Stripping Identities: Trauma In Indian Horse

Ebrahim Radwan

NBE3U

Ms. Abunassar

March 29, 2023

Stripping Identities: Trauma in "Indian Horse"

Imagine a world where the innocent and vulnerable children are subjected to abuse, mistreatment, and even death, all because of who they are. This is the heartbreaking reality of Canadian Residential Schools. From 1831 to 1996, Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their homes and communities, and placed in these government-run schools, where they were stripped of their culture, language, and identity. The destruction these schools caused to Indigenous peoples is immeasurable. These schools are the cause of 6000 deaths out of 150000 victims, all of which are vulnerable children. Richard Wagamese's novel "Indian Horse" sheds light on this

The book depicts the heartbreaking incidents of the main character, Saul Indian Horse, and the children around him who suffer cultural, mental, and physical abuse at the hands of the government-run schools.

The cultural abuse that Indigenous children endured in residential schools is one of the most devastating aspects of residential schools’ destruction. In these schools, children are treated like clay, where the priests and nuns “work to remove the Indian from [the] children” (Wagamese 46-47). This cultural erasure is a form of colonization, where the dominant group seeks to assimilate the minority group into their culture, often at the expense of the minority group's cultural identity. The first stage of the makeover is to cut the child’s hair, forcing the child onto a chair “while the nuns shaved [his] hair down to nubby crew-cuts with electric clippers”(45). For indigenous people, long hair is a part of their culture and identity, symbolizing their connection to their ancestors, spirituality, and the natural world. However, in the eyes of the nuns, it’s nothing but another “savage”(96) trait that they ought to change.

Children are whipped, beaten, and subjected to other forms of physical violence for the slightest mistake or act of rebellion. The priests and nuns see themselves as superior, and “[anybody] who [shirks] or [complains is] beaten in front of everyone.”(80). The children are seen as nothing more than property to the priests and nuns, who hold themselves up as superior to the Indigenous children in their care. If that wasn’t enough, children are also subjected to forced labour, such as farming and chores. They are simply seen to be “like stock. That’s how [they are] treated. Fed, watered, made to bear [their] daily burden and secured at night.]”(80). They are seen as machines and tools, nothing more. Even when they were fed, it was enough to keep them living, but not healthy, and they were deprived of proper nutrition and medical care. The staff members simply didn’t see them as humans. However, the most horrifying aspect of physical abuse is the sexual violence against the children. In the novel, Saul Indian Horse and many other children are subjected to sexual violence by adults in the school, as every night the children are disturbed with the “the creak of bed springs as the adults sat. Soft whispers, cajoling, and then the rustling sounds that tattooed themselves onto [the children’s] brains, the