Karl May
and the reality of the American West
1.Introduction
Karl May's stories have influenced the German picture of the American West before and around the turn of the past century probably more than any other single factor. Everyone in Germany, and that is most likely not even an exaggeration, knows who Winnetou, the Apache-Chief and his white blood brother Old Shatterhand, May's fictional alter ego are. May himself is still a highly controversial figure in German literature and his appearance on the front page of the Spiegel, one of Germany's leading news-magazines(1) just a few years ago shows that even though most of his books were written more then a century ago he simply refuses to be forgotten(2).
One major point of criticism regarding May's work is that its depiction of the American West and its people is unrealistic and that May, especially when describing culture and character of the native american population presents a grossly falsified picture. The topic of this paper is a comparison between the mythical American West of May's creation, and actual historical and anthropological material. While it was tempting to add considerations about for example historical and literary influences, psychological elements and May's world view as a whole, this study will confine itself to a strict comparison of a limited area of May's work to its non-fictional counterpart and can maybe serve as a starting point for a more systematic and detailed examination of the reasons why May's body of work turned out as it did. There will be some occasional sidetracking where it seemed particularly interesting or neccessary to illuminate certain points made in this paper. The primary sources chosen for this study are the novels Winnetou I - IV I will focus on how realistic May's description of the Mescalero Apache in these novels is. The Winnetou trilogy plus the follow-upWinnetou's Erben were chosen because they belong to the most successful and most widely read of May's novels and they represent all major phases of May's writing career. The Mescalero play a prominent role in these novels, since Winnetou, May's most famous Indian character, is the chief of the Mescalero.
First there will be a short biography of May himself, since, in his specific case, life and work are the more inseparable as the author himself purposely insinuated to be identical with one of his characters, It is followed by a short plot-summary of the four novels that serve as the primary sources for this paper. Next will be a rough overview over Mescalero history and culture which is based on the Handbook of North American Indians. Then the actual comparison will be made by selecting details from May's novels and contrasting them with the information given in the Smithsonian handbook. Since Winnetou is the central Indian figure in May's work, there is one chapter about possible real life models for Winnetou. At the end, there will be an analysis of the differences between fiction and reality, and some explanations for the differences will be suggested. This work is written in English, one of the few major languages into which May's work was never translated. Therefore it is part of its concept, beneath presenting the results of the research for its topic, to serve as a small introduction to May's work, which is still some kind of a German phenomenon.
Karl May was born on February 25th 1842 in Ernstthal, a small town with a populace of about 3000 people located between Chemnitz and Zwickau. His father was a poor weaver, and his mother was a midwife. He was the fifth of 14 children, only five of which survived early childhood. The economic situation of Ernstthal, most of whose inhabitants worked in the textile-business, was dismal and so was the personal situation of the Mays. The first four years of his life, May was blind until an operation restored his eyesight.
From 1848 to 1856 May went to the Rektoratsschule in Ernstthal, where he received an education in foreign languages, music and other subjects. Additionally, his father forced him to memorize geography books. His parents intended for him to become a elementary school teacher, so he went to the Waldenburg teaching school from which he graduated in 1861 with a final grade of "good". Once, in 1851, his education was endangered when May was discovered stealing six candles from the school, which he wanted to bring his parents for Christmas. He was excluded from Waldenburg, but after a petition to the saxoian school secretary, he was allowed to continue his education in Plauen. In 1861, he graduated with an overall grade of "good".
In October 1861 he started teaching in Glauchau; however, he was dismissed from this post one month later after making a pass at the wife of his landlord. He found another job as teacher in a spinning factory, which did not last long either: returning home for Christmas, he took the watch, pipe and other utensils from his roomate with him. In the subsequent trial, even though he wasn`t convicted of stealing, but only of using someone else`s posessions, he was sentenced to six weeks of prison, which ruined his chances of ever getting another teaching job.
May related about the sudden end of his only two month long teaching career, caused by an overreaction of the government, that it had an impact 'like a stroke on the
head under whose impact one collapses in itself` (Mein Leben und Streben, S. 109). For May, the incident was indeed not only a monetary and social, but also a mental catastrophy, to notice which allows a decisive insight into May`s psyche.
(Lowsky 20)
(3)
May left Ernstthal in 1864 and his criminal career started. He rented a room under the name of Dr. med Heilig (Dr. Holy) and stole a leather suit. He followed this pattern for a while, until he was arrested and convicted to four years of prison, three of which he served before getting released. The motivation for these sometimes rather bizarre crimes seems to be a desire to revenge himself on society and to show its vulnerability.
After his release, May continued with his impersonations and frauds, which got him into prison again, this time in an institution a lot stricter than the one he had served in before.
After serving his time, May started to work as a freelance writer. In 1875, May became editor of two weekly magazines appearing in the publishing house of Heinrich Münchmayer. One of these magazines was intended for mining and coal workers (Schacht und Hütte), the other one was the Deutsche Familienblatt (German Family Paper) for which May wrote some of the first of his adventure stories.
For a catholic weekly, (Deutscher Hausschatz), May wrote between the years 1879 and 1898 many of the adventure stories and novels which, some of them rewritten, were to make him famous.
By the end of 1886, May started working for the magazine Der Gute Kamerad (The Good Comrade). Some of his most famous narrations especially for the young, such asDer Schatz im Silbersee appeared. By this time, May was finally fincially consolidated.
Another big step for May was his contract with the publisher Fehsenfeld. From 1891 on, his Collective Narrations appeared; this edition was the basis of the 74 volume edition which is still in print today and which provided May with a solid income. In the last five years of the 19th century May was at the peak of his success. In public he announced that he was indeed identical with his alter ego in the books, Old Shatterhand, and that he had really experienced all the adventures described in his narratives.
In a letter from 1895, May wrote:
"None of the people and none of the incidents I describe is made up." During his many journeys in that time (...) during which he even got granted audiences
with the Austrian and Bavarian royal families, May repeated these statements and told durings receptions and in interviews that he spoke 40 languages, could understand 1200, and that he had built his gun himself. These scenes continued, on
a different level outside the criminal, the earlier impersonations of the pseudologist
(4)
May and are an early example of modern star-mania. On July 5th, 1897 the police had to disperse hundreds of approaching readers from the streets with a fire-engine (...) (Lowsky 29)
These examples make clear that May, above all, was a storyteller, equipped with a very vivid imagination, so vivied that it wqs sometiems difficult even forhimself to distinguish between truth and reality. This character-trait of his becomes also evident when examing the relationship betwen reality and fiction in his works.
