Cowboys & NDN's

White domination is so complete that even American Indian children want to be cowboys. It's as if Jewish children wanted to play Nazis.

--Ward Churchill, Fantasies of the Master Race

When I first read through this essay, I was startled (and a little relieved), that someone else has been thinking about Cowboys and Indian game play in a similar way. Similar to what you might ask, similar to childhood Jim. I used to hate playing Cowboys and Indians because, as the only color in town of my age, and almost always the only Indian- if I wanted to play, it usually required playing dead. The fact that the other kids would gang up on me under the guise of following the rules of the game made me want to win through the destruction of my friends. This desire to drive the Cowboys into nothingness, or at least submission, or far away from here made me a problem. I was a malfunction in the game as it was meant to be played. I was supposed to play dead.

Perhaps my friends would have liked it if i could have played dead so good they could have mutilated my remains & then after my grief stricken family had buried me, maybe my buddies would have enjoyed digging me up twenty years later to marvel at the contour of my bones...

But who plays ameture archeologist anymore?

At any rate, it was interesting for me to read about another Indians ponderance of the "Rules of the Game."

The whole thing was a blast from the past that quickly became a blast from the present. While discussing the simple complexities of growing up the only Indian playing a game I was apparently meant to loose with my two older cousins, we all began cutting up about childhood memories. All of a sudden one of their buddies, also gathered around the kitchen table where we were butchering an elk, burst out in objection. "You guys go ahead and laugh, but I was always the only white kid playing with you guys and you always made me play the god-damned Indian. Traumatized the heck out of me!"

This outburst was followed by roars of laughter.

I'm glad when my son grew up with his pigment impared buddies,

that he was proud of being Karuk

and he never allowed himself to be pigeon holed as the player deader

instead he brought his friends to our house

and they were often so amazed by getting smoked salmon with their flap jacks and beans

and getting to roam wild through the "forest" of our property

that each and every one of them fought over the bows n arrows

and they all played Indians, aiming at the neighbors cars as they passed the fence line

guardians of the gates.