This paper was first presented at a Symposium on Indigenous Literatures at Tromsø University, Norway  Sept 10, 1993 and later printed in Språk og Språkundervisning nr 1 1994. In this version the footnotes are incorporated into the text and there is an updated postscript.

You are welcome to copy this paper for academic use, but not for commercial purposes without the permission of the author.
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The English textbook Imagine edited by Kjell Richard Andersen and Karin Hals appeared on the market as a text for the foundation course for first year students in Norwegian high schools in 1989 and again in revised editions in 1994 and 2000. In all three editions Leslie Marmon Silko's "Tony's Story" is included. At the end of the school year when the story is usually taught, the students are about 17 years old and their background knowledge of American Indians range from virtually zero to some knowledge through films, comic strips, children's books and in some rare cases extensive reading of mainly historical texts, such as Dee Brown's Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee.

As high school teachers we are general practitioners rather than experts in the field of Native American literature, and therefore it is a pity that the textbook Imagine does not, in my opinion, contain sufficient background material to appreciate "Tony's story" at more than a superficial level. Maybe that is enough as an introduction to Native American writing, but the problem is that it does not give the writer full credit for her work.

The story which was first printed in the Thunderbird, (literary magazine of the students of the University of New Mexico) in 1969, is in short about Leon and Tony and their encounter with an evil white state policeman. Leon has just come back to the Pueblo from the army, having become a "troublemaker" in his friend Tony's words. Leon is drinking illegally and talking loudly on the reservation, thus provoking this white state policeman to beat him so viciously that he in turn complains about the policeman's brutality to the tribal council and says he will kill the cop if he returns to pester him again.

Tony is shocked at such behaviour. He wears an arrowhead around his neck as a charm to protect himself against evil forces and wants Leon to wear one, too, but to no avail.

The irony in the story manifests itself at the end when the peaceful law-abiding traditionally rooted Tony is the one who kills the policeman while Leon, who has had his Native way of life corrupted by army life and western society, looks at in horror. How is this explained and what does Silko want to tell us in this story?

The story is based on an actual killing that must have sent shock waves through the whole region. "When Leslie Marmon was four, an Acoma man killed a state policeman." Per Seyersted writes in his booklet about her, Leslie Marmon Silko, in the Boise State University Western Writers Series from 1980. Silko was of course too young to understand it at that time, but the story about the killing must have been told repeatedly as she grew up. It made a strong impression on her as she also tells in an essay called "Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective" in Critical Fictions edited by Philomena Mariani in 1991. On page 92 in that book she says:

When I returned to Laguna Pueblo after attending college, I wondered how the storytelling was continuing (anthropologists say that Laguna Pueblo is one of the more acculturated pueblos), so I visited an English class at Laguna-Acoma High School. I knew the students had cassette tape recorders in their lockers and stereos at home, and that they listened to Kiss and Led Zeppelin and were well informed about popular culture in general. I had with me an anthology of short stories by Native American writers, The Man to Send Rain Clouds. One story in the book is about the killing of a state policeman in New Mexico by three Acoma Pueblo men in the early 1950s. I asked the students how many had heard this story and steeled myself for the possibility that the anthropologists were right, that the old traditions were indeed dying out and the students would be ignorant of the story. But instead, all but one or two raised their hands - they had heard the story, just as I had heard it when I was young, some in English, some in Laguna.

In Ortiz' story the policeman is killed by Felipe, who has been in the marines, and his brother Antonio is with him when the killing takes place, and actually fires the final shot. There are strong reasons to believe that this story was written first (Ortiz being Silko's senior by seven years), and that it triggered off Silko'story from Antonio's point of view. Her story is distinctively different and she probably wanted to explore other motifs than drunkenness and disorientation among ex-soldiers as a plausible reason behind committing such a terrible crime.

In "Tony's Story" the two Indians, the ex-serviceman, Leon, who has returned with a sharpened sense of justice and the pueblo bound Tony, sticking to the old traditions, are contrasted throughout the story, but they are also members of the same community and share a number of views and values.

"It happened one summer when the sky was wide and hot and the summer rains did not come," Silko opens the story. (p. 69 in Rosen's collection. All my quotations from "Tony's Story" will be from this book). In the semi-arid land of the Pueblos, the rains are essential for the growing of corn, their staple food. The Corn Dance to secure the rains is performed at the corn planting season in the spring, and the dance is repeated at Fiestas in the summer, here at San Lorenzo's Day, the patron Saint of the pueblo Tony and Leon live in.