In 1899, May traveled to the orient, Cairo, Beirut, Aden, Ceylon. In 1900, he traveled on to Cairo, the Holy Land, Athens, Korfu and Venice until he returned home in July.
But by the end of the century, critical reviews of his works started to appear, questioning the literary merit of his works and his criminal past was made public. In 1903, May got divorced from his first wife, Emma, and married Klara Plöhn, the widow of a friend of his. In the following years, May had to struggle in courts against personal diffamations. He visited the US for the first and only time in his life in 1908 seing the great lakes and Niagara Falls, which serve as locations in Winnetou IV. In 1910, his mental and physical state was poor. But then, slowly, the lawsuits came to an favourable end and in the last two months of his life, May was happy. In 1912 he was invited to speak in Vienna about his vision of a new kind of human being, the ethical concepts of which had already had a significant impact on his later works such asWinnetou IV. A week later he died in Radebeul.
The collected works of Karl May contain over 70 volumes. Half of them is set in the American West, the other half is set partly in Germany, South-America, the Orient and other locations; finally there is an autobiography. May's works are classified into two categories, the earlier works, which consist mostly of travel and adventure stories, and the later works, which are getting very mystical and symbolical. The early work is furthermore classified into stories for grown-up readers and stories for the young.
Out of this huge number of books selected as main primary sources for this paper were the three Winnetou volumes and the later continuation Winnetous Erben (Winnetou's Heirs), also simply called Winnetou IV. There are several reasons for this selection. First of all, these novels are among the most popular of all of May's books, and, secondly they contain material from all of May's writing periods. Winnetou II and III are put together with material from his earlier magazine stories, Winnetou I was written at the height of his fame and Winnetou IV is one of May's last works.(5)
For the reader unfamiliar with May short plot summaries will be helpful to create a context for the observations made in the text.
Winnetou I was written when May was already popular. For the collected works aWinnetou trilogy was planned. The second and third volume were put together from already existing material, the first May wrote completely new. It tells the story of how Old Shatterhand, May's alter ego, becomes Old Shatterhand, how he meets Winnetou and becomes his friend.
Old Shatterhand is a German who decides to try his luck in the USA. He starts as a private teacher, until Mr. Henry, a gunsmith, who sees him shoot and ride, organizes a job for him as surveyor for a railroad company. The work takes place in New Mexico, Apache territory. The workforce consists of an engineer, four surveyors, three scouts and a number of gunmen for protection. One of the scouts the small Sam Hawkins, teaches Old Shatterhand elementary skills, as tracking trails, hunting and so on, most of which his desciple already knows. Someday Old Shatterhand and the others meet three Indians. They are Intschu tschuna(6)
, chief of the Mescalero, his son Winnetou, and Klekhi-petra, who is, as he confesses to Old Shatterhand, a German, who has fled from Germany after having taken part in the revolution of 1848/49, and has become the teacher of the chief and his son. They prohibit the surveyors to continue with their work and threaten togo to war. After an argument, one of the white gunmen kills Klekhi-petra, making the situation a good deal worse. Sam Hawkins knows Tangua, the head of a Kiowa tribe which is close by. With the aid of the Kiowa, the outnumber the Apache when they attack and Winnetou gets captured. In the night, Old Shatterhand frees him, taking a lock of his hair so he can prove his deed later on. Winnetou returns with more warriors, defeating and capturing the Kiowa, Old Shatterhand and his friends. Old Shatterhand gets seriously wounded in the fight. Winnetou's sister Nscho-Tschi nurses him to bring him back into good shape for the day on which he is to be tortured to death. In a slight turn of affairs, Intschu tschuna offers Old Shatterhand, after his recovery, a fight to the death about his his life and the lives of his companions. Old Shatterhand defeates Intschu tschuna, spares his life and afterwards produces the lock he has taken from Winnetou's hair, proving he saved his life. He and Winnetou become blood-brothers. Moved by Klekhi-petra's former and Old Shatterhands influence Intschu tschuna and Winnetou decide to send Nscho-Tschi to St. Louis to learn the whiteman's ways. On their way the stop at a secret plays, in order to get some gold for Nscho-Tschi's education. There Intschu tschuna and Nscho-Tschi get killed by Santer, a white villain who ambushes them. Winnetou and Old Shatterhand follow Santer but he escapes.
2.2.2 Winnetou II
Due to an ship-accident, Old Shatterhand lands pennyless in New York; again his old friend Henry organizes a job for him, this time as a detective. One of these cases leads him into the west again. He pursues a criminal, Gibson, who has lured William Ohlert, the mentally unstable son of a wealthy family, away from home. Old Shatterhand meets Old Death, another famous scout. Together, they continue the pursuit. This leads them to a Comanche tribe, the chief of which as a friend of Old Death. This tribe, however is lured into a trap by Winnetou and his Apache, because the Comanche have raided some Apachean villages. Despite several peace offerings by Winnetou, motivated by Old Shatterhand's Christianity, the Comanche refuse to negotiate, and suffer terrible losses. After the fight, the group continues to pursue the long-hunted Gibson until they find him and his victim in a gold-prospector's camp.
There, they also find Old Death's long-missed brother. Entering the camp, Old Death is accidentally shot, as is Gibson; finally, Old Shatterhand brings Ohlert home.
In the second part Old Shatterhand and Winnetou meet Old Firehand, another famous frontiersman. He is with a group of fur-hunters. First the three help to defend a fort against a group of Ogellallah, they have to suffer terrible losses, defending Old Firehand's own camp against the Ogellalah.
Winnetou III is again made out of already existing material plus an new final chapter.
Riding through the Llano Estacado, Old Shatterhand meets Sans Ear, a scout that has lost his ears when captured by Indians. They meet Bernard Marshal, the son of an old friend of Old Shatterhand's and above all, they meet Winnetou. The group has an encounter with a gang of robbers. One of them is the son of the man who has murdered Sans-Ear's family years ago and Bernard Marshal's father some weeks ago. They hunt him and his father until there is a final showdown in California.
