Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony is a multi-dimensional novel full of Laguna symbols and themes that are easily overlooked in superficial reading. Like many elements of this work, Josiah's spotted cattle can be interpreted in many ways: as cultural metaphors, water spirits, and animal guides. Tayo's pursuit of lost cattle is a quest of sorts: by recovering the cattle, he seeks to end the drought afflicting his people and also to heal himself by restoring his cultural identity. The two elements of his quest are deeply linked: healing brings water just as water brings healing. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Silko's depiction of spotted cattle creates a strong metaphor that closely ties them to the Lagunas. Josiah buys the cattle because they look more like wild animals than the slow-witted Herefords favored by white ranchers. While Herefords die of thirst if water is not brought to them, spotted cattle find water on their own. In other words, they are self-sufficient and close to the land like the Native Americans. They are also native to the desert, “descendants of generations of desert cattle” (74). Unlike the white man's cows (and the white man himself), these animals are able to live off the land without altering it or requiring outside help. They are “everything that [the white man’s] ideal cow was not” (75). The parallels between the white man and his helpless cattle are made clear in one of Josiah's first thoughts: Cattle are like any living thing. If you separate them from the land for too long, keep them in barns and corrals, they lose something. Stomachs get to where they can only eat oatmeal and dry alfalfa. When you release them, they run everywhere. They are afraid because the land is unknown to them and they are lost. (74) The Herefords are a metaphor for white culture disconnected from the land and unable to exist without artificial means, while the spotted cattle represent the connection to the land associated with Native American tradition. It is this connection that Tayo lost and seeks to restore. Silko uses frequent descriptions of the deer-like qualities of spotted cattle to connect them to Tayo's relationship with drought. According to Hamilton Tyler, author of “Pueblo Animals and Myths,” in Pueblo mythology, deer spirits are rainmakers. It seems significant, then, that Silko so often mentions their resemblance to deer: "They were tall and had long, thin legs like deer" (75) and "they moved like deer" (188), "running more like deer than like cattle” (197). Tayo believes that his condemnation of rain in the jungle caused the drought, that he "prayed for the rain to go away" (14). Only through repentance and healing can he restore the rain, and only by performing the Betony ceremony can he find this healing. Livestock recovery is an essential part of the process. Cattle and deer, rain and healing are all intertwined. The spotted cattle also act as animal guides, indirectly leading Tayo to the spiritual deity Ts'eh. It is unclear what spirit Ts'eh represents, but her blue and yellow colors could indicate that she is an incarnation of Corn Woman, synonymous with Mother Earth. In two of the traditional stories told in the book, Corn Woman holds back the rain – first when Reed Woman angers her and again when the people neglect the altar of (1975).