Where It All Goes Down
Laguna, New Mexico, immediately after World War II
At the time this novel is set, in the late 1940s, Laguna is no bustling metropolis. As a part of the Native American reservation system established by the United States' Bureau of Indian Affairs in the second half of the 19th century, Laguna remains segregated from the modern world of white America. The Native Americans who live there are one of the 21 different Puebloan peoples who reside in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. The Puebloan Native Americans include Hopi, Zuni, and Acoma, as well as Laguna.
The members of the Laguna community don't have a lot of money and mostly rely on ranching and sheep herding to make a living. That means that drought years, like the ones we see in the novel, are especially hard. No wonder Tayo feels so much guilt for praying the rain away. Be careful what you wish for, kids.
Most of the young people in Laguna come to resent the striking disparity between the wealth of American cities and reservation villages. Many are dying to get off the rural, impoverished reservation. They head to the nearest urban center, Gallup, to try to make a living.
But while Laguna may be a little boring to these modern young kids, Gallup is seedy and dangerous. Plenty of Native American workers experience systematic prejudice and discrimination by employers in Gallup, lose their jobs, and end up living in the streets or in shelters constructed out of garbage. Gallup comes to represent the kind of marginal existence that the novel's Native Americans can expect from a racist white society—an existence of homelessness, poverty, and alcoholism. Yikes.
Our protagonist Tayo rejects these urban pitfalls and finds comfort in his natural surroundings. While people like Emo dismiss the "goddamn dried-up country" around Laguna (III.3), Tayo learns from his Uncle Josiah that "the wind and the dust, they are part of life too," and that you shouldn't curse them (VI.32). Tayo sees life in the sand, rocks, and hills of the desert, and he pays homage to the animals and springs with offerings of pollen.
Mountains, hills, and other natural rock formations in the area—like buttes and mesas—are especially significant. The most spiritual characters in the novel—the Night Swan, Ts'eh, Betonie and his grandmother—are all attracted to high places. Ts'eh and her family even call themselves the Montaños, which resembles the Spanish word for "mountains." Tayo's encounters with Ts'eh always take place on or near a mountain or high mesa, and he learns to associate her with Pa'to'ch, a butte near his ranch. (Check out "Images" for a picture of Pa'to'ch.)