The second part takes place several years later. Old Shatterhand hinders some some robbers from robbing a rain. In the pursuit, he meets Winnetou. They encounter a German Settlement, Helldorf, where Winnetou is impressed by the religiosity of the settlers. When they defeat the robbers at a railroad-station they learn that an attack of the German settlement is planned. They ride back, and in the subsequent fight, Winnetou is killed. He asks Old Shatterhand to fulfill his testament, which he is to find at the place where Intschu tschuna is buried. There, Old Shatterhand falls into the hand of Santer, the murderer of Winnetou's father and sister, who hands him over to the Kiowas. Old Shatterhand escapes and pursues Santer who has stolen the map which shows where Winnetou's testament is hidden. Santer dies from a safety-feature which Winnetou has built in the hiding-place of his testament. Winnetou gets buried; with him the last hope of a unified red people is dead, too.
2.2.4 Winnetous Erben (Winnetou IV)
The adventures in Winnetou IV take place a number of years later, when the aged Old Shatterhand visits the west for the last time. The first stop is Niagara Falls, then after several adventures on the journey, he finally gets to Mount Winnetou. There a big statue of Winnetou is supposed to be built. However, the undertaking is monstrous, and more for the sake of the participants' glory than to Winnetou's honour. The undertaking fails, Old Shatterhand however makes peace with his old enemies, who have come to the place in order to sabotage the whole plan. This novel is part of May's later work, where the adventure story makes increasingly place for heavy symbolism (see chapter 5). One important figure in Winnetou IV is the old medicine man Tatellah Satah.(7)
2.2.5 General characteristics of May's work
In the Karl May Handbook which he edited, Gert Ueding describes Karls May's way of writing as follows:
The plot moves stubbornly around the conflicts which are fought out between the antagonistically placed groups: At some point the conflict starts: A case of murder, a
theft, some other crime or the intention of it calls the good person(s) into action. First one group prevails, then the other; there are victims on both sides, although mostly on the bad side. At the end, the good triumphes: the villains
fail, the party of of the noble characters, often lead by a hero figure, gains the victory. (Ueding 153)
These central elements can be found in the Winnetou volumes, as the plot summaries above show. Also quite visible is the central element of movement, changing locations, hunt and pursuit which Ueding mentions elsewhere.
May's characters are usually, in E.M. Fosters sense "flat" characters, either good or bad, they usually keep their characteristics throughout the novels. and they rarely change, even though occasionally there are some characters, mostly the villain-type, that are converted into better people.
The later works; on the other hand; are quite different in style and character from the earlier adventure novels:
With the the great (in his terminology) "symbolical" novels, May's development as a writer gains an amplitude which is unparalleled in literature history. May gives up the long-cultivated central motiv of the exotical adventure novel or uses it only, as in his epic work, with an allegorical meaning. Feeling called to educate, May manages to develop and present an anthropology which, (...) surprises through its coming together, full of pictures, of psycological and social perspectives. (Lowsky 102)
The importance of the plot itself diminishes; the focus is increasingly on the characters and their motivs. The landscape in which the actions take place is not simply a setting anymore, but gains more and more symbolical meaning, it becomes a Seelenlandschaft(soul's landscape).
As sources for his works, May is known to have made extensive use of geographical and anthropological material of his time. For Winnetou I, for example; among May's sources were George Catlin's books and and a book by Albert S. Gaschet: Zwölf Sprachen aus dem Südewsten Nordamerikas (12 languages from the Southwest of Northern America) (Ueding 207)
3. The Mescalero Apache and their culture as described in the Smithsonian Handbook
The Mescalero-Apache are one of seven southern Athapaskan or Apachean speaking tribes. The others are the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Kiowa Apache, Lipan, Navajo, and Western Apache. Their territory used to be in the American Southwest, the southern plains, and northern Mexico. The Mescalero population in the Middle of the 19th century was estimated between 750 to 6000, most likely is a number of about 2500 to 3000. At the low point in 1888 there were only 431 Mescalero left. In 1981 there were a thousand people who were predominantly Mescalero in lineage.
3.1 History(8)
The Mescalero did not fare too well when Texas and New Mexico were acquired by the US. In Texas, the Federal Government had no land to create reservations and the state Texas did not intend to. The Indians were constantly driven westward. In New Mexico, the situation was not better. The Mescalero territory got increasingly filled up with settlers and gold prospectors. From 1856 on, attempts were made to bring all the Mescalero together in one reservation. One of the first attempts, made by the US-Army General Carleton, was to concentrate the Mescalero at Bosque Redondo, a forty square mile area on the Pecos River. There were up to 9000 Navajos and 500 Mescaleros concentrated there. In 1864 the situation worsened, it came to armed conflicts betwen the Mescalero and the Navajo; all the Mescalero slipped away. Finally it was recognized that the area was unsuitable for a reservation and the remaining Navajo were allowed to return home again.
Two sources make it clear how desperate the situation for the Mescalero was:
"We started north through Capitan Gap and then northeast toward the Pecos. It was a terrible journey, for the women were attacked by the soldiers, and no officer
did anything to prevent it. Mescalero women were chaste and very modest. The men could not look at each other; they could do nothing to protect the women and were ashamed ...
(9) (Lutz 339)
That place at Fort Sumner was what is now called a
concentration camp. There was nothing there for us except misery and hunger. There were no pines, no streams except the Pecos, and no game. There was not water fit for drinking...
They put men and women to work digging ditches and
digging up ground with shovels to plant corn. And once a week the soldiers gave us enough food to last perhaps two days. We were not farmers - we were fighters and hunters! Above all, we were free people, and now we were imprisoned within
picket lines and made into slaves ...
We stayed there three years, I think. I know that we planted one crop that produced much food. But the next one failed, and we were desperate.
To add to our misery, the soldiers brought in many
Navajos - maybe nine thousand - and put them above us on the river. There were only four hundred of us, and the Navajos were our enemies! They fought us; they stole our horses and our food. But, worst of all, they got a sickness from the
soldiers, - smallpox, I think. They died by the hundreds, and the soldiers maded tose who were left throw the dead bodies into the Pecos. They drifted down past our camp into stagnant pools where we had to get our drinking water. There
were worms (maggots) in the water - many many worms.
