The Man to Send Rain Clouds: Contemporary Stories by American Indians

Death as a beginning is a theme that is manifested throughout the entirety of Silko’s “The Man to Send Rain Clouds.” Upon finding Teofilo’s body, Leon and Ken begin preparing his body for the afterlife. They paint his face with different colors, tie a “small gray feather in the old man’s long white hair,” and “throw pinches of corn meal and pollen into the wind” (1). The preparation of the body suggests that Leon believes that Teofilo will exist beyond his life on earth. Death does not mark an ending, but rather, the beginning of something different. Rather than weep at Teofilo’s death, Leon’s reaction to the completion of the first burial rites is a smile, and a request: “Send us rain clouds, Grandfather” (1). Though Leon is the main character of the short story, he does not speak many lines of dialogue. Most of the text is description of the character’s actions. As a result, Leon’s direct address of his grandfather at the beginning of the text is significant. In his direct address to Teofilo, by asking him to “send us rain clouds,” Leon displays his own understanding of death as a beginning rather than an end (1).