Edward Dozier writes about the role of the individual in ceremonies on page 200 in The Pueblo Indians of North America from 1970:

Ceremonial activity is the Pueblo's contribution to maintaining a harmonious balance which is believed to be the natural state of affairs. In Pueblo belief, as long as ceremonies are consistently and properly performed, nature will respond by providing the necessities of life. Thus, man and nature cooperate to maintain universal balance. Man alone, however, may upset the balance; he may do so by refusing to engage in ceremonial activity, by harboring ill feelings, by failure to observe minute details of costuming and performance. Pueblo Indians engaging in ceremonial activity are careful not to violate these precepts; religious leaders carry the major burden of this responsibility. If drought, disease, epidemics, and misfortunes of any kind befall a pueblo, native priests receive the initial blame; but anyone observed to have frustrated the proper performance of a ceremony may become the victim of bitter criticism and punishment.

So what causes the drought, and why is the policeman killed? Silko explains this not by letting Leon forget his steps in the Corn Dance, but by letting Tony see the policeman as a witch in a dream. "... the stories of withces ran with me. That night I had a dream - the big cop was pointing a long bone at me - they always use human bones, and the whiteness flashed silver in the moonlight where he stood. He didn't have a human face - only little, round white-rimmed eyes on a black ceremonial mask." (p. 72).

When Tony sees the policeman the next time he understands:

"... and then I knew why the drought had come that summer. Leon shook me. "He's behind us - the cop's following us." I looked back and saw the red light on top of the car whirling around, and I could make out the dark image of a man, but where the face should have been there were only the silvery lenses of the dark glasses he wore." (p. 73).

Both Leon and Tony feel uneasy about the policeman who is utterly unpleasant, but they have different ways of dealing with evil. Leon talks about it. He brings the matter to the tribal council, speaks to the Governor who promises to send letters to the BIA and to the State Police Chief, and all the time Leon keeps referring to his rights. "He can't do it again. We are just as good as them." (p. 72).

Tony has his dream and does not talk about it. "But I knew that cop was something terrible, and even to speak about it risked bringing it close to all of us; so I didn't say anything". (p. 75). Instead he wears his charm and when Leon refuses to wear one because he relies on his rifle for protection and not on charms, Tony wears two. He may need double luck.

In the third and final encounter with the policeman Tony no longer looks at him as a human being. He refers to him as "it", confusing the raised stick ready to hit Leon with the long bone in his dream. "The shot sounded far away and I couldn't remember aiming". But to a horrified Leon he says: "It's killed. They sometimes take on strange forms." And then the story ends with the following statement: "...in the west, rain clouds were gathering". (p. 78).

In Tony's dream vision a sacrifice is needed to regain the harmony. His only worry is that old Teofilo is not there to chant the proper words for such a ceremony. The evil force is annihilated and order restored. The pueblo will again be blessed with rains. "Don't worry, everything is O.K. now, Leon," Tony says. (p. 78).

That is if we accept the logic of witchcraft. Silko has carefully laid down clues for us to show that Tony's development is logical. Leon's loudmouthed reactions to being humiliated by the policeman force Tony to examine the traditional stories about witchcraft old Teofilo told to find alternative ways of dealing with evil. In these stories witchcraft was usually provoked when the Pueblos deviated from the old ways. It manifested itself through the abuse of power, and if necessary it had to be destroyed.

If we accept that an evil force can take on a human form (even the form of an outsider such as a white state policeman) and cause drought by upsetting the harmony in the Pueblo, Tony's killing is logical and justified. If not, it is a hideous crime and he is no better than the evil policeman he kills.

What does Silko herself believe? Does she believe in witchcraft? There is a strong indication in her collection of stories, Storyteller from 1981, where a long chilling poem starting with the line "Long time ago ..." about a contest between witches about who is the most powerful witch follows immediately after "Tony's Story".

Another indication in favour of the witchcraft theory can be found when looking at Aaron Scott Yava's illustration on the last page of the short story in Rosen's collection. Here we see a ghost (or witch) embracing the slain policeman. And there are bear paw tracks on the policeman's trousers.

The tracks puzzled me till I found an explanation in a National Geographic issue from November 1982 about pueblo pottery. Under a picture of Margaret Tafoya of Santa Clara with her pots the text runs: "Bear paws are a frequent motif. "They are good luck," she says. "The bear always knows where the water is.""

The artist who is of mixed Navaho/ Pueblo heritage seems to accept the witchcraft theory. His illustration of the short story makes us believe the killing is just. The killing of the policeman restores the balance. Water in the form of rains will again bless the earth. - A sceptic on the other hand, may of course argue that he is only recording Tony's vision in his drawing. He does not have to believe in witchcraft himself.