One night we left; we slipped away, very quietly, and started back to our mountains where there was pure, cold water and plenty of wood and no worms, no bad smells, no Navajos and no
soldiers."
When the Mescalero handed over their weapons to Kit Carson at Fort Sumner in 1862, Cadete, their speaker, said:
"You are stronger than we. We have fought you so long as we had rifles and powder; but your weapons are better than ours. Give us like weapons and turn us loose, we
will fight you again; but (now) we are worn out; we have no more heart; we have no provisions, no means to live; your troops are everywhere; our springs and water holes are either occupied or overlooked by your men. You have driven us from
our last and best strongholds, and we have no more heart. Do with us as may seem good to you, but do not forget that we are men and braves. (Lutz 353)
Under president Ulysses S. Grant a new peace policy went into effect with the establishment of a Board of Indian Comissioners. In 1873 a reservation was created which consisted of the eastern slopes of the White and Sacramento Mountains. The area was too small, not very suitable for farming, and, since the elevation was high, difficult to live in in the winter.
In 1877 there was a serious smallpox epidemic. In 1880 the Mescalero were lured into a corral and kept there until Victorio was killed.
In 1883 the Jicarilla were ordered to live on the Mescalero reservation as well. None of the tribes liked the situation and by 1887 all the Jicarilla had left again.
In 1877 a day school was founded, in 1881 the Albuquerque Indian School, and in 1884 a Boarding schoo was established on the reservation. In the same year Christianity was introduced to the Mescalero. In 1885 a Court of Indian Affairs was set up. A couple of Lipan were brought to the reservation in 1903, and in 1913 the majority of the 270 Chiricahua who were freed of the prisoner-of-war status they had had since 1894 decided to live on the Mescalero reservation. These three groups have intermarried and become amalgamated. The title of the Indians to the land was finally confirmed in 1922.
In the beginning the Mescalero stuck to their traditional way of living as far as possible with Local group centers away from the agency headquarters and with distance from the others.
1946 the Indian Claims Comission was established. 1948 all Indians in New Mexico were granted the franchise. 1964 the tribal constitution, first formulated in 1936, was revised. In 1982 nearly all the Mescalero live in the town of Mescalero that has grown around the ageny buildings at Tularosa Canyon.
The Mescalero did not have a strong hierarchical system. There was no leader who spoke for the whole tribe. The tribal unity was more in language, and culture than on a political level.
The most important unit was the local group. A local group consisted of up to 30 families, settled at a safe place, close to water fuel and forage to horses. The local group had a leader, but this position had to be aquired by skill and validated by perfomance, it was not a lifetime position.
A successful leader was sensitive to the views of other family heads and sought consensus rather than acceptance of his own personal views. the word for 'leader` (nant`á) has a number of component shades of meaning, such as 'he who commands`, 'he who leads', 'he who directs', 'he who advises'. (...) The local group leader (..) had to be brave in battle and generous with the spoils of war and raid, especially to the needy. He was expected to be eloquent (...) It did him no harm to possess a ceremony or two. (..) the Mescalero sense of family solidarity was strong and consequently there were frequent tests of his skills as an arbiter of disputes and of his powers of persuasion. (Ortiz 429)
The next smaller unit in the Mescalero social system is the extended family.
The resilient social unit, ready join others in common endeavours but capable of accomplishing a good deal by itself when necessary, was the extended domestic family. Ideally it was composed of a married couple, their unmarried children, their married daughters, the husbands of these women and the issue of these marriages." (Ortiz 429)
Matrilocal residence was practiced. The young men left their families when they married and lived with their wife's family. The boys were trained to develop their bodies and and skills so they would be good providers for the families they maried into. Often marriages occured within one local group but marriages outside of the local group also took place. If the man proved himself a valuable member of the local group, his influence and reputation in his new family grew. Finally he could become head of a new extended family and even leader of the local group into which he had married.
The men hunted together while the women did the housework. For the men, the changes that marriage brought with it were bigger than for the women, since their place of residence and their companions stayed the same. The obligations and ties of a man to his new family were serious and lifelong. If his wife died, her husband became'one who belongs to' his deceased wife's family, and his parents in law could request him to marry one of his wife's sisters. If he refused, he remained in the 'belonging to' category and had no chance of finding another wife. If he had been a rather poor husband and family member however, the family could tell him that he was free to go.
If a married man died, the widow became 'one who belongs to' her deceased husband' s family and the family could request that she marry one of his brothers or cousins.
Siblings of the same sex had a rather close relationship, whereas siblings of opposite sex had a distant relationship, avoided being alone together, as not to start gossip and rumors about incest.
The two components of the Mescalero economy were hunting of wild game and harvesting of wild crops. Wild animals hunted were deer, elk and buffalo, selom also birds and fish. For the buffalo hunt, a large number of men joined together, other hunting was mostly done by single men or in small groups. The successful hunter was expected to share his prey with the less successful ones.
Among the plants, agave (mescal) was the most important. It was eaten fresh., or sun-dried and stored for later use.
3.4 Religion/Mythology
There are two main characters in Mescalero religion: Child of the Water and White Painted Woman.
"(...) in the early day of man's existence, his survival is threatened by a merciless giant and several other 'monsters.' To remedy this, a divine maiden came among
the people, allowed water from overhanging rocks to drip upon her head, and miraculously conceived. She bore a son, Child of the Water, and protected him from the suspicious giant by various strategems. When the child was only four years
old, he began to challenge the monsters and in a series of daring feats, destroyed them all. The behavior of the culture hero and his mother during this stressful period and a great many objects and substances they used in vanquishing the
monsters became incorporated into Mescalero ritual practice.
