2025-07-03
A game we innocently played as kids was actually re-enacting genocide and ethnic cleansing, not only in the Americas but also in Australia
By Chris Johansen, Green Issue Co-editor
The recent announcement of a redress scheme for WA’s Stolen Generations took me back to the days when Aboriginal children were being taken from their families, which I was in total ignorance of then. The first I heard of “Stolen Generations” was in 2008 when Kevin Rudd gave his “Sorry” speech. I had then only just returned to live in Australia after living in other countries for the previous 27 years, and had not been keeping abreast of Australian domestic issues.
In my formative years, 1945-55, our favourite backyard game, apart from footy and cricket, was “cowboys and Indians”. Promoted by regular cowboys and Indians movies dominating the local cinema hall. Indeed, in the 1950s, the favourite birthday or Christmas gift for kids was cowboy and Indian paraphernalia (i.e. merch).
The game involved designating some of the playmates as cowboys and the others as Indians. The cowboys had guns with caps (made the sound of firing a gun) while the Indians had mainly bows and arrows. Due to my non-assertive manner at that time (and still!) I was always designated as an Indian, and invariably the Indians were destined to lose the fight.
But what was totally unrealized at the time was that this playtime ritual was a re-enactment of the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the First Nations people of North America. However, apparently this was eventually publicly realized from about the 1970s as the commercial sale of cowboy and Indian paraphernalia decreased to non-existence. Also, “western movies” became a little more sophisticated than just colonialists shooting indigenous inhabitants.
Actually, as a little kid I was confused by the term “Indian”, as I learned early on that “India” was on the other side of the world to America. But it was not my mistake but that of Capt. Chris Colombus who in attempting to sail around the world landed in America but thought he had reached India.
But also not realized in my formative years was that this genocide and ethnic cleansing was also playing out in the country of my birth. In my formative years we were told that the Aboriginals were a dying race but not informed as to why that was so – genocide, ethnic cleansing and introduced diseases. Survivors, we were told, needed to be “assimilated” into the white population. Hence the “stolen generation” of Aboriginal children being abducted from their families and placed in Christian missions or foster care of white families.
A personal experience was of a playmate suddenly announcing that he had a new “brother”. Not a new-born but a child of about our own age. He had a darker skin than the usual whitefella, which I interpreted as a superior suntan. Then intensity of suntan was then considered as prestigious, as awareness of skin cancer was non-existent (maybe because the ozone hole hadn’t opened up then). I was rather proud of my own tan back then but it is perhaps a miracle that I am yet to succumb to that malady.
Another experience of the 1950s was in driving through country towns. I noticed shanty structures (humpies) on the outskirts of these towns, similar to the cubby houses we would build in our back yards. When I asked about these, the subject was immediately changed.
So it is only in this century, when over 60 years old, did I ever start learning the “truth” about the original inhabitants of this continent (thanks Kevin for that). And realize that game of cowboys and Indians that we used to play not only applied to the wild west of America but was a metaphor for colonial treatment of indigenous people across the world, and very much so in Australia.
Despite some steps towards addressing our “cowboy and Indian” past, there is still a long way to go towards reconciliation. Prominent among these steps were the 1967 referendum whereby Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples were included in the census, the granting of full voting rights (1984), the Mabo decision recognizing Native Title (1992) and Stolen Generations apology. The National Agreement on Closing the Gap was another worthy initiative but has made little progress so far, with some gap components even widening.
Although seemingly rather obvious, the best way to overcome disadvantage is to ask what the affected population actually wants and solicit their suggestions of how to get there. This actually manifested itself in 2017 with the Uluru Statement from the Heart, formulated by a convention representative of First Nations Peoples. This statement defined that their concept of sovereignty was as a “spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty.” They had three main asks: a voice to parliament, a treaty (or treaties), and truth telling regarding their history.
Only when Labor was elected in 2022 was this statement really acted upon. With the Voice Referendum of 2024, which ended in disaster. It is clear that a whole lot of truth telling about our colonial history was a prerequisite before any referendum majority was possible about the Voice. In the Voice Referendum, amplified by misinformation from the 'no' campaign, some two thirds of voters simply did not grasp the context within which this Voice was being requested.
Singed by the Voice referendum outcome, the Labor Government seems reluctant to return to addressing the Uluru Statement. It now seems up to non-government initiatives to promote truth telling. I suggest a good place to start is David Marr’s deeply researched book entitled Killing for Country, to really understand our “cowboy and Indian” legacy. Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go to evolve from that legacy, but we must first of all understand what that legacy is.
Header photo: Lithograph "U.S. Army-Cavalry Pursuing Indians-1876", ca. 1899. This Werner lithograph of Cavalry Troops chasing Indians was printed in 1899. Author: The United States Army and Navy, Unknown author. Public Domain (Creative Commons)
[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]