This threat was very frightening to me as a child. They would tell me that if I did not behave, the white man would take me away. I was always into some sort of mischief or another. My parents often used scare tactics to keep me in line. In Beauval Indian Residential School 1944-1954, Dene author Raphael Victor Paul writes about how his parents used the spectre of the residential school to make him behave: It is reasonable to believe this internal conflict was the reason they didn’t return for Saul and Naomi that they had turned to alcohol to provide them with the ability to cope with their loss because Residential School had stolen their spirituality and faith in family. This caused shame every time they tried to believe in the guidance Naomi provided. Putting these clues together we can safely conclude Naomi’s children attended residential schools, and they were taught that their mother’s beliefs were wrong and dirty. We need to take my son to the priest so that he can be returned to the bosom of Christ.” (Wagamese 31-32) You told us by coming here that we would return to how things were. “You do not honour him,” my mother cried. When the illness takes Benjamin’s life anyway, Naomi’s children turn on her and refuse to allow her to give them spiritual guidance about how to bury the boy: She tells them the spirits at God’s Lake have always been kind to their family. “Their talk and their stories can sneak you away as quick as their boats.” (Wagamese 8)ĭesperate for anything that might cure Benjamin of what they called the “coughing sickness”, most likely tuberculosis, Naomi tells the family they should go to God’s Lake for healing. “They come in different ways, them, the Zhaunagush,” she said. Old Naomi fought against it, trying to throw the books in the fire. They felt hard, those white man words sharp and pointed on my tongue. My father taught me to read the Zhaunagush books, taught me to form the sounds the letters built with the tip of his fingers as my guide. We see further hints of what must have happened between Naomi’s generation and that of her children in the fact that her son was able to teach Saul how to read in English, and we have proof Naomi didn’t approve of teaching him these skills: That was a border my generation crossed, and we pine for a return that has never come to be. One has to wonder if the metaphorical border described in the following quote was crossed sometime between Naomi’s generation and the one that followed: Grandma Naomi recognizes the damage done to her family in the name of Christianity, but her children seem to have been brainwashed by the priests and church. We see this in the way Saul’s parents and his auntie and uncle interact with Grandma Naomi on the topic of Christianity. Saul Indian Horse’s family had already been marred by the effects of colonization long before his siblings were abducted to attend residential schools. As the ending of the novel suggests, the best way forward is together. Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese is an unrelentingly honest story of the trauma residential schools inflicted upon Indigenous people, but it also serves as a road-map for how the resilience of Indigenous communities will help end the inter-generational trauma caused by these experiences. Sustained positive experiences can erase the mutations made to people’s DNA, but more importantly, they can lift the scars left upon people’s spirits. The good news is that the changes can also be reversed. These changes can be passed down to our offspring. Trauma can actually change our brain structure as well as our DNA. Recent studies have revealed this not to be the case. The formatting isn’t perfect, but you’ll get the drift.Īs the building block of our bodies, DNA has been thought to be permanent and unalterable. I wrote this as a sample essay for my students, and I liked it so much I decided to share it.
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