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Exploring Identity, Trauma, and Resilience in "Indian Horse"

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Introduction

Identity and cultural displacement, trauma and healing.

Resilience and Survival

Legacy and reclamation.

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Indian Horse

Richard wagamese.

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Saul Indian Horse is an Indigenous Canadian and a member of the Fish Clan, a tribe that lives near the Winnipeg River. He grows up in the early 1960s with his parents, John Indian Horse and Mary Mandamin , his two siblings, and his grandmother Naomi . At an early age, his brother, Benjamin , and his sister, Rachel , are kidnapped by white Canadians in the area and sent to Christian schools where the teachers’ primary aim is to “remove the Indian from” them. At the time, all Indigenous Canadian children are required by law to attend such schools, which means that Canadian authorities have the legal right to tear families apart, often using kidnapping to do so.

After they lose their children, Saul’s parents begin drinking heavily, and migrate from town to town in search of work. Miraculously, they reunite with Benjamin, who has run away from his school. The family decides to journey to a place called Gods Lake, where Saul’s ancestors lived generations ago.

At Gods Lake, Saul has a mystical vision. He sees his ancestors, laughing and playing at the water’s edge. Then, he sees them crushed under enormous rocks. Shortly after this vision, Benjamin begins coughing up blood, a symptom of a disease he contracted during his time in school. He dies one day while harvesting rice with the family. Saul’s parents take Benjamin’s body into the nearest town to seek a Christian burial for him, but they never return. Naomi decides that she and Saul will have to travel down the river so that they don’t freeze to death.

Naomi leads Saul through wilderness and fierce snowstorms. Eventually, the two of them make their ways to the outskirts of the town of Minaki. There, in the middle of a blizzard, Naomi freezes to death. Two white men take Saul away from his beloved grandmother’s body, and bring him to St. Jerome’s school for Indigenous children.

St. Jerome’s is a terrifying place. The teachers, priests, and nuns believe they have a mission to teach their Indigenous Canadian students about Christianity, the English language, and Western laws. They severely punish anyone who speaks their native language, and effectively torture little children for acting up in even the smallest ways. Some of Saul’s classmates are beaten to death, or kill themselves out of despair. At night, priests rape and abuse many of the children.

Saul has one protector at St. Jerome’s: a young, kind priest named Father Gaston Leboutilier . Father Leboutilier is protective of Saul, and encourages him to learn to play hockey . Although Saul is too young to join the school hockey team, Leboutilier allows him to clean the ice every morning, which gives Saul an opportunity to practice in private. On his own time, Saul teaches himself how to skate and shoot the hockey puck. Even though he’s much younger and smaller than the other hockey players, he becomes a brilliant athlete. Leboutilier, recognizing his talent, allows Saul to play in hockey scrimmages, and Saul does very well. In some games with opposing teams, however, Saul is ridiculed for being Indigenous Canadian.

One day, an Indigenous Canadian man named Fred Kelly arrives at St. Jerome’s and offers to adopt Saul. Kelly recognizes Saul’s talents, and offers to give him a home and a family, in return for which Saul will play for Kelly’s local team, the Moose. Saul accepts. He says an emotional goodbye to Father Leboutilier, who tells him that hockey will set him free.

Saul begins living with Fred Kelly, his wife Martha Kelly , and their son, Virgil Kelly , who is a couple years older than Saul. Virgil is the captain of the hockey team, and he encourages Saul to do well. Saul is much younger than the other players, but he wins their respect with his phenomenal talent. The hockey team competes in tournaments with other Indigenous Canadian teams, and wins almost all its games, thanks in part to Saul, who quickly emerges as their star player.

The team experiences a milestone when a talented team of white Canadian players challenges them to a game. Saul reluctantly agrees to play with his Moose teammates, even though he has strong reservations about playing against white Canadians because of the racism he has experienced before. In the game, the Moose get off to a rough start, but with Saul’s brilliant playing, they come back to win, 6-5. Afterwards, the Moose begin traveling more frequently, playing the best teams in Canada and often winning. After one particularly impressive victory against a white team, however, the Moose teammates are attacked and savagely beaten by white townspeople. Following this horrific incident, Saul begins to notice small instances of racism and prejudice more regularly in his daily life.