After the destruction of the monsters the people prospered and multiplied. The helpful supernatural left the scene. Some of the inhabitants began to move away from the area. As they did, their language and their customs changed. One group remained in the original homeland and preserved the ancient language, usages and memory of the contribution of the supernaturals. These were the Mescalero. Though the culture hero and his mother set the pattern of ceremonial concept and behavior and were frequently mentioned in ritual songs and prayers, once they departed, they were no longer actively involved in the ongoing ceremonies. At the girl's puberty rite, the maiden impersonated White-Painted Woman, but the divine woman was thought of as a model, rather than a presence." (Ortiz 433/434)
Most Mescalero ceremonies were obtained through a supernatural experience. The Mescalero world was flooded by supernatural power. Often animals played a role in vision experiences: The animal led the individual to a holy home where the ceremony was shown and explained to him. Both men and women could obtain ceremonies. But supernatural power and its use was not without risk. Sometimes what seemed to be good at first could turn out to be evil. "The Mescalero world of shamanism and ceremony teemed with challenge and exitement, charge and countercharge. " (Ortiz 436)
Opposed to christianity, The Mescalero tried to avoid facing death. There were no elaborate funeral rites. The name of the dead person was not uttered anymore, his possessions destroyed. A clean line was drawn between the living and the dead. The land of the dead was a paradise without evil, but ghosts lingering to long in the world of the living could contaminate others.
As far as raid and warfare was concerned, The Mescalero were not different from the other Apachean tribes. A distinction was made between raid and warfare. A raid was undertaken to get things which the community needed. Object was to avoid contact with the enemy. The purpose of warfare was to avenge casualties previously suffered. Young people were thouroughly trained and prepared.
"In general, Apachean attitudes towards warfare contrasted with those of the Plains Indians. Little enthusiasm was shown for standing groundin a deteriorating
fight. the Apachean strategy was to scatter when the situation semed hopeless and to reasemble at a prearranged place. (...) The Apacheans hat little interest in the aquisition of scalps or body parts of the enemy as trophies or
embellishments for clothes, shields or dwellings. (...) Apparently the Apachean fear of contamination from the dead was instrumental in shaping this attitude." (Ortiz 375)
4.1 Historical Timeframe and Geography
The first task when examining May's picture of the west and especially when comparing it to Mescalero History, is to determine exactly when his novels are set. May himself is very helpful. In a letter to one of his readers, he wrote: "Winnetou was born 1840 and was shot on September 2nd, 1874." (Koch 105) But there is other evidence as well.
In his book "Indianer" and "Native Americans" Hartmut Lutz, apparently not knowing the letter mentioned above, tried to deduce a possible timeframe as follows:
The timeframe of the novel can be deduced from informations given in the text. It is definitely between 1849 (year of the revolution, in which Klekhi-petra escapes) and
1892 ( date given in the introduction). Since Klekhi-petra went "into the wilderness" and later on became Winnetou's mentor amongst the Apache (...) whose development he possibly accompanied during Winnetou's whole life, the
seventies can be supposed. the name of the Railroad company Old Shatterhand is working for implies that Karl May had specific conceptions. He calls the railroad company "Atlantic and Pacific Company" and lets it be planned from
St. Louis to the Californian coast of the pacific.Within this route, there is indeed a section of one "Atlantic Pacific R.R." which connects the "Atchinson Topeka and Santa Fe R.R." coming from St. Louis via Kansas
City, which reached Albuqerque in 1880, with the "Southern Pacific R.R." which it was linked to in 1883 at Mojave. This railroad track runs slightly northwest of the territory supposedly measured by Old Shatterhand, but there is
also the track of the Southern Pacific Railroad, running south from there, close to the Mexican Border, from California to Texas.
(10) of the Mescalero, for example, is supposed to be located at the Pecos River (..) From there, Winnetou and Old Shatterhand ride between the area where the Pecos has its spring and the Canadian River (northern arm) eastward and follow the Red River until where the Kiowa village is located, at the meeting of "the North Fork and the Salt Fork of the Red River" (...)
The geographical area in which Winnetou I is set can be defined even more precisely, not only through the
railroad routes given, but because of detailed information about places. The pueblo
Altogether, this geographical information given is surprisingly accurate; Old Shatterhand and Winnetou, coming from New Mexico crossed the northern part of Texas and are now in Oklahoma, on the border to Texas. ( Lutz 337)
Using the informations given in the novels and elsewhere one can assume that the actions described in the Winnetou I - III novels take place approximately between the years 1860 and 1874. By that time however, the Mescalero were not the free people anymore that May describes. Between 1862 and 1865 they were forced to live at Bosque Redondo and in shortly after 1870 the White Mountain reservation was founded. Nothing of this can be found in the novels. Lutz suggests that May, when he put the Mescalero "pueblo" (see below) on the Rio Pecos, he must have thought about Fort Sumner, without realizing that this was not where the Apache originally lived and what kind of situation the Mescalero had to live in there. (Lutz 342)
To determine the May's grade of accuracy when using Indian languages, will not be attempted here.But there is an interesting passage about May's use of English, in the article "The American West of Karl May" by Richard H. Cracroft:
(...) "authentic" use of English dots nearly every page of May's works, leading some German scholars to declare seriously that there must be some truth in his
claim to having spent several years in America. But to the American reader the English phrases and slang are not convincing; "Zounds," "S'Death," "Lackaday," "Thounderation,""the deuce",
"Woe to me," and "anno Pocahontas" do not ring familiar to the western ear; nor does "pshaw," which May calls the favourite word of frontiersmen. "( Cracroft 254)
What can easily be said about May's picture of the Indian languages is, that he claims that the two most frequently used Indian words are "Uff" and "Howgh". Lutz counts that in Winnetou I, "Uff!" is used 83 times and "Howgh!" is used 29 times. (Lutz 345).
This leads Cracroft to write with slight amusement:
May does allow Winnetou to use "Howgh", that one word which he claims all tribes have in common, and Winnetou invariably ends a deliberation with
"Howgh, ich habe gesprochen" ("I have spoken") after which the other natives will reply "Uff, Uff," another ubiquitous term which means, says May, "admiration, astonishment, scorn or surprise - depending on the context." Hence, as any German boy can testify, these two words, Howgh and Uff,
have become an integral part of the the German western idiom. (Cracroft 255/56)
4.3 Selected details from Winnetou I - IV
The plot-summary gives a rough overview of what is going on in the books and will serve as a framework for the following details or passages The selection is not exhaustive or complete. Chosen were passages that can be contrasted quite easily to the information given in the Smithsonian Handbook.
Winnetou is the son of Intschu tschuna, chief of the Mescalero. After the death of his father dies, he inherits the title and position. The Mescalero however, had no chief for the
entire tribe, especially not with the kind of absolute power that Winnetou or Intschut schuna have. There were local group leaders, but even they governed based on the consensus among the people and their office was not hereditary.
