Hockey: Metaphor of the Tribe - Book Report/Review Example

Hockey: Metaphor of the Tribe Richard Wagamese, a writer of Ojibway descent, created a striking image of the very tragic page of North-American history looking at it through the prism of the oppressed party and placing an Ojibwe boy in the center of the narration. In this powerful novel, Saul Indian Horse, the protagonist and the narrator, finds himself captured between the civilized and ‘refined’ white society and native ethnic groups of Indians preserving their authentic spirit and precious traditions from generation to generation. Saul was forcedly separated from his family by the Zhaunagush, the white colonizers (Liem) and sent to the Indian Residential School intended to assimilate aboriginal children. Throughout the narration of the protagonist – a talented hockey player, whose voice strikes upon from the rehab center for alcohol addicts, - importance of the native Ojibwe heritage is highlighted, even despite the extensive influence of all those years lived in the white society. Moreover, the topic of the tribe as a kind of social and cultural сoncept is richly cultivated in the novel, embodying Saul’s past, which has left deep imprints on his entire life, and presenting one of the extremes in ‘nature-artifice’ opposition. In “Indian Horse”, Richard Wagamese transforms hockey into the metaphor for tribe drawing vivid parallels in the hero’s perception of both. Moreover, in combination with this metaphorical message, the author’s image of hockey as an element of pop culture stresses the values crucial for tribal cultures such as the one Saul Indian Horse descends from. Telling the story of his life filled with violence, dramatism and restless struggling with the abusive environment, the protagonist dedicates much of it to his life before St. Jerome’s school, which has turned his entire existence upside down. Profound attachment to the traditional life Saul used to live with his big family is mirrored clearly in the anecdotal manner of presenting the story of their living and the name ‘Indian horse’ that these people acquired. Flashbacks to the times Ojibway used to sit on the “teaching rocks” (Wagamese) or to the episodes of the grandmother telling him the legends of the Old Ones lay stress on the tribal origins of Saul. On the other hand, having been taken to the residential school with its nuns and priests seeking to assimilate and ‘civilize’ indigenous children, the character was stripped of his original innocence (which obviously lay in union with nature and other members of the family/tribe); his “tribal ways and rituals were pronounced backward, primitive, savage» (Wagamese). However, the young priest working at St. Jerome’s and taking great pleasure in hockey engages Saul in this game creating a school team and coaching the boys driven by sheer enthusiasm (Halbert). The team consisting of all native boys becomes a ‘pocket-size’ version of great aboriginal tribes they all descend from – hockey serves to unite them and distinguishes them from others – in addition to virtually saving them from the atrocities of the school life. Thus, the first significant implication of the hockey metaphor lies in the parallel between the tribe as the native habitat of the protagonist and the hockey team as the ‘artificial’ substitution: being deprived of the former, Saul was luckily placed in the latter. In fact, Wagamese gives hints for the similarities of the tribe and hockey not merely in the content of the novel, but also in the language sophistications. At beginning of the story, we encounter a proud and magnificent description of Ojibwe people: “They that say our cheekbones are cut from those granite ridges that rise above our homeland. They say that deep brown eyes of our seeped out of the fecund earth that surrounds the lakes and marshes” (Wagamese). The image painted in this chapter implies that the narrator associates himself with this tribe, and rather frequent use of phrase ‘our people’ enhances this impression, especially when Saul calls workers of the rehab center “these people” (Wagamese). This creates an impression that he alienates himself from the rest of the world, identifying himself with a certain group – Indian Horse people at first and the hockey team later. Thereby, we encounter the description, which is quite similar in its tone to the previous one: “We were hockey gypsies […]. We only thought of the game and the brotherhood that bound us together off the ice, in the van, on the plank floors of