One day, a talent scout comes to watch the Moose practice. The scout tells Saul that he has the talent to play professionally, and offers him a chance to train in Toronto and eventually go professional. Saul is reluctant to leave his friends and adopted family, but with Virgil’s encouragement, he agrees.

In Toronto, Saul plays brilliantly for his rookie team, and the future seems bright. But as the season goes on, he notices that opposing teams, and even his own teammates, mock him for being Indigenous. Journalists call him a “savage” and a “crazy redskin,” even when they praise his performance. Saul becomes more aggressive during games, and eventually begins regularly fighting with members of the opposing team. Before long, Saul has been kicked off the team, and heads back to the Kelly family. Saul begins working for a living, and quickly leaves town to find a better job.

Saul spends the next couple years working in various low-paying outdoor jobs. He makes little money, and spends whatever he saves on alcohol. Sometimes, his white coworkers give him a hard time for being Indigenous, and he usually fights back. By 1978, Saul has become a full-blown alcoholic. He begins living with a kindly farmer named Ervin Sift , who seems to think of him as a surrogate son. With Ervin’s help, Saul tries to cut down on drinking. But eventually he relapses, begins drinking more and more heavily, and is so ashamed of himself for this that he leaves Ervin without any explanation.

Saul drives around the country, going on drinking binges and eventually trying to quit drinking altogether. However, he begins having seizures as a symptom of withdrawal and ends up in the hospital. After this, he checks into a rehabilitation facility called the New Dawn Center, where he works with a counselor named Moses to recover from his alcoholism. Moses urges Saul to write down his experiences—which Saul does, in the form of this book.

Saul leaves the New Dawn Center and drives out to St. Jerome’s, which is now in ruins. There, he has vivid flashbacks to his time as a student, and realizes the truth: that Father Leboutilier had raped and abused him as a child. For years, Saul has repressed his memories of the abuse.

Furious and confused, Saul journeys out to Gods Lake. There, he has a vision of his great-grandfather, Slanting Sky , who tells Saul that he must learn how to carry Gods Lake within himself.

Saul returns to the visit the Kelly family. He tells Martha and Fred what he has realized about his past at St. Jerome’s, and they tell him they understand: they went through similar experiences themselves. They encourage Saul to stay and rebuild his life with their support. Saul rejoins the local hockey team, and rekindles his friendship with Virgil, who coaches one of the local teams. Moving forward, Saul knows that he will continue to struggle with the pain of his past, but he’s grateful to have loyal friends and a loving adopted family.

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"Indian Horse" Novel Analysis: the Role of Alcohol in Saul's Life

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Indian Horse

76 pages • 2 hours read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

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Chapters 1-10

Chapters 11-22

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Chapters 49-56

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Summary and Study Guide

Indian Horse (2012) is a novel written by Canadian author Richard Wagamese. The story follows Saul Indian Horse, an Ojibway boy from northern Ontario who escapes his demons and rough childhood through hockey, only to succumb to alcohol after losing his joy for the game.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide include instances and discussions of rape, assault, racism, and substance use disorder.

Plot Summary

As a young boy, Saul lives in the bush and has little contact with the outside world. His grandmother, Naomi , hides him and his brother Benjamin from the threat of St. Jerome’s, a Catholic school intended to “civilize” Indigenous children. Saul’s sister, Rachel, was taken away by white men before Saul was born. In 1957, when Saul is four, the Zhaunagush (white men) abduct his brother Benjamin. His mother changes, having lost a part of herself along with her two abducted children. She and Saul’s father and uncle find alcohol and begin to lose themselves in it.

His family leaves the bush for transient camps on the outskirts of mill towns in pursuit of alcohol. They become nomads, moving from tent village to tent village, eating whatever they can, including roasted dog. They settle in Redditt in 1960 and begin to plant roots, and Saul’s father drinks less. In this environment, Saul’s brother Benjamin walks out of the bush and back into their lives, having escaped from the school. He’s thin and has a cough. Naomi says they need to leave, as Benjamin is sure to be found by the Zhaunagush , and take Saul back with him. They decide to move to Gods Lake, their ancestral home. While at first they thrive, Benjamin is overcome with a coughing fit during a rice harvest and dies.