4.3.2 The Apache Pueblo (Winnetou I)
Old Shatterhand has been captured by the Apache, has recovered from his heavy wounds and takes now a look at his surroundings.
Until now I had only read about Indian pueblos, but had never seen one. They are built for the purpose of self defense and their construction, peculiar as it is, meets
that purpose extremely well. They are mostly filling deep gaps in the rocks, are completely made of stone, and consist of several floors, the number depending on the locality. Each floor moves back from the one underneath it, creating a
platform consisting of the roof of the underlying floor. The whole structure has the appearance of a step-pyramide, whose floors recede into the rock,;the higher they are the more and deeper. The ground floor, therefore, is the one most
forward and the largest, with the higher floors becoming increasingly smaller. They are not, as in our houses, connected with stairs in the interior, instead, you can reach them only with the aid of ladders, which can be put up and taken
away. If an enemy approaches, the ladders are taken away, and he cannot get up there, or only if he has brought ladders with him. But even in this case he would have to take each floor seperately end expose himself to the projectiles of
the defenders, while they themselves are safe from his arms.
In such a pyramid pueblo was I now, probably on the eighth or ninth floor." (I, 161)
What May describes here seems to be a pueblo village which for example the Zuni or Hopi lived in ( see Spencer 272). The Mescalero however were a very mobile people that lived in a wickiup, "consisting of a framework of sturdy but pliable branches covered with grass thatching or hides" (Ortiz 433) (in the mountains) or in a skin tepee (on the plains). Maybe May confused these two southwestern cultures.
4.3.3) Winnetou and his sister
Winnetou and his sister Nscho-Tschi have a very close relationship. Once, in his training of Old Shatterhand, Winnetou carries his sister, to make trailing her difficult for Old Shatterhand, who however, finds them and hiding watches a scene where Winetou even touches and caresses his sister. By doing this, Winnetou and his sister do everything Mescalero siblings of the opposite sex were not allowed to do. The whole relationship is a very intimate one, far more intimate than what was tolerated in the Mescalero culture.
Winnetou's father and sister, after being shot by the white villain, Santer, are now buried at the place where they died.
Intschu-Tschuna's corpse was bound on his horse, after which earth was piled up around them until the animal could move no more. Then it got a bullet in the head. The
earth-pile was made higher until it covered the rider, and at last several layers of stone were put above it up to the top. (...)
Nscho-Tschi got (...) a different grave. I did not want to have her covered with earth so directly. We
raised her at the trunk of a tree in a sitting position,and piled up stones around her, making a stable, hollow pyramid, out of whose top the crown of the tree towered.
I was at the Nugget-Tsil several times together with Winnetou, to
visit the graves. We always found them undisturbed." (279)
Winnetou's attitude towards his dead father and sister is a rather Christian one. It is however quite untypical for the "horror of the dead" (Spencer 269), that prevailed in the Mescalero culture.
4.3.5 The Medicine Man of all: Tatellah Satah
In Winnetou IV, Old Shatterhand gets a letter from a legendary medicine man, Tatellah Satah.
Tatellah-Satah is a name coming from the Taos-language, which, translated literally, means "Thousand Suns" but which in actual usage, really means
"Thousand Years". His bearer therefore was of such an unusual, even extraordinary age, that it was impossible to determine it. Neither was it known, where he was born. He did not belong to any particular tribe. He was equally
respected by all red people and nations. The talents and the knowledge of hundreds and hundreds of medicine men who had lived throughout the years, were all attributed to him ,the one who had risen highest. (...) (IV, 14)
Considering the extreme diversity of cultures and religious beliefs that is found among the North American Indians, it seems highly unlikely that a figure like Tatellah Satah, respected as an authority by all the tribes, could ever have existed. In the literature consulted for this paper no such figure was ever mentioned.
4.3.6 The Indians and their medicine bundles
Right after the passage cited above, there is a long description of how the Indians got to the custom of having medicine bundles and calling them so.
When the Indians met the white people, they saw, heard, and got to know a lot which impressed them immensely. But they were most astonished by the effects of our drugs
and our medicine. The predictability and the thoroughness of these effects was beyond their comprehension. They recognized the infinite size of the divine love, which showed itself in this gift of heaven to mankind.
They heard the word "medicine" for the first time and they connected with it the terms "wonder", or "blessing"; they connected with it divine love and the for humans incomprehensible secret acting of holiest concealment. In short the the term "medicine" became synonymous with the word "mystery". They introduced it into all their languages and dialects. Everything connected with their religion, their faith and their search for eternal things was called "medicine." In the same way, the term was applied to all the facts of European science and civilisation, which they could not comprehend because they knew neither their beginnings nor their development. They were honest enough to admit unreservedly that the advantages of the pale faces were more numerous and bigger then the ones of the red people. (IV, 14)
This passage (like the one above) has to be seen in the context of May's later work.
May presents here the philosophical bilance of his age, however this may be judged from a intellectual, aesthetical or ideological viewpoint. It it nothing less as a, by
then complete, (...) and world-connecting mythology, a cosmopolitic utopia of peace and reconciliation. (Scholdt 323)
Therefore the Indian race is in May's work becomes more and more a component of his allegorical schemes, rather than being a realistically portrayed entity. From a scientific viewpoint the passage is to be viewed rather critically. It would require more effort than the answer to the question is actually worth to find out whether all Indian people did indeed introduce the word medicine into all their languages but it appears highly unlikely. It appears highly unlikely as well, especially considering all the experiences the Native Americans had with the white intruders, that they did indeed connect anything like wonder or blessing with them.
Winnetou is the most prominent Indian figure in Karl May's work. In his article "Winnetou was born 1840 und wurde erschossen am 2.9.1874 "(the title is a May citation) Eckehard Koch searches for a historical model for Winnetou. He defines some criteria for the search, the most important of which are the following:
- son of an important chief who was killed by white men
- white teacher
- white blood-brother
- noble-minded; peace-loving, education., friednly attitude towards the white people
- year of death 1874:
One famous Apache that is often named as a model for Winnetou, and whom Kochnames as well, is the Chiracuhua Chief Cochise. He had a white man, Tom Jeffords as a close friend-brother, made several attempts to to make treaties and live in peace with the US-Army and his year of death is 1874. One detail that might connect Winnetou and Cochise can be found in Dee Brown's book: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee; there is the following dialogue between Cochise and his white friend Tom Jeffords:
As he was preparing to leave, Cochise asked: "Do you think you will se me alive again?"
