In Louise Erdrich's Books & Islands in Ojibwe Country she Implies that many of her people and of countless Indigenous peoples across North America and throughout history have been robbed of their souls. This is a very powerful statement and finishes with a "slap" of truth in her statement that "soul theft required the systematic hard work of inventive HUMILIATIONS and abuse by the government and by the Catholic nuns and priests." I feel that Erdrich's idea here is to transcend the reader into a child who is experiencing that horrific breach in trust by an authoritative adult because if people are thrust into a "lake of empathy" and can feel in their hearts what it is like to be humiliated, abused, and degraded, then they will be much less likely to sit on their hands and turn a blind eye when opportunities for change present themselves.