When Thomas Black Bull was found, eleven years old and living alone in the wilderness, his entire life was flipped upside down. In the book When the Legends Die, the young boy was forced to convert to new ways and new identities, unfamiliar and new to him. His past, origins, and true identities were chopped off, and chained to the bottom of the forgotten sea in his mind. In the process he lost a companion, the bear, and himself, as he was shuffled and controlled throughout his life. People covered and masked his true innerself and not until later in his life did he find it again. Hal Borland uses the symbols of the bear, horses, and names, to show how society disguises, effaces, erases, annihilates, and destroys true identities.
             The horses symbolize all the people of society who have shoved aside Thomas identity. For example, he begins to take revenge for himself on the horses: He wasnt riding a bronco. He was riding a hurt, a hate (121). In this case these animals represent all the people in his life who have taken advantage of him and cut off his identity. Benny Grayback, Blue Elk, Red Dillon and others are what Tom sees himself riding as he tortures, maims, and kills the broncos, all representatives of society taking over a persons individuality . He rides, hurts and hates because these persons of the community effaced the roots of his soul, and this is the only way Tom can control part of his life. In addition, his anger festers and he hitches the name the devil-killer: He rode for revenge, and nobody was quite sure why. He was a devil killer, and nobody worried or wondered who was the real devil he was trying to kill (148). This further proves how communities mask, deface, or erase identities. The devil Thomas quests to murder is the society he faces, which stole his true self, and this revenge will be taken out on the broncos. As a result of this process, he becomes so devastated that he seeks vengeance, and since the horses...