A Genocidal Nursery Rhyme

April 3, 2017 4:49 PM

Alex Jacob examines the nursery rhyme "Ten Little Indians".

Text: Ten little Injuns standin’ in a line, One toddled home and then there were nine; Nine little Injuns swingin’ on a gate, One tumbled off and then there were eight. One little, two little, three little, four little, five little Injun boys, Six little, seven little, eight little, nine little, ten little Injun boys. Eight little Injuns gayest under heav’n. One went to sleep and then there were seven; Seven little Injuns cuttin’ up their tricks, One broke his neck and then there were six. Six little Injuns all alive, One kicked the bucket and then there were five; Five little Injuns on a cellar door, One tumbled in and then there were four. Four little Injuns up on a spree, One got fuddled and then there were three; Three little Injuns out on a canoe, One tumbled overboard and then there were two. Two little Injuns foolin’ with a gun, One shot t’other and then there was one; One little Injun livin’ all alone, He got married and then there were none (Septimus Winner, 1868).

posted by Rumple (20 comments total)

I know that many nursery rhymes and fairy tales are surprisingly dark, but this is a new low. And I was truly surprised at the info re Agatha Christie's novel, which I read under the title And Then There Were None.

Just found this HuffPo article from last fall about Amazon selling the book under its original title.
posted by she's not there at 7:00 PM on April 3, 2017 [1 favorite]

Reminds me of the Eeny, meeny, miny, mo I first heard as a child.
posted by MtDewd at 7:57 PM on April 3, 2017 [4 favorites]

Obligatory Funkdoobiest link.
posted by Slinga at 8:08 PM on April 3, 2017

Most of the deaths seem like accidents. I thought the analysis was going to go into how they were codes for some of the atrocities committed on the native peoples, but it didn't. It seems to say these people were treated badly, so any song that references these people is de facto terrible. I guess, but I was expecting more.
posted by willnot at 8:25 PM on April 3, 2017 [2 favorites]

MtDewd, thanks for that link! Great article. I wish it had audio recordings of eeny meeny in all the different languages, plus that shepherd's counting rhyme...
posted by WowLookStars at 8:51 PM on April 3, 2017

Full Blood, Halfbreed, one quarter, an eighth.
Then sixteenth, a thirty-second or one sixty-fourth.
If a hundred and twenty-eighth makes a Cherokee,
Why wasn't there a blue eyed, blond haired kid, at Carlisle, with me?
posted by ridgerunner at 8:59 PM on April 3, 2017 [6 favorites]

I have bunch of small thoughts:

I thought there would be more analysis as well.

No question, the rhyme is terrible and not something we should be teaching our children.

I've never heard the rhyme before. I'm Canadian, so maybe that's why?

I heard my 12 year old daughter and two of her friends doing "what if" scenarios yesterday that involved something along the lines of "if you had to kill Susie, Jamie and Lulu, which one would you pick?" All of them are good friends. I stepped in and asked them if they couldn't use something a bit less intense than killing. I understood that they were trying to understand the intricacies of the social webs we form but nonetheless it made me really sad that they had to use such an extreme example.

I hear examples of this all the time. "I was so angry I could have killed him." "You're so funny, you kill me!" "Eat shit and die."

From the article: “Ten Little Indians” has come full circle and it’s context is once again about death, killing, murder and genocide.

Death, killing, murder and genocide. What's wrong with us?
posted by ashbury at 9:03 PM on April 3, 2017

Most of the deaths seem like accidents.

I thought that was the insidious part. Like, this is a denial of responsibility for the horrors visited on people - instead of 'by the way, we killed these guys,' it's just 'oh they brought it on themselves, look how lucky they are we're looking after them.'
posted by mordax at 9:05 PM on April 3, 2017 [4 favorites]

I think I heard this when I was little. Yes, they died off one by one, but usually by a bullet.

Nowdays kids hear the better and certainly less insidious rhyme '10 Little Monkeys Jumping on a Bed".
posted by eye of newt at 9:15 PM on April 3, 2017 [1 favorite]

" I wish it had audio recordings of eeny meeny in all the different languages, plus that shepherd's counting rhyme..."

