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For the Wound to Heal One Must Let It

Everyone exists on Earth for some unknown time. They walk through everyday carrying

the thought that they are here for a higher purpose and look around for meaning and happiness,

but in any moment, any chance of that ever occurring can be taken away by someone else. In

Richard Wagamese’s “Indian Horse”, the author explores the journey of Saul, an Ojibway raised

child and the raw events of his life, from what he knew as a child growing up in the territories to

the horrendous world introduced to him at St. Jerome’s residential school, along with his

discovery of the game of hockey. Over the course of the story, Wagamese creates a visual in our

heads of the racial prejudice faced among First Nations, the mistreatment endured and forced at

residentials schools throughout Canada and how damaging trauma can be for a person’s mind

and reality. In Wagamese’s novel, he illustrates the trauma and shattered identity forged into the

livelihood of a young boy who must walk this now obliterated path of life that has been laid out

by a singular distorted belief.

Prejudice is an unfavourable viewpoint formed without reasonable knowledge regarding

a perceived group of people and is a theme raised in Wagamese’s novel to exhibit the partition

of beliefs between two societies. As children enter St. Jerome’s residential school, they are told

that their names must be biblical and follow the way of the lord as it is the only correct way in

life. A child given the name Lonnie differs in sentiment as he carries his father’s name, but the
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Iron sister slanders this. “But Lonnie is my dad’s name… [No] He’s Ojibway…he is unbaptized

and impure of spirit”(Wagamese 27). First Nation kids abide by the way of their family and are

taught this beautiful way of life, yet they are told that it is flawed because it does not

accommodate the beliefs of another part of society. Next, Father Leboutillier attempts to define

that hockey is God’s game made for everyone, however Saul questions this expression of fact

and wonders where God is to be now. “They think it’s their game… is it? It’s God’s game…

Where is God now then?”(Wagamese 53) Society holds beliefs against First Nations and believe

themselves to be superior. When Saul plays against them in a hockey game they feel threatened

by his strength and want him removed, thus he is denied in life by the fear of him outgrowing

their systematic beliefs. Saul and many other First Nations had been denied their choice in life

because in the end they are required by society to fit into their deluding constructed ideology,

and this culminates in their lives being controlled by this fallacious prejudicial viewpoint.

Residential schools established across Canada carried the objective to assimilate First

Nations into the dominant culture. They systematically undermine and isolate children from the

influence of their home through a manner of horrorous abuse. At St. Jerome's , Sister Ignacia

becomes known as the Iron sister for her inhumane bashes. A child refuses to have his birth

name changed. She immediately strikes the young boy’s back with a paddle without any

repentance. “At St. Jerome’s we work to remove the Indian from our children so that the

blessings of the Lord may be evidenced upon them…. Good, honest work and earnest study.
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That’s what you’ll do here. That’s what will prepare you for the world” (Wagamese 28). A young

child is pleading to keep his one piece of identity, but Sister Ignacia claims this identity to be

false, and to reconstruct this the school is willing to beat the child unrestrainedly in order to

achieve their objection of dominance. A child named Shane Big Canoe is brought to St.

Jerome’s but attempts to run away. As he is caught, he is frightfully beaten and thrown into the

basement for ten days and the other children are aware of this afflicted method of working. “No

one comes back from there the same. Ever…. He’s in the Indian Yard…. He didn’t come back

from his second trip there” (Wagamese 31). Their goal is to remove the “Indian” from the child

and to complete this task they are willing to resort to the inhumane acts of torture and murder

that forms perduring suffering that eats away at the child’s saneness. They want to assimilate the

First Nations youth to fit into a Canadian society, they see this as purity, but for this purity they

stained their hands with the blood of countless children buried in endless unmarked graves

without even the slightest feeling of grief.

The effects of trauma ripple outwards and drown a person in their own sorrow. They lose

any sense of hope and dive into a path built on twisted lies that morphes their vision and destroys

all that is around them. Seen through a flashback, a girl named Sheila Jack is brought to the

residential school. She carries a sense of calmness within her, and this angers the nuns so they set

out to break her will and were willing to do this through ultimate measures. “They made her

memorize the catechism and recite endlessly at the front of the classroom…. Her voice was
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consigned to the repetition of the texts…. She lost the composed grace she’d arrived with”

(Wagamese 30). The nuns drive her to this state; they break her piece by piece and torment her to

the point that she loses sight of who she is. Seen through Saul’s memory, Rebecca Wolf walked

into St. Jeromes with her timid younger sister. Her sister was continuously tormented by the nuns

and was beaten as she tried to go back to Rebecca. Rebecca endured the pain of feeling hopeless

when wanting to protect someone close to her.

“She tried to run to her older sister for comfort [and they] locked her in a broom closet

for hours at a time…. When Rebecca tried to protect her sister she earned a trip to the

basement herself… And while she was down there, Katherine died…. She knelt on the

fresh-turned earth of her sister’s grave and slipped the knife from her coat and plunged

the knife into her belly ” (Wagamese 97).

One by one any choice Rebecca had was being taken away from her, she was hopeless in

protecting her dear sister, and she had no way of dealing with the pain and when her sister died

it felt like everything was lost. She was tormented to the point that she felt she was lost forever;

Rebecca did not see any point of living any longer. Suffering does not leave someone’s soul

permanently it leaves them shattered and it twists their reality. It is a pulsing pain that does not

go away and it forces them to find any form of a saviour allowing them to endure living with that

pain. It makes a person carry on with life while having a fresh wound that never seems to heal.
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Trauma is a pain that does not go away and it lingers around as one continues to walk in

life. It cripples a person’s identity while they follow a path that was formed by someone else’s

control. Throughout the story, the raw and ugly side of prejudice is displayed, the sickening evil

of the residential schools is shown and how it broke the lives of countless children. One must be

willing to continue further in life by finding a way to endure a past wound without damaging

themselves further, and be willing to allow themselves to receive the love that they deserve to

find in life.
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Works Cited

Wagamese, Richard. Indian Horse. Douglas & McIntyre, 2012. E-book:

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