Leslie Marmon says in the "Foreword" to a book of drawings by Aaron Yava, the same artist : "I think Aaron says with his drawings what I attempt to say with my stories" ... and she also says: "Aaron's vision comes down to him from the old ones who knew no boundaries between man and Earth, between the beautiful and the ugly. They knew only the truth." (Here quoted from Seyersted's booklet pp. 24 - 25.)

If we return to Leon who watches the murder in disbelief, does he understand the logic of witchcraft? In "Tony's Story" Leon has forgotten what old Teofilo taught, and has become a modern Indian, but not so modern that he refrains from taking part in the Corn Dance. Still we get the impression that there is a long distance between his beliefs and those of Tony at the time of the killing.

It is therefore interesting to read about Leon in an interrelated story, "The Man to Send Rain Clouds" in Storyteller and Rosen's collection of stories. In this story Old Teofilo dies and Leon makes sure that Teofilo gets a proper traditional burial. Here the ex-serviceman Leon (there is a reference to his green army jacket) is the one to make sure the old traditions are observed and live on.

In "Tony's Story" Leon is horrified at Tony's behaviour at the end. How can the killing be explained if he, or we, do not believe in witchcraft? There is a clue in the story for an alternative interpretation. Tony says: "The shot sounded far away and I couldn't remember aiming." (p.77). He could plead not guilty claiming he was temporarily insane when the crime was committed.

When I in 1993 read Tony Hillerman's mystery story, Skinwalkers from 1990, about witchcraft on the Navaho reservation I jumped in my chair when I read the following:

"You remember way back when that cop got ambushed over on the Laguna-Acoma. You remember that one. The agent on that one said something about witchcraft when he was working it, put it in his report. I think they called him all the way back to Washington so the very top dogs could chew him out in person. That was after doing it by letters and telegrams." "But it was witchcraft," Leaphorn said. "Or it wasn't, of course but the Lagunas they tried for it said they killed the cop because he had been witching them, and the judge ruled insanity, and they - " "They went to a mental hospital, and the agent got transferred from Albequerque to East Poison Spider, Wyoming," Streib said, voice rich with passion. "The judge ruled" don't cut it in Washington. In Washington they don't believe in agents who believe in witches." (pp.137 - 138 in the Sphere Books Ltd's paperback edition).

When I later showed this paper to Dr. Domhnall Mitchell at the English Department at NTNU in Trondheim, he gave me an essay which described the murder case the short story is based on: "The Killing of a New Mexican State Trooper: Ways of Telling an Historical Event" by Laurence J. Evers published in Critical Essays on Native American Literature edited by Andrew Wiget in 1985. It tells an interesting story about temporarily insanity and witchcraft in white American legal practice in the fifties. In the same article there is a reference to bear paws being used in Acoma curing rituals. This adds depth to Aaron Yawa's drawing and underlines even more the conclusion that the ritualistic killing and burning of the policeman can be viewed as a curing ritual to bring rain and restore Nature's balance.

Post postscript
In August 1997 I came across a no longer available, interesting interview with N. Scott Momaday on the web. It was conducted in Rome in June 1991, and dealt among other things with a murder case in Jemez Pueblo. Recently (in August 2008) I was made aware that a slightly different version of the same interview was published in the winter issue of SAIL in 1996 and this is still  available on the web. (See link at the foot of the page).
In the late 40s or early 50s a man in Jemez Pueblo killed another at point blank, was convicted, but pleaded self-defence on the basis of witchcraft. Momaday says in this interview that no one in the whole pueblo considered him guilty. The court gave him a minimal sentence, he served something like two years and then got out. Momaday stated that "nobody thought that he had acted in any way other than he should have acted. He was temporarily inconvenienced and that was it." Then he went on to say that this case lay behind the killing of the albino in his novel House Made of Dawn. I found this interesting with regards to "Tony's story" as well, since both killings seem to have been ritualistic, both caused problems in a 20th century court, and both lent material to great fiction writing.

Leslie Marmon Silko, part of a data base on Women Writers of Color
Leslie Marmon Silko, part of Native American Authors Project
Leslie Marmon Silko Literati net  Homepage
Leslie Marmon Silko, interview by Thomas Irmer
A video cut  with Silko.
A Laguna portfolio. Photos by Lee Marmon, SAIL spring 1993
Laguna Stories and Poems with Leslie Marmon Silko on video from the University of Arizona, 1978
Dennis Hoilman: "Ethnic Imagination. A Case History".  A comparison of the two stories by Ortiz and Silko
A biography from the New Mexico Police of the policeman who was killed  and inspired "Tony's story"
Interview with N.Scott Momaday in the winter issue 1996 of Studies in American Indian Literature (SAIL)

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