Naomi pushes the family to honor him the old way, but Saul’s parents, aunt, and uncle insist that he be given a Christian burial. They leave with sacks of rice to sell for a coffin, while Saul and Naomi stay at Gods Lake to await their return. They never return. Naomi and Saul stay at Gods Lake as long as possible, but as winter starts to come, they must escape to find proper shelter. They leave to find Naomi’s brother’s son in Minaki. During the trip, Naomi gives everything to keep Saul alive, even carrying him when he falls. They make it to the railroad depot at Minaki and Naomi says she wants to rest before finding her nephew. She dies holding Saul, who is found by a group of white men.

Saul is taken to St. Jerome’s Indian Residential School. It is extremely regimented, and punishments are swift and extreme. Saul is seen as an outsider for his familiarity with English and becomes isolated. Children die by suicide, or go mad from their punishments. Father Leboutilier, a new priest at the school, convinces the school to allow the kids to play hockey. Only the older boys are allowed to play, but Saul feels an instant connection to the game, and is allowed to look after the ice. He begins to covertly practice after cleaning, and, in his second winter, is given a chance to play when a boy gets injured.

After a series of wins that next winter, a group of men ask Saul to join their midget town team, though he is several years younger than the other players. He plays well, outshining the other players. After ten games, Saul shows up to game eleven but is turned away. He’s too good, and too Indigenous.

As the winter dwindles down, an Ojibway man comes to their practice. He is named Fred Kelly, and invites Saul to play on his Indigenous tournament team and live with him. Saul moves to Manitouwadge and is treated well by Fred and his wife Martha, who are both alums of St. Jerome. Eventually, news of the team’s prowess spreads and they begin playing white teams. They play well, but experience racism in the players and crowd. While traveling, a group of men take the team behind a café one by one and urinate on them.

Eventually, a scout shows up to their games. His name is Jack Lanahan , and he wants Saul to try out for a Maple Leafs feeder team in Toronto. He is reluctant, but agrees when pushed by his Moose teammates. Once in Toronto, his new teammates largely ignore him, and the press and audience are constantly mock his heritage. Finally, he gets fed up and fights back one night when checked by a rival player. He becomes a puck hog instead of the masterful passer he was, and is often boxed, then benched, then removed from play. He spends one game on the sidelines before leaving to go back to Manitouwadge.

He starts working as a laborer. He plays for the Moose for a while, but doesn’t fit in and stops playing altogether. Missing the camaraderie of the team, he finds himself eating in taverns and eventually, begins to drink and quickly gets addicted. He drinks himself into a seizure, and ends up in the hospital, where the New Dawn Centre is suggested.

He sobers up, but doesn’t experience any sort of healing miracle. While out wandering one night, he sees a vision of his family and knows he has to revisit his past. First he goes to St. Jerome’s, which is now a ruin, having been shut down for some years. He revisits the piece of earth where the rink once was and breaks down. Suddenly, he remembers the molestation he experienced at the hands of Father Leboutilier. He had used the game to give him an escape from this reality, to shield him from the priest stealing his innocence.

He goes back to Gods Lake and has a vision of his great-grandfather and family. He cries and allows himself to mourn. He returns to the New Dawn Centre and begins to open up, learning how to cope with his past without drinking. He returns to Manitouwadge and speaks about his past to Fred and Martha, and opens up to Virgil as well. Saul expresses a desire to coach, in order to find the joy of the game again. He gets back on the ice for the first time in fifteen years and plays a game with his old teammates and children from the town. He doesn’t care that he loses; he’s just there to find the joy again.

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Indian Horse

By richard wagamese.

