In Chapter 8, the mother and the grandmother disagree about how to honor Benjamin. What does this conflict reveal to you?

Saul’s mother, and the other members of her generation, are all Christian. Although they converted due to their time in residential schools, time which Saul’s mother still remembers with dread, they nevertheless hold onto their faith and push back against Naomi’s adherence to her own traditions. Naomi isn’t prescriptive about her religious practice—she merely insists that there is no meaningful difference between her Creator and their God. But for the Christians, even refusing to choose one over the other is an act of blasphemy.

Benjamin’s death becomes the breaking point for this conflict, which will rear its head throughout the novel in different forms. As Ben is dying, Saul feels that “the land [is] already reaching out and claiming him,” an observation that mirrors the connection between the natural world and his closeness with his brother when they were first reunited. Naomi’s intent of burying him in the earth would honor both Benjamin’s life and what Saul sees in his body. Thus, when Benjamin’s Christian parents insist on burying him according to “the rites of the Church” and taking him away from the land, they deny those parts of him. This action foreshadows the assimilationist project of St. Jerome’s that Saul experiences, which similarly uses Christianity to deny the connection of indigenous children to the natural world and their traditions.