Jeffords replied with the frankness of a brother: “No, I do not think I will.”
"I think I will die about ten o' clock tomorrow morning. Do you think we will see each other again?"
Jeffords was silent for a moment. "I don't know. What do you think about it?"
"I don't know," Cochise answered. "It is not clear to my mind, but I think we will, somewhere up there." (Brown 211)
In Winnetou III, shortly before Winnetou dies, there is a very similar dialogue. Winnetou feels that he will die shortly. Old Shaterhand, however cannot keep him from joining the upcoming fight, in which Winnetou gets indeed mortally wounded.
Another possibility is Wanata(!) son of Red Thunder, the chief of the Pabaksa band of the Yanktonai indians. Red Thunder and his son fought under Tecumseh's leadership against the Americans in the second British- American War, in which Wanata emerged as a hero. There was a white man who a was a friend of the family. His name was Robert Dickson, he was a trader, and he married Red Thunder's sister. Later in his life, Wanata became one of the most respected Dakota leaders, made a treaty concerning trade with the Americans in 1825 and made peace with the Chippewa, his former enemies. Wanata was even in Britain, after the war.
Tecumseh himself is another likely candidate to be Winnetou's model. His personality and potential could surely have seved May in creating Winnetou. Tecumseh's father was killed 1774 by the whites. (11)
However, Koch himself has the very interesting thesis that the real model for Winetou is - a Pawnee chief. Since this thesis is quite convincing and, opposed to some of the other possibilities mentioned above, little has been written about this one, it seems worthwhile to discuss it a little bit more extensively.
His name is Petalesharo, and he was the son of Lachalesharoh (Knife Chief), head of the Skidi-Pawnee. He was brave and good-looking, and ended the morning-star sacrifice through his personal courage.
Directly before the killing Pitalesharo(12)
jumped up, positioned himself before the girl that was already bound on the scaffold (...) and cut the girl loose. He put her on his horseand rode away with her.
Pitalesharo is said to have been riding with the girl for four daysuntil they reached the Arakansas River, where he supplied her with provisions and instructed her about her way home. (Schroeter 90)
This is a deed that is indeed quite similar to some of those of Winnetou in May's novels. For it, Petalesharo received an award from a female seminary which was given to him in New York during a journey of a delegation of Pawnee chiefs to several cities of the east. In 1825 he signed a peace-treaty with the U.S. in Fort Atkinson. After that, not much is heard of him anymore, it is unclear when he died.(13)
There was another Petalesharo who was born in 1823. He again, tried to make peace with the U.S. and fought the Morning-Star ritual. In the life of this Petalesharo there is even an Old Shatterhand-like figure. His name was Frank North (1840 - 1885), and he was the leader of the Pawnee Company of the US-Army. The Pawnee called him Pani La Shar (Pawnee chief) and gave him the title White Wolf. Petalesharo himself died in 1874 after being shot in the leg.(14)
Could May have known about both of these Petalesharos?
Koch says he could. The literary source could have been Charles Sealsfield's bookTokeah and the White Rose. Sealsfield was a German who, different from May, had lived in the USA for several years. The book appeared in Germany, in a different form, under the title Der Legitime und der Republikaner (The Legitimate and the Republican). In this book, there is a character called El Sol. El Sol is a Pawnee chief, whose character and appearance are very similar to that of Winnetou. Koch has no proof ( in fact he avoids the question), wheter El Sol in Sealsfield's book is really modeled after Petalesharo. However, the resemblances are striking. And whether or not El Sol is Petalesharo, the probability that El Sol served as a model for May in creating Winnetou is quite high.
There is one small detail that Koch does not mention: At some point in Winnetou I, during their pursuit of Santer, Winnetou and Old Shatterhand have to disguise themselves. Old Shatterhand instructs Winnetou:
I am the subordinate of an agent and, in this function, have to go to the Kiowas, but I don't understand theirt language. That is why I have taken you with me. You are a
Pawnee." (I, 299)
Maybe this is a small, subtle hint of May's towards his real model for Winnetou.
One problem with all of these theories is that even if it is possible to prove that May could have known about all these persons and incidents (which in many cases is difficult enough), it is virtually impossible that he actually did. It seems probable that he knew about some, did not know about others and then, with his rich imagination created an ideal noble Indian and friend to his alter ego, Old Shatterhand. But a look at these historical figures shows that, while there never was a Mescalero Chief Winnetou, there were men like him, and even a friendship between an Indian Chief and a white hunter was not unheard of.
5. Possible reasons and explanations for the discrepancies between May's work and reality
Whie this work is not even close to presenting a comprehensive account of May's picture of the American West, the examples given are sufficient to show that his picture is not a realistic one.
The first reason why his picture is so unrealistic is almost embarrassingly simple. May had never seen the country or the people he kept describing. But beside explaining many factual errors, there is even a sense behind this, which might be the second reason:
By now there is a consensus that this fact can be explained mostly with the pecularities of May's life and his psychological reactions towards it. May was apparently not
able to cope with the conflicts and suffering that shaped his first decades with rational and realistic self-refletion; on the other hand he did not simply repress them, but lived them out in fantasies that even in their basis lead away
from the here and now. (...) Under such circumstances knowledge of the location chosen is not only unnessecary, it would even be an obstacle. This becomes evident after May's big journey through the orient: Afterwards he is not able to
continue as before. His texts follow new ambitions and therefore change in form and content. (Ueding 148)
Cracroft has the same opinion:. For May, writing adventure stories was a way to escape his past and his personal shortcomings:
Thus May's seventy volumes on Arabia and the American West (and even a volume on poetry) remain a mirror of his inner, richly imaginative life as portrayed through Old
Shatterhand (or Kara Ben Nemsi), the heroic embodiment of those virtues May felt had been robbed of him by an unsympathetic, unforgiving world. Old Shatterhand's superhuman, Teutonic figure roving about the Never-Neverland on the American
frontier provided May with a vicarious enjoyment and respite and respite from the realities of his life. (Cracroft 251)
Independent of how close to reality they are, the impact of May's novels has been enormous. There are even accounts like these:
(...) few German readers have been able to resist May's image as the bona fide image. Today in Germany, according to Dr. Frank Jonas, professor of political science at
the University of Utah, U.S. state departement personell are urged to read Karl May in order to understand better German views of the United States and her citizens. (Cracroft 258)
This last observation can be contrasted with one of the author's own, asking the owner of a used bookshop for some authentic May volumes. "I never really got into that. I mean, o.k., we've all read it when we were young, but else, it's rubbish." But still, May's work is widesprea and has become part of the German culture. How big May's influence was and still is and whether that influence was rather beneficial, creating a sympathetic attitude towards the Indian people, or rather negative, presenting the Native people from a colonialistic viewpoint, is an often discussed question and all possible opinions are present.. But it seems likely that, for example, Hollywood movies, from John Wayne to Dances With Wolfes have had an impact as least as strong, especially in more recent times.
