Blog 8-Natalie

In my opinion nothing really exiting happened in the story that really jumped out. The passage began with Harley unconscious in a bar and then Helen Jean runs off with some Mexicans in the bar. After the ceremony Tayo really starts to change and get better he thinks about the changes in his life he must make in his life. I can tell Tayo is getting well because it seems like his mind is clearer since the ceremony. His flashbacks and his thoughts are way less confusing and he is starting to make more sense. Throughout the book I am noticing how much Tayo is changing more and more as the story goes on.

Betonie still has an active part in the story and has not disappeared yet like night swan or Helen Jean. Betonie has a positive influence on Tayo and I think that is part of the reason Tayo is growing as a person recently. Betonie has a vision about a girl that Tayo is going to make love to. Personally I think it is a bit odd that Betonie has visions (Cough Fantasy’s Cough) about Tayo making love to a woman. It is almost like Betonie is a fortune teller because Tayo finds the woman Betonie envisioned and ends up making love to her. As the passage goes on Tayo is still looking for his uncles Mexican cattle because he feels like he has to find them. After the cougar ceremony is performed Tayo finds his uncles Mexican cattle.

“Why did he hesitate to accuse a white man of stealing but not a Mexican or an Indian?...He knew then he had leaned the lie by heart- the lie which they had wanted him to learn: only brown- skinned people were thieves; white people didn’t steal, because they always had the money to buy whatever they wanted” (pg. 191)

I kind of think in the book Tayo and his people have a right to be super mad at the whites because they seems to get everything easy is life while Tayo and the rest of the Indians work very hard. The whites have a good because they have money so they don’t need to steal or anything like that. But in real life I don’t think the Native Americans should be mad at the white :D.

"So they tried to sink the in booze, and silence their grief with war stories about their courage, defending the land they had already lost." (169).
What dose Silko mean when the book say “defending the land they had already lost” it sounds really deep but I am not quite sure what it truly means anyone know? It seems like the only thing Native Americans do in this story is get drunk and drown there sorrows.

"Until the previous night, old Betonie's vision of stars, cattle, a woman, and a mountain had seemed remote; he had been wary, especially after he found the stars, and they were in the north." (page 186). Betonies character foreshadows a lot of things in the story. This quote foreshadows Tayo finding the Cattle and a woman, I think Betonie is a useful character in the story because it kind of gives you a sneak peak of what is going to happen next in the story.