• Indian Horse Summary

Saul Indian Horse is born to an Ojibway family in northern Ontario. As a child, his grandmother told him stories about his ancestors, connecting him to a deep history. For Saul, that history, so intimate for her, is cut off by the violence done to him and his people by white settlers. He is writing a memoir as part of therapy for alcoholism, in an attempt to recover from his addiction, but also to regain a connection to the past and his abilities as a seer.

Saul’s great-grandfather Shabogeesick is one of the men his grandmother speaks about. He is remembered in legend because he brought the first horse to their people, taming it and drawing it out of the woods and into the village. The horse arrived with the white man, and as Shabogeesick brought it out of the bush it warned him of them, of the danger they would pose to Ojibway life. Shabogeesick passed those warnings on to his people. When the white settlers asked his ancestors for their last name, they called on the horse again, and took the name “Indian Horse.”

When Saul was a child, he lived in a small, isolated camp with his brother Benjamin, his mother and father, a few aunts and uncles, and his grandmother Naomi. His mother and father were often distant, haunted by something they call “the school.” As Saul gets older, he realizes that this is what Naomi is hiding them from. Despite her efforts, Benjamin is abducted when Saul is four. After this catastrophe, the family leaves the bush and the adults begin doing manual labor in camps around small Canadian towns.

Then one day, Benjamin returns unexpectedly. He is sick, and Naomi warns that if they don’t hide him, he’ll be taken again. She leads the family to Gods Lake, a sacred site belonging to their family. It’s a beautiful place, inhabited by spirits who speak the Old Talk, a forgotten Ojibway tongue. Not everyone can see them, but Saul can, and his vision allows him to realize that his family has deep roots in Gods Lake. Meanwhile, rice harvesting season arrives, and Naomi guides the family in traditional harvest practices. After the adults gather the rice, she tells Ben and Saul to dance on the grains to remove their husks. It’s difficult work, and although Ben tries to hide that he is struggling, he ends up coughing up blood. They stop immediately, but its too late, and he dies that night.

Naomi wants to give him an Ojibway burial, but his mother and father insist that they take his body and find a Christian priest. They take his body away from Gods Lake, leaving Saul and Naomi alone. At first, the two are able to subsist alone, but as fall turns to winter Naomi realizes that they will starve if they don’t find other people. She brings Saul all the way out of the wilderness, navigating by canoe through the freezing water, but the journey is difficult because of her age and the lack of food. When they reach a town, she lies down with Saul and dies in his arms. There, government officials find him and take him away to St. Jerome’s, a residential school run by priests and nuns with the purpose of forcibly assimilating Indigenous youth.

It’s a miserable, cruel place. Saul is forced to cut his hair and change into western clothes; students without “Christian” names like Saul’s have their names changed as well. At the school, they aren’t allowed to speak Ojibway, and are subject to thousands of petty rules designed to force them into “order.” Those who disobey are beaten and humiliated, and many die while Saul is at St. Germ's, his name for the school.

Because he can already read and speak English when he arrives, Saul is treated as an outsider by the other students. The nuns encourage his isolation, and his grief makes being alone feel like the easier path. The forced assimilation at St. Jerome’s is just as painful for Saul as it is for the other children, and he too is left with a “hole in [his] being.”

The same year Saul arrives, a new priest, Father Gaston Leboutilier , arrives at St. Germ's. He’s kinder to the children than the other priests and nuns, who distrust him. He’s also an enthusiastic hockey fan, and soon introduces Saul and the other boys to the sport. Although Saul is too young to be allowed to join the team, he eventually gets permission to wake up early and care for the rink.

Over time, caring for the rink turns into a chance to practice hockey, using frozen horse turds as pucks and wearing a borrowed pair of skates. Quickly, Saul discovers a natural talent for the sport, marked by an ability to see where he will go in his imagination, and then go there. He finally has his chance to play on the team when a player is injured and Saul takes his place during a practice game. Although he’s never played before, he’s able to see the hidden patterns of the game and use that knowledge to score. Impressed, Father Leboutilier invites him to play center, and Saul joins the team. His ability allows them to beat a better-funded white team in the first official game in which Saul plays.

St. Jerome’s is still a hellish place. Along with the obsessively strict regimentation, and often physically or psychologically abusive punishments, the “school” doesn’t even provide an education—the vast majority of the children’s time is spent doing manual labor. Saul and his peers are most terrified by what they call “nighttime invasions”—when they are routinely sexually assaulted by priests and nuns.

Hockey is so important to Saul because it provides his only refuge from the horrors of St. Germ's. He quickly becomes the best player on the St. Jerome’s team. He is briefly recruited to a village team, despite his youth, but is soon kicked off again. Father Leboutilier tries to make excuses, but Saul knows it's because he’s the only Indigenous player, and white people think the game belongs to them. Frustrated, he returns to the St. Germ’s team, bored by their inability to challenge him.

Then one day, an older Native man shows up at practice and watches Saul skate. Afterward, he introduces himself as Fred Kelly and tells Saul about the Native hockey league. He offers Saul a home and place on his team, the Moose. Over time, Saul becomes close with Fred, his wife Martha, and his youngest son Virgil, the team captain. Despite Saul’s young age and diminutive size, he soon proves himself to his new teammates and is accepted as part of the team. The Moose play against other Native teams at weekly tournaments, which they begin to dominate with Saul’s help. One day, Father Leboutilier watches a game, and afterward, says goodbye for the last time.

Eventually, a white team hears about the Moose’s reputation and challenges them to a game. The Moose are overwhelmed by their fancy stadium and seem outmatched at first, but once Saul joins the game he is able to lead them to victory. They continue to play white teams, although Saul misses the warmth and community of First Nations players. The white teams are hostile, and often openly racist. One day the Moose go to a diner after winning a game, and a group of white men take each player outside one by one, beat him, and piss on his body, sparing only Saul. The assault permanently influences their relationship to the game.

At one tournament, white players discover that they can violently target Saul without the referees calling them out, and without him fighting back. Yet Saul just skates faster, winning the tournament. His incredible play finally draws the attention of a white scout, who invites Saul to join a training camp that can feed into the NHL. He’s reluctant, but his friends on the Moose encourage him to join, and he eventually gives in.

Saul travels to Toronto for practice, and immediately dislikes the city. He performs well at training, and moves on to the Marlies, a junior feeder team to the NHL. Saul’s a great player, made even better because the skill of his new teammates allows him to make incredible passes and trust that they’ll be there to catch them. Yet his brilliance on the ice doesn’t prevent the violent racism of the fans, opposing teams, and even his own teammates, who are cold and distant towards him. Finally, Saul snaps, hogging the puck and fighting back when his opponents foul him, until the Marlies coach declares him a liability and benches him.

Defeated, Saul returns to Manitouwadge, where the Kellys live, and begins working as a logger. When his white coworkers harass him, verbally and then physically, he fights back. Hockey with the Moose begins to lose its magic, and Saul is angry all the time, regardless of whether or not the team he’s playing is white or Native. Finally, Saul decides to leave and find work on the road, abandoning his friends and his home.

He follows work from one town to the next. Although he enjoys being alone at first, he soon misses the camaraderie of his teammates on the Moose. Attempting to fill the void they’ve left, he begins frequenting bars, at first just to listen to other people talk, but then to drink himself. Alcohol gives him the confidence to join in, spinning tales, but it becomes a dependency, one he languishes in for years.

His fate changes when a white man named Ervin Sift finds him in a bar, alone and inebriated. Ervin brings him home, keeps him from drinking, and gives him work. Saul cares for Ervin, and relates to his grief, but he’s still restless. Unable to shake his hopelessness, he begins going on long walks, and then drinking while he is out of the house. Guilty, he leaves Ervin and slips back into alcoholism. Eventually, Saul has a stroke, and the doctors tell him he’ll die if he doesn’t stop drinking. Social workers at the hospital refer him to the New Dawn Centre, a place for Native alcoholics to get care.

There, his caseworker Moses encourages Saul to tell his story however he can. The past comes spilling out as he begins to write his memoir, but as Saul reaches the present in his story, he still feels stuck. He begins going on walks again, and one day stays out so late that he decides to spend the night in the woods. There, he has a vision of his great-grandfather Shabogeesick, who sings an Ojibway song and then shows Saul the members of his family. When he disappears, Saul realizes he needs to go on another journey.

He begins to retrace the steps of his childhood, beginning by returning to St. Jerome’s. The school is now abandoned and desolate. As Saul stands on the grounds, he suddenly realizes what was missing from the memoirs he wrote, why his reckoning with his past felt incomplete. As he looks at his old hockey rink, he thinks about Father Leboutilier, and suddenly remembers the priest touching him, kissing him, raping him. Their “friendship” was a facade, a way for the priest to exploit Saul’s desperation for affection in order to rape him. After his realization, he realizes he needs to keep going, to return further back, to Gods Lake.

There, Shabogeesick comes to him again in a second vision, along with Saul’s whole family, sailing over the lake in a flotilla of canoes. Shabogeesick comes ashore and tells Saul that he must learn how to carry Gods Lake with him wherever he goes. Then he takes Saul to the top of a cliff, from which Saul looks down and sees his whole family singing in low voices. Listening to the sound of their song, Saul is finally able to mourn. When he stops crying, he sees the northern lights filling the sky above him.

He leaves Gods Lake and returns to the New Dawn Centre, working closely with Moses to reckon with everything he’s realized about his past. Then he returns to Manitouwadge and tells Fred, Martha, and Virgil Kelly about Father Leboutilier. After their conversation, Fred invites Saul to rejoin the old members of the Moose, but Saul declines—he wants to coach instead. But when Virgil asks Saul to join in a scrimmage, he gladly accepts. After warming up alone, he is joined on the ice not just by former Moose players, but by many of the boys and girls of Manitouwadge. They take the ice together.

Indian Horse Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Indian Horse is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

On page 111 Saul describes his people and a part of their identity. Find this piece, and quote it in your answer.

“We came from nations of warriors, and the sudden flinging down of sticks and gloves, the wild punches and wrestling were extensions of that identity” (111).

Chapter 1 Question

Chapter One introduces the main character and narrator. Saul Indian Horse is an indigenous Canadian of the Ojibway tribe. He is in his thirties, and he is a recovering alcoholic, who has been admitted into a recovery center called the New Dawn...

what does saul mean when he tells virgil they think its their game?

Saul and Virgil have just been through hell. The boys were forced into an alley and humiliated in the worst way by white bar patrons. Saul explains that white people don't want Indians being good at hockey: they feel hockey belongs to them.

Study Guide for Indian Horse

Indian Horse study guide contains a biography of Richard Wagamese, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Indian Horse
• Character List

Essays for Indian Horse

Indian Horse essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese.

• Saul's Form of Strength: Persevering in Indian Horse
• Erasing the Indian in 'Indian Horse'
• The presentation of trauma in Indian Horse
• 'Indian Horse' in the Context of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Injustice and the Road to Healing
• Self-Discovery and Cultural Rediscovery: Growth in Indian Horse

Lesson Plan for Indian Horse

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Indian Horse
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Indian Horse Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Indian Horse

• Introduction

Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Indian Horse — Reflection on the Novel Indian Horse

Reflection on The Novel Indian Horse

• Categories: Book Review Indian Horse Racial Discrimination

About this sample

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Published: Oct 2, 2020

Words: 1095 | Pages: 2 | 6 min read

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Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese is a novel that narrates the life of Saul Indian Horse an Indigenous Canadian and a member of the Fish Clan, a tribe located near the Winnipeg River. Saul grows up in the early 1960s and during [...]

Culture plays a huge role in both Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Both novels feature specific sets of culture that contribute to the characterization of the protagonist. Things Fall [...]

The story 'Indian Horse' provides compelling examples of Injustice and Inspiration. The book vividly illustrates instances of Injustice through recurring themes such as racism and loneliness. Additionally, the narrative contains [...]

It is the textual integrity of Orson Welles’ film Citizen Kane (1941) which enables it to effectively demonstrate the need for healthy relationships and the dangers of the exclusive pursuit of power. The film’s non-linear [...]

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