Yan tan tethera?
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:26 PM on April 3, 2017 [1 favorite]

Nowdays kids hear the better and certainly less insidious rhyme '10 Little Monkeys Jumping on a Bed"

I have bad news for you about that.
posted by salvia at 9:55 PM on April 3, 2017 [7 favorites]

I'm 32 and I remember a "Ten Little Indians" from my childhood that went "One little, two little, three little Indians, four little, five little, six little Indians, seven little, eight little, nine little Indians, ten little Indian boys."

That was it. Not much to it. I thought the FPP and linked blog post (which doesn't actually have the text) was about that till I clicked through to these comments, and was racking my brain to think of what could possibly be genocidal about that. OK, now I get it.
posted by potrzebie at 11:08 PM on April 3, 2017 [4 favorites]

As originally outlined in an opinion piece by Julianne Jennings, the rhyme was written by noted American songwriter Septimus Winner in 1864 (or 1868) and performed at minstrel shows.

!867 was the year of the Medicine Lodge Treaty:

The Medicine Lodge Treaty is the overall name for three treaties signed between the Federal government of the United States and southern Plains Indian tribes in October 1867, intended to bring peace to the area by relocating the Native Americans to reservations in Indian Territory and away from European-American settlement. The treaty was negotiated after investigation by the Indian Peace Commission, which in its final report in 1868 concluded that the wars had been preventable. They determined that the United States government and its representatives, including the United States Congress, had contributed to the warfare on the Great Plains by failing to fulfill their legal obligations and to treat the Native Americans with honesty.

The U.S. government and tribal chiefs met at a place traditional for Native American ceremonies, at their request. The first treaty was signed October 21, 1867, with the Kiowa and Comanche tribes.[1] The second, with the Kiowa-Apache,[2] was signed the same day. The third treaty was signed with the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho on October 28.[3]

Under the Medicine Lodge Treaty, the tribes were assigned reservations of diminished size compared to territories defined in an 1865 treaty. The treaty tribes never ratified the treaty by vote of adult males, as it required. In addition, by changing allotment policy under the Dawes Act and authorizing sales under the Agreement with the Cheyenne and Arapaho (1890) and the Agreement with the Comanche, Kiowa and Apache (1892) signed with the Cherokee Commission , the Congress effectively further reduced their reservation territory. [my emphasis]

posted by jamjam at 11:49 PM on April 3, 2017 [2 favorites]

As recently as 1969, the British publisher Fontana was still publishing an edition of Christie's book under its original TLNs title and with this cover illustration. I still have my copy, which I bought at age 11. The remarkable thing is that neither the book's title nor that particular cover was thought remotely controversial at the time. Presumably, this was the golden age prior to political correctness which Trump and the Brexeteers now wish to return us to.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:29 AM on April 4, 2017

Yan tan tethera?

Any excuse to post a bit of Jake Thackray.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:24 AM on April 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

As recently as 1969, the British publisher Fontana was still publishing an edition of Christie's book under its original TLNs title and with this cover illustration.

The US title from the get-go was And Then There Were None, as it later became in the UK. That said, there were a slew of various titles over the decades.

The stage production ditto, though in the 1980s, it was revived in the west end as Ten Little Travelers. The poem factors into the dialogue.

Presumably,

I sometimes wonder what sins of attitude we hold that our great grandchildren will hold in contempt.
posted by IndigoJones at 5:56 AM on April 4, 2017

Yan tan tethera?

Any excuse to post a bit of Jake Thackray

Celtic numbers!

(Modern Welsh numbers for four and five, 'pedwar' and 'pump', are recognizably close to the sheep-counters' 'mether' and 'pip' -- 'pump' is pronounced /pimp/.)
posted by bertran at 6:58 AM on April 4, 2017

Five Little Turkeys
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:26 AM on April 4, 2017

eye of newt: “Nowdays kids hear the better and certainly less insidious rhyme '10 Little Monkeys Jumping on a Bed".”

salvia: “I have bad news for you about that.”

For a while it seemed like that was the only song the Local Toddler knew the words to. She would sing it over and over at the top of her lungs and I just cringed non-stop.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:09 AM on April 4, 2017

It's funny the things that sound innocuous to most people sound insidious to Native people.
posted by blessedlyndie at 9:30 PM on April 4, 2017