Circle Justice In Ben Mikaelsen's Touching Spirit Bear

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“There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.” -Mahatma Gandhi. In the novel, Touching Spirit Bear, Cole Mathews is portrayed as a violent, trouble-making youth. After his most recent crime, he is offered to go through circle justice to be healed and avoid jail. The author tells the readers how the current justice system is ineffective and how other justice systems, like circle justice, can shape up even the most violent juvenile. Ben Mikaelsen shows us that circle justice can change a person, as it teaches them to heal, to open up, and to forgive.
The first reason that Circle justice can change people is that it teaches them how to heal. During circle justice, Cole was given the opportunity to mend his attitude and all the damage that he had caused. When Cole was sent to the island for the second time, he learned from Garvey and Edwin, some valuable healing methods. He learned aboriginal ways of healing like, pond soaking, totem carving, dances, breaking of the anger stick, and the rolling of the ancestor rock. These activities helped Cole change, as it taught him how to take his mind off things that made him …show more content…
Circle justice was a place where Cole learned to forgive and that was his biggest change. When Cole danced. the dance of anger, he learned about forgiving and asking for forgiveness. Cole learned that forgiveness is not the wiping out of an offense from memory, it can be affected only by the one affronted. once over, the offense no longer conditions the relationship between the offender and the one affronted, and harmony is restored between the two. So, what this means is that forgiveness is not forgetting, it only happens when the matter is resolved from everyone involved. Here is a quote from the novel where Garvey tells Cole what forgiveness is about, and how it could help him
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