Cowboys and Indians

In America, it is entirely possible to be born and raised as an Indian. Many Americans have Indian ancestry and increasingly are proclaiming it to the government during the decennial census. It is also not difficult to find authentic Indians. There is even a wonderful Indian museum in Washington, DC. Cowboys are even easier to find. On television and the radio there are country music channels. There are often rodeos to attend and western wear shops where you can buy boots, belts and hats.

When my grandfather, my father and my husband were children, it was very common to play at being Indians and Cowboys. Everyone wanted to be Winnetou or at least one of the Apache. If you couldn’t be Winnetou, settling for Old Shatterhand, Winnetou’s German blood brother was okay. Somebody had to be the settlers or the cowboys. My father remembers running through ruins of his hometown as a child, pretending that they were buttes and mesas and attacking the evil settlers.

As a girl, I was never attracted to those sorts of battle games, but my brother and his friends certainly were. Sometimes they would be Indians and Cowboys, sometimes they would be Cops and Robbers, but always there would be bad guys and good guys. These self-actualized morality plays would never have an ending, unhappy or otherwise. Someone would be called home for lunch. Disputes would break out over who was actually dead with every shooter claiming perfect accuracy and every target claiming they dodged the bullets or had better cover than was apparent to the shooter. My friends and I would play with dolls and play at being mothers, girlfriends or wives. I often would grow tired of these games and seek to up-end the play. My doll would run off with another girl’s doll’s husband. I would steal the babies of the other girl’s doll and not change their diaper.

When I became an au pair, one of the things that intrigued me was the difference in play between American children and German children. These differences, particularly for boys, are very instructive and illustrate crucial differences between the two cultures. When one understands these differences, particularly with boys, one can direct your child towards a more American style of play.

Go to any American city or small town and go to their parks during the working week and you will see children shepherded by women who often look nothing like their charges. These women can be divided into three groups: Au pairs, nannies and actual mothers. The au pairs are often young European women, most between the ages of 19 and 20 who come to America with a sense of adventure, the desire to get away from their family, and an interest in learning American English and American culture. The nannies are often African or Hispano-American. The actual mothers who don’t look like their children because they have adopted them are often mistaken for au pairs, but never by other au pairs. Each of these groups is distinct and rarely interacts, except when their child hits another’s child and scolding and other interventions occur. Au pairs usually separate themselves out by country or language of origin. I never felt more kinship with Swiss and Austrian girls as I did when I met them as au pairs.

I was very fortunate as an au pair in that I generally had use of a car. This allowed me a greater range of parks and playgrounds where I could take the children. My favorite playgrounds were ones with nice benches shaded by broad and leafy trees.

One interesting side note regarding the difference between German and American playgrounds is that in American playgrounds there is rarely a sign that indicates the ages that are allowed to play on the play equipment and the hours that the playground can be used. Theoretically, an American elementary school-aged child could play on the toddler swing at two in the morning. I personally never witnessed this play at two in the morning, but it was quite common to see American children overpower the toddlers on the toddler slides and toddler children trying out the older kid slides. The American parents never cared that the equipment was being misused and after a while I decided no longer to care and stopped scolding my children.

Two things immediately struck me when watching the kids play, particularly the boys. The appearance of the play was very much the same, little boys using their fingers or sticks as pistols and rifles and running around going pow and bbbbrrrrrr and falling down dead spectacularly. In fact, the play was quite different than its German form. All the kids wanted to be cowboys and those who played Indians did so reluctantly. In a way, it is understandable, given the history of American oppression of its Indian populations.

As you can see from the table below, Germany is, in some aspects, ironically, more Indian than America. While the hobby clubs, or tribes, that exist all over Germany are not strictly speaking, Indian, their members self-identify, at least to some extent, as Indians and try to replicate the customs of particular, real tribes. Most of them do this extreme authenticity. By this measure, Germany is 2.700976935 times more Indian than America, or 1.995908776 than the average. America retains a significant edge over Germany for Indians as a percent of the total population.

Comparison Relative Indianness of Germany and America
Country	Tribes/Clubs	Indians	Population	Tribes Per 1,000 Population	Percent Indian
Germany	400	40,000	81,702,329	0.004895821	0.049%
America	565	2,932,248	311,705,000	0.001812611	0.941%
Total	965	2,972,248	393,407,329	0.002452928	0.756%

When we arrived in America, at first we had a rental car. The previous renter of the car must have liked country music, because when we turned on the radio it was tuned to a country music station. Richard even said that despite the jet lag, he really felt like he was in America. For a while, that was all we listened to, so much so that when we got our new car, a large American SUV, the first thing we did before we drove it off the car lot was to program the country station as station number one. There is even an all bluegrass station in our area. That is station number two, though we mostly listen to station number one.

As a parent in America, playing the cowboy comes naturally to my sons. I have even bought them wood and steel toy flintlock rifles with which they fire caps, though not in the house. Indians are killed in droves in the alley behind our house, along with clones, rebels, redcoats. My older son, Joachim, or Jack as he likes to be called now, sometimes still wants to play the Indian. Occasionally, I try to redirect him towards playing a cowboy, but as he says, “Mom, someone has to play the bad guy, or there wouldn’t be anyone to shoot at.” This may come as a shock to German parents. Obviously, the context is different in Germany than in America. When your son wants to play the Indian and you redirect him to play the cowboy, you can tell him what Joachim said, “Someone has to play the bad guy.”

By playing the Cowboy, Joachim is rehearsing an American style of assertiveness that will serve him well when he becomes an adult. Renate, who sometimes takes part in these games, is rehearsing the independent spirit that transformed America from wilderness to advanced civilization.

If you have chosen to raise your child American rather than German, the choice is obvious. If you want them to be more American, than they should play the Cowboy because there’s nothing more German than the Indian.