May's work as a whole can probably only be tryle understood seeing the entire network of May's biography, character, and existence and development as a writer. His family situation, his personal experiences during his youth, his overboarding fantasy combined with the longing for recognition led to a body of work that is truly amazing. The aspects of it that this paper is concerned with are within this network, shaped by all of its components. They are reason and explanation for the flaws and mistakes that are undoubtedly there.
So can one still enjoy these novels knowing about their flaws? Besides the aspects presented in this paper, there are many others that can (but do not have to be) viewed critically. May has been called an imperialist (Lutz) or a pacifist (Augstein)and, for example whether his view of the Native Americans is sympathetic and tender or arrogant and demeaning is (or maybe both) is discussed controversely, even though when one reads the novels it seems rather that May has a highly Christian attitude towards other human beings; it is just that he is caught in the public opinons of the time and society he was living in. Maybe one can still appreiciate and understand his novels a bit better just because one knows about their faulty sides, enjoying a thrilling narrative when it is there, taking some distance where neccessary.
6. Bibliography
Primary Sources:
May, Karl. Winnetou I. Wien: Ueberreuter, 1951.
May, Karl. Winnetou II. Wien: Ueberreuter, 1951.
May, Karl. Winnetou III. Bamberg: Bayerische Verlagsanstalt, 1951.
May, Karl. Winnetous Erben. Wien: Ueberreuter, 1960.
May, Karl: Mein Leben und Streben. Hildesheim: Olms, 1975.
Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. New York: Washington Square Press, 1981.
Ortiz, Alfonso (ed). Handbook of North American Indians. Volume 10: outhwest. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1983.
Schroeter, Willi. Religion and Mythologie der Pawnee. Wyk auf Foehr: Verlag für Amerikanistik, 1994.
Spencer, Robert F.; Jesse D. Jennings; et al. The Native Americans. New York: Harper and Row,1977.
Secondary Sources:
Augstein, Rudolf. "Weiter Weg zu Winnetou." Der Spiegel 18 (1995). 130 - 144.
Cracroft, Richard H. "The American West of Karl May". American Quarterly 19, (1967). 249 - 258.
Koch, Eckehard. "Winnetou war geboren 1840 und erschossen am 2.9.1874. Zum historischen Hintergrund der Winnetou-Gestalt". Karl May's Winnetou. ed. Sudhoff, Dieter
and Hartmut Vollmer. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1989. 105 - 147
Lowsky; Martin. Karl May. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1987.
Lutz, Hartmut. "Indianer" und "Native Americans". Zur sozial- und literatur-historischen Vermittlung eines Stereotyps. Hildesheim: Olms, 1985.
Ueding, Gert (ed). Karl May Handbuch. Stuttgart: Kröner, 1987.
Scholdt, Günther. "Winnetou IV." Schmiedt, Helmut (ed). Karl May. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1983.
Schmiedt, Helmut (ed). Karl May. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1983.
Sudhoff, Dieter; Hartmut Vollmer (ed). Karl May's Winnetou. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1989.
2.) There are still about a quarter of a milion copies of his works sold every year (Spiegel 18, May 1st, 1995). The field of literarary criticism has increasingly discovered May within the last two decades. Most anthologies used for this paper have appeared since 1980.
3.) All translations of German primary or secondary sources are made by the author, if not explicitely mentioned otherwise. If sometimes srtylistic peculiarities occur, especially in the translations from May's novels, this may sometimes be the translator's fault; sometimes, however, the style is quite peculiar in the German original already.
4.) In the original German text, Lowksy uses the word Pseudologe, probably meaning: an expert in all things -psuedo
5.) There is an undeniable problem concerning the primary texts. The only complete edition on the market, the edition of the Karl-May Verlag in Bamberg, is as Lowsky puts is it, "uncitable." (Lowsky 4), because of extreme editing by the publishing house. In Winnetou I, for example, there are 11000 variations compared to the first edition. (Lowsky 4). There have been several attempts of historic-critical editions, none of which are on the market at the moment. There have been some reprints, even by the Karl May-Verlag himself, but the edition most popular and circulated is still the extremely edited one by the Karl-May-Verlag. This edition has also been the basis for this paper, partly because it is almost impossible to get other editions, partly because this is the May most Germans know.
6.) All Indian names are written as May used them, regardless of incongruities ore factual errors on his part
7.) For a more detailed analysis of the stucture and content of Winnetou IV see Ueding, 320 - 325.
8.) Since May's works are set in the time after 1850, this historical overview starts at the time when the titles to the lands of New Mexico and Texas were acquired by the U:S
9.) These are the words of "Big Mouth", (Interpreted by his son; Percy) in Indeh, an Apache Indian Odyssey, by Eve Ball, with Nory Henn and Lynda Sanchez (Provo, Utah: Bingham Young University Press, 1980).
11.) For a more detailed comparison between Tecumseh and Winnetou, see Durzak, M. "Winnetou and Tecumseh. Literarische Ikone und historisches Bild." Karl May's Winnetou. ed. Sudhoff, Dieter and Hartmut Vollmer. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1989. 105 - 147
12.) Schroeter uses the variation Pitalesharo.
13.) Schroeter suggests that he died some time around 1830. (Schroeter 91)
14.) Koch writes that Dunbar confused both Petalesharos, merging them into one. Schroeter seems to make the same mistake: He writes about Petalesharo I., who died in his thirties, but in his book there are pictures of Petalesharo as an old man, probably Petalesharo II
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