reservation houses, in the truck stop diners […]. Small joys. All of them tied together, entwined to form an experience we would not have traded for any other. We were a league of nomads, mad for the game, mad for the road, mad for ice and snow, an Arctic wind on our faces and a frozen puck on the blade of our sticks” (Wagamese). Again, we can trace certain pride and the feeling of ‘togetherness’ expressed in these lines, especially considering the fact that it is the team of natives that was described here. Moreover, the enumeration of the experiences that the team had together is somewhat similar to the narratives about the old traditions of the Ojibwe people. Saul tells that the team would “in the truck stop diners where if we'd won we have a little to splurge on a burger and soup in the truch stop diner, if the team won» (Wagamese). Drawing parallels to the childhood of the character, one sees the mutual nature of the uniting activities. In the new ‘tribe’ Saul was accepted into in the school – like in the native environment – there is a ‘head’, a person in charge, who protects and shares wisdom. While in Saul’s childhood it was, say, his grandmother, who would hide him and his brother Benjamin from the strangers and tell the stories about the Old Ones or and the Great Mystery (“We need mystery. Creator in her wisdom knew this» (Wagamese); in the school hockey team it is Father Leboutilier, the priest guiding and protecting the boys. Thus, hockey – like the tribe – is seen as a shelter, a safe place or environment with the minimum chance to come across bitter ecperiences: “In the spirit of hockey I believed I had found community, a shelter and a haven from everything bleak and ugly in this world” (Wagamese). Yet, as Saul Indian Horse moves forward to the higher stages of hockey sport, the scale changes as well. It could be possible said that – while earlier hokey experiences were paralleled to the tribe, the later career in hockey might be paralleled immediately to pop-culture. In other words, having passed to the higher level of ‘non-aboriginal’ leagues, Saul with his incredible talent becomes a part of pop-culture due to the kind of sport that – in its specifics – unites Canadians (and other nations) regardless of skin color, social status and age; for ‘hockey brings unity to a fractured society" (Magtree). The atmosphere created by such a large-scale sport has always served to bring unity among the people and make thousands of hearts beat together. Similarly, the crucial things for tribal cultures with their diversity of authentic rituals and traditions are unity and communion. Like hockey fans unite into big ‘armies’ based on their preferences of teams, members of tribal cultures come together led by their ethnic affiliations that nearly bound them to serve their communities and protect them. Indian Horse implies a very unusual and daring comparison of ‘raw’ indigenous tribal cultures and an extremely typical part of Canadian ‘civilized’ white society: the author has virtually transformed the experienced of the protagonist, yet he has maintained the set of key principal features that make the new environment he gets in recognizable. Originally the way to escape miseries of existence in the residential school and then the real escape from there, hockey becomes a good metaphor alluding to the Ojibwe tribe and seemingly taking inspiration in it in terms of spiritual unity. On the other hand, passing to the next level of hockey, Saul demonstrates how big sport as a part of pop culture contributes to understanding of the way the tribe functions. Finally, it is impossible to overlook the fact that these clear parallels between tribal preschool experience and later ‘civilized’ hockey career hint at the core Saul his inside of him – the authentic identity of his people. Works Cited Halbert, Helen. “Hockey, hell on earth, and healing: A review of Richard Wagamese's Indian Horse”, 2013. From: http://translate.google.com.ua/translate?hl=ru&sl=en&tl=ru&u=http%3A%2F%2Fxwi7xwa.library.ubc.ca%2F2013%2F10%2F22%2Fhockey-hell-on-earth-and-healing-a-review-of-richard-wagameses-indian-horse%2F&anno=2 Liem, Shnane. “Indian Horse, by Richard Wagamese.” Vancouver Weekly. From: http://vancouverweekly.com/indian-horse-by-richard-wagamese/ Magtree, Matilda. “This is not a review: Indian horse by Richard Wagamese”, 2013. From: http://matildamagtree.com/2013/02/12/this-is-not-a-review-indian-horse-by-richard-wagamese/ Wagamese, Richard. Indian Horse. Douglas & McIntyre, 2012. Print. Read More