Ten Little Indians

Ten Little Indians is an American children's rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 13512. The word Indian usually refers to Native Americans. The song is traditionally performed in the tune of the Irish folk song "Michael Finnegan".

Lyrics

Cover of Negrastrákarnir, an Icelandic version of the song published in 1922

The modern lyrics are:

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.

Ten little, nine little, eight little Indians
Seven little, six little, five little Indians
Four little, three little, two little Indians
One little Indian boy.^[1]

1. ^ I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 333-4.

The song sometimes begins with a repeated verse, "John Brown met a little Indian" before entering the well-known verses.

Origins

The likely original piece, then called "Ten Little Injuns", was written by songwriter Septimus Winner in 1868 for a minstrel show and was much more elaborate:

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.

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.^[1]

1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Opie1997 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

Derivative songs

Book cover by Frank Green, 1869

It is generally thought that this song was adapted, possibly by Frank J. Green in 1869, as "Ten Little Niggers", though it is possible that the influence was the other way around, with "Ten Little Niggers" being a close reflection of the text that became "Ten Little Indians". Either way, "Ten Little Niggers" became a standard of the blackface minstrel shows.^[1] It was sung by Christy's Minstrels and became widely known in Europe, where it was used by Agatha Christie in her novel of the same name. The novel was later retitled And Then There Were None (1939), and remains one of her most famous works, about ten killings on a remote island. The French and German titles of Christie's novel are still "Dix Petits Nègres" and "Zehn Kleine Negerlein" today. ^[2]

Variants of this song have been published widely as children's books; what the variants have in common is 'that they are about dark-skinned boys who are always children, never learning from experience'.^[3] For example, it had been published in Holland by 1913; in Denmark by 1922 (in Börnenes billedbog); in Iceland in 1922 (as Negrastrákarnir); and in Finland in the 1940s (in Kotoa ja kaukaa: valikoima runosatuja lapsille and Hupaisa laskukirja).^[4] The Bengali poem Haradhon er Dosti Chhele (Haradhon's Ten Sons) is also inspired by Ten Little Indians.

Criticism

Because this song, and even the original term Indians, have become politically sensitive, modern versions for children often use "soldier boys" or "teddy bears" as the objects of the rhyme.^[5] The unaltered republication of the 1922 Icelandic version in 2007 by the Icelandic publisher Skrudda caused considerable debate in Iceland, with a strong division between people who saw the book as racist and people who saw it as "a part of funny and silly stories created in the past".^[6] In Kristín Loftsdóttir's assessment of the debate,

Some of the discussions focusing on the republishing of the Ten Little Negroes can be seen as colonial nostalgia in the sense that they bring images of more "simple" times when such images were not objected to. As such, these public discourses seek to separate Icelandic identity from past issues of racism and prejudice. Contextualising the publication of the nursery rhyme in 1922 within European and North American contexts shows, however, that the book fitted very well with European discourses of race, and the images show similarity to caricatures of black people in the United States.^[7]

The republishing of the book in Iceland triggered a number of parodies or rewritings: and Tíu litlír kenjakrakkar ("Ten little prankster-children") by Sigrún Eldjárn and Þórarinn Eldjárn; 10 litlir sveitastrákar ("Ten little country-boys") by Katrín J. Óskarsdóttir and Guðrún Jónína Magnúsdóttir; and Tíu litlir bankastrákar ("Ten little banker-boys") by Óttar M. Njorðfjörð.^[8]

1945 version

The following version of the song was included in the first film version of And Then There Were None (1945), which largely took Green's lyrics and replaced the already sensitive word "nigger" with "Indian" (in some versions "soldiers"):

Ten little Indian boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were nine.
Nine little Indian boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were eight.
Eight little Indian boys travelling in Devon;
One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.
Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.
Six little Indian boys playing with a hive;
A bumblebee stung one of them and then there were five.
Five little Indian boys going in for law;
One got in Chancery and then there were four.
Four little Indian boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.
Three little Indian boys walking in the zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were two.
Two little Indian boys sitting in the sun;
One got all frizzled up and then there was one.
One little Indian boy left all alone;
He went and hanged himself and then there were none.^[1]

1. ^ A. Christie, Ten Little Indians (New York: Pocket Books, 1964).

Popular culture

The Ten Little Indians are guests of Old King Cole in the 1933 Disney cartoon of the same name. They perform a catchy dance which inspires the other nursery rhyme characters to join in.

The rock musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson includes a much darker song called "Ten Little Indians" that is modeled after this nursery rhyme.

The opening sequence of Blackstone on APTN features a version of the song.

The novel by Agatha Christie And Then There Were None is titled after the last line of the derivative minstrel song. Its original title was Ten Little Niggers. The present title is the title under which it was published in America, changed for reasons of cultural sensitivity.

"Ten Little Indians" is a 1962 single by the Beach Boys, also present on their début album Surfin' Safari.

In England's Mickey Mouse Annual No. 6, the song was adapted into the comic "10 Little Mickey Kids". It depicted ten little mouse babies who meet unfortunate ends until there are only two left.^[9]

The opening song on Harry Nilsson's album Pandemonium Shadow Show is an adaptation of "Ten Little Indians", though this version is about the Ten Commandments.

One of German punk band Die Toten Hosen's greatest hits is an adaptation called "Zehn kleine Jägermeister" ("Ten Little Hunters"), which is included on their 1996 album Opium fürs Volk. The music video features ten deer (part of the logo of the Jägermeister alcohol beverage) being killed or waylaid in a variety of ways while human characters consume copious quantities of alcohol.

The AMC television series "The Walking Dead" focuses on the arrival of Tyreese, Sasha, and three other survivors (one being injured) at the prison, and one part of the scene showing Sasha describing the outside world as "Ten Little Indians".

Notes

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ten little Niggers.