What’s Up With the Ending?

The novel's final poem is teensy-tiny—only three lines long. That doesn't keep it from packing quite the punch, though. It's a tribute to the sunrise and a repetition of the sunrise song Tayo first sings the morning after he meets Ts'eh. He continues to offer this prayer to the sunrise at key moments throughout the second half of the novel, and it serves as a sign that he's on the road to health. As Tayo learns, being healthy means being in tune with nature and the spirit world.

Honoring the sunrise is the ultimate sign of this in-tuneness, because the sunrise represents so many aspects of nature at once. As Tayo mentions earlier, the "instant of the dawn was an event which in a single moment gathered all things together—the last stars, the mountaintops, the clouds, and the winds—celebrating this coming." It's a moment of transition, which Betonie tells us is very important, because transitions are what hold life and stories together. Living things change, and change means transitions.

The sunrise poem is based on Laguna Pueblo tradition. Sunrise is a time when the Dawn people, or Ka't'sina, come into contact with this world, known as "the fifth world." But Tayo only has a fuzzy understanding of this tradition, so this prayer that he offers is intuitive. Tayo sings it because it just feels right.

Ending the novel with this tribute to nature, transition, and life is a sign of Tayo's restoration. A lot of bad stuff has gone down in these last few pages, but ultimately Ceremony ends on a hopeful note. Maybe this isn't the end after all?