Indianerfilme and the Conquest of the American West

Abstract

For a viewer familiar with the Western genre, the first East German Western, The Sons of Great Mother Bear, may not seem initially to differ from any traditional American Western.¹ In the opening scene, a group of Anglo-Americans are playing cards and drinking in a saloon. There are also two Native Americans present, sitting in a remote corner. The older Native American agrees to join the Anglo-Americans, while his son refuses even to acknowledge their presence. The son is also the only person in the saloon who is not drinking. His father, it appears, must have known and trusted the leading white gambler who calls him “my red brother.” The friendship between Red Fox, an experienced Anglo-American frontiersman, the white frontiersman, and the older Indian proves to be fleeting once the frontiersman discovers a gold nugget in the hand of the Indian. Red Fox kills the Indian when the Indian refuses to tell him where gold can be found. Then the story follows the well-known pattern: as more and more gold-hungry whites arrive, the Indians must either leave their homeland or fight off the invaders. War appears imminent. Indeed, “if this were a Hollywood Western, John Wayne would fight off the ‘redskins’ single-handedly before riding off into a prairie sunset.”² Instead, not only does Tokeiihto manage to avenge the death of his father, but he also manages to protect his tribe from extermination by leading them to a new homeland.