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The conclusion ties the four primary works together as New Mexico literature of contact and suggests that New Mexico's history of travel and encounter is not something that is over and done with. Rather, it is an ongoing narrative of change that is still shaping New Mexican identities. I note other connections that warrant further study of these four primary works, such as the regenerative experiences of other-worldly forms and the plunge into temporary madness that leads one to apotheosis. My conclusion leaves open the question of which voices of New Mexico travel and encounter hold the most authority for both Western and native readers.
The first three works I examine use the trope of travel to and within New Mexico to construct character identity and to test Western claims to knowledge in the contact zone. In Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop, Luhan's Edge of Taos Desert: An Escape to Reality, and Horsley's Crazy Woman, travel is important because it is the physical movement from the American east to New Mexico that brings apotheosis to each protagonist. A comparative study of this collection of works through the lens of identity-through-travel, which must include encounter, offers an exciting reading that has not been previously explored. Travel away from home, or what one thinks she knows, is necessary for one to fully understand who she is in relation to the world. Cather's Latour, Luhan's narrative self, and Horsley's Sara must each experience herself or himself in surroundings that do not allow her or him to rely on comfortable routine.
In Silko's Ceremony, an examination of movement toward and within specific sites in New Mexico is important because only physical movement within a ceremony brings the protagonist, Tayo, to the spirits of place, and these spirits teach Tayo how to become an integral part of his ever-changing community and world. Although Tayo must travel to specific sites in New Mexico in order to encounter native stories informed by place, he recovers his (and his people's) center by moving within a ceremony whose meaning is generated not only by Navajo and Pueblo stories but by Western stories as well.
In physical and cultural stasis, the protagonists in Death Comes for the Archbishop, Edge of Taos Desert: An Escape to Reality, Crazy Woman, and Ceremony would not have a clear understanding of who