heal both
mental and physical illness. It is intended to reunite its participants
with the Great Mystery of Being. “To live according to its inspiration
is to follow the peyote road of personal dignity and respect for nature
and other people” (Kiyaani 48). It works to clear the mind ( Jones 411)
and expand access to parts of consciousness ( Jones 412). Th e participants
in Tosamah’s ceremony pray to the Great Spirit to “be with
us. We gone crazy for you to be with us poor Indi’ns” and “Come to
us now in bright colors and sweet smoke. Help us to make our way”
(113). Th ey experience waves of both ecstasy and of sadness and grief.
“Everyone thought of death, and the thought was overwhelming in
itself ” (112). Tosamah performs a blast of an eagle-whistle in each of
the four sacred directions at midnight to “serve notice that something
holy was going on in the universe” and Abel’s friend, Benally, declares
at one point, “Look! Look! Th ere are blue and purple horses . . . a
house made of dawn” (114).
Although the peyote ceremony is the most obvious example of
Abel’s ceremonial healing by Tosamah, it is crucial that we recognize
the larger ceremonial dimensions of the entire novel in order
to appreciate fully Tosamah’s role. Momaday’s narrative incorporates
the powerful centuries-old Navajo healing ceremony known as the
Nightway or Night Chant. Th is ceremony contains 324 separate songs
and typically takes nine days to complete, concluding near dawn when
the fi nal song is sung. Its purpose is to restore the person for whom
the Nightway is being conducted to “mental and physical health, to a
sense of balance and harmony and completeness” (Overstreet 58). Th e
fi rst paragraph of House Made of Dawn is actually a paraphrase of the
fi rst song of the Night Chant, of which the fi rst stanza is as follows: