Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese is a novel that chronicles the life of Saul Indian Horse, an indigenous Canadian and member of the Fish Clan, a tribe located near the Winnipeg River . Saul grows up in the early 1960s and during this time in Canada indigenous issues are important and racism towards indigenous people is very common in their daily lives. As Saul grows up, his identity is heavily influenced by hockey and St. Jerome's Indian Residential School. Wagamese's story motifs reflect Saul's Indian Horse identity. The main motifs that reflect Saul's identity are residential schools and hockey, the other motifs in the novel such as racism, death of children and community intertwining with the two main motifs. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The most explicit motif in the book is the game of hockey, it becomes an important part of Saul's identity as his love for the game develops through the novel. Saul discovers the game of hockey at St. Jerome Indian Residential School with the help of a new priest, Father LeBoutillier: “'Have you ever heard of hockey?' This was the first thing he said to me. I sat on the steps behind the kitchen while the other children played in the fresh snow. 'NO. What is it?' I asked. “It's a game,” he said. 'Perhaps the most beautiful game. You play on ice with skates and it's very fast, very exciting." After this exchange Saul reads hockey books and asks questions about hockey, his father answers all his questions. Watching the older kids play, Saul sees hockey as confusion or chaos, but he can see the excitement in the kids as they play. Saul then begs to play hockey, but is denied because another priest, Father Quinney, only allowed older boys to play. As a result, Saul then asks to clean the ice every morning, which he is allowed to do. After that day Saul cleans the ice every morning and then learns to master hockey in secret since he is not allowed to play hockey. Saul hides a hockey stick in the snow and uses frozen horse dung as a hockey puck. Saul does this for the rest of the winter, and next winter his new job will be to take care of the team's equipment. This new job allows Saul to get skates and then Saul slowly learns to skate. “I was a kid with oversized skates, and in the world hockey created I found a new home.” Saul learns a new skill every day and one day one of the team members got injured while playing a scrimmage and Saul volunteered to take his place. Everyone was surprised that he claimed that he could play hockey because he had no connection with the boys who played hockey and said that he always trained in secret. Saul surprised the team with his skill and managed to join the tear. Saul becomes so good at hockey that he has the opportunity to move from residential school to a new city and play with a team of older kids. Saul's love of hockey is an important part of his identity as it differentiates him from his ancestors. But through hockey Saul experiences relentless racism that becomes detrimental to his struggle to stay true to his identity. The motif of racism connects the two main motifs that reflect Saul's identity. In Indian Horse, Saul experiences many different forms of racism. The first form of racism that Saul experienced was that Saul was kidnapped and sent to St. Jerome and was forbidden to speak his native language. While staying at St. Jerome,Saul is beaten and abused by racist priests and nuns. In hockey, Saul experiences a tremendous amount of verbal racism from Canadian opponents, who never miss an opportunity to insult him. In Toronto there was racism from sports journalists who defined him as a "Rampaging Redskin", even when they praised his skills. In games, people in the stands join in insults and racist terms. Saul was verbally and physically beaten every time he played hockey: “I was mocked endlessly. They called me Indian Whores, Horse Piss, Stolen Pony. Elbows and knees were constantly flying towards me. I couldn't play a turn that didn't include some kind of low blow, threat, or curse." For a while, Saul is able to ignore the racism of the white Canadians he encounters in hockey. But in the end, the torture overcomes its containment of aggression and Saul throws in the towel and fights back. Saul is later kicked out of the NHL despite his extraordinary talent as a hockey player. Saul's main struggle is racism, which has turned what could have been a brilliant hockey career into years of fighting, soul-searching and drinking. In Indian Horse there are many different types of communities that Saul has become a part of. In the beginning there was the tribe of Saul near the Winnipeg River and the tribe at Gods Lake. Through hockey and residential school Saul found community: “In the spirit of hockey I believed I had found community, a haven and refuge from all that was seedy and ugly in the world.” After his hockey career, when Saul left home, he had his colleagues and later the people at the New Dawn Center. When Saul returns, he had the Manitouwadge community but this time he had the entire community. These communities taught Saul different things during his time with them and this shaped them into the person he is. In the novel, Saul has the courage to admit that he needs other people. Saul doesn't end up dealing with his trauma alone, there is always a community that comes to share his problems with him. The main motif in this book and which shaped Saul's identity the most is St. Jerome's Indian Residential School as it introduces most of the other motifs in the story: hockey, racism, child deaths, abuse, and trauma. While at St. Jerome, Saul witnessed the deaths of servile indigenous children due to abuse at St. Jerome: “I saw children die of tuberculosis, influenza, pneumonia, and broken hearts at St. Jerome. I saw boys and girls die standing on their own two feet. I saw the fugitives brought back, frozen and solid as boards. I saw bodies hanging from the rafters on thin ropes. I saw slashed wrists and cascades of blood on the bathroom floor and, once, a little boy impaled on the prongs of a pitchfork that he had stuck through himself.” Saul managed to contain his sadness at the deaths of the children whose he witnessed or heard about when he was still a kid and didn't know how to feel about the deaths of his indigenous peers. When Saul discovers the game of hockey, it becomes something of a distraction from noticing the children's deaths until in the last third of the novel Saul remembers a girl from St. Jerome. The girl's name was Rebecca Wolf, she had a sister named Katherine who died one night and Saul never found out what happened. The next evening, Rebecca sang a traditional Ojibway indigenous mourning song: “It was a mourning song. I could tell by the feel of the syllables. His agony was so pure that I felt my heart being torn away. I stood crying at that door, offering up what prayers I could for her sister's spirit." After the song ended, Rebecca killed herself with a knife. Saul and his peers:.