Ten Little Indians

I'm reading a book called The Wordy Shimpmates by Sarah Vowell (appropriate last name). Although I'm only on page 59, it reminds me of Lies My Teacher Told Me in an easier to read story. This may be completely untrue since I never really read (only perused) Lies My Teacher Told Me. Anyway, when Vowell was talking about the fact that "'From 1492 to 1650, contagions claimed as many as nine [Native] lives out of ten...'", she mentions the song "Ten Little Indians." Isn't it amazing that a childhood song can be so inappropriate and derisive? She mentioned that she could hear the melody in her head. Since I could not do the same, I went to Youtube. Watching the video, I was a bit dismayed. Certainly the days of depicting Native American Indians with little head bands and a single feather have passed. Do elementary students still think the Pilgrims and Indians sat down to a peaceful meal?

This past weekend we were speaking of the Native Americans, and I mentioned an image from a sixth grade textbook. My brother and I both remember it, so even as young adults we must have known the hideousness it possessed. In a book about Iowa History we (all students in class, his and mine) were to make an image into another image. The one we both remember is of a bottle that we were to make into an Indian (a drunken Indian with bubbles floating by it's head). This is the truth. Michael gave me the book, and I still have it!

Tell me it is different for elementary children today. Tell me this song, and it's stereotypes are obsolete.

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