Clashes and Commonalities in "The Man to Send Rain Clouds"

Although I have written about Leslie Marmon Silko’s brilliant work, The Man to Send Rain Clouds, at least once before, there is something I find simply irresistible about this story’s timeless and universal pull toward something greater, something just beyond perception.  Every time I reread the story, I feel as Father Paul does as he sprinkles the holy water over Teofilo’s red blanket – that an element of the experience seems almost familiar, that something about it is tugging at the back of my mind and yearning to be heard and understood.

While there is a striking “clash of cultures” presented in this story between the missionary Franciscans and the native Pueblos, I do not think that it would be truly accurate to describe the occurrence as a clash of values.  The story centers on these two vastly different cultures’ unique traditions involving burial of the dead, and we are able to perceive through Silko’s gentle and unassuming narrative that both the Priest and the old man’s family are primarily concerned about Teofilo’s well-being in the afterlife.  Indeed, they may have completely differing views of what that afterlife is like, but they both agree on the major leap of faith that it does exist, and that what they do to the body now will affect how the soul proceeds after burial.  Taken from a viewpoint of neither Christianity nor Native American mythology, these two clashing cultures seem to be in a near harmony of values – their major concern is the same, and the minor differences between their desires occur only in the actual undertaking of individual ceremonial rituals.

Given this understanding of the story, it takes on an almost entirely new meaning.  The heart of the story lies in its universal humanity; Silko is portraying what it is to be human, to care for each other, to deal with agonizing issues of life and death and who we are and where we may go.  Whatever force there is in the world that drives us to religion, she shows us, has driven every culture in the history of mankind.  We are not so different after all.  All cultures, no matter how far separated by time and space, have come to the same answers – that there is a force greater than us in the universe, and that we continue on in some form after death.  The Man to Send Rain Clouds presents for us not a story of conflicting values, but of universal ones; reading this work, we see that both the Pueblos and Father Paul are able to overcome their personal differences in the face of something higher than either of them.  They come together for the good of someone they have cared about in life, putting aside worldly disparities and focusing, just for the moment, on their mutual love and concern.  Ultimately, instead of telling a tale of strife, clashing cultures, differing values, conflict, or intolerance, Silko gives us a beautiful account of one thing we all share – our humanity.