The Ashlar

April 1947

 

Did Dad ever tell you that when he was a youngster, one of the games, or pastimes then, perhaps even more than today, was Cowboys and Indians? And the natural yell every boy made at the start was "I'll be the cowboy - you be the Indian!"

Out in La Junta, Colorado, the boys are interested only in being the Indian. And there's good reason for this. Anyone who has been to La Junta has probably seen the Koshare Indians in their beads and feathers, dancing around the council fire to the weird rhythms of the Great Medicine Drum.

Only they aren't real Indians. They are Boy Scouts - boys named Harkins and Wilson and McGonigle and Rizzuto, and other such ordianry American names. It may be hard to believe, for these Koshare Indian Dancers - officially Troop 230 of the Rocky Mountain Council of the Boy Scouts of America - are the world's greatest paleface interpreters of the ways of the Red Man.

When J. F. Burshears (Buck to every boy in town) started the project, back in the early '30's, he was simply merging two personal interests: scouting and Indian lore. He had been the first Eagle Scout in the Arkansas Valley, and was Scoutmaster of his old troop by the time he went away to Colorado College. At college, he began a collection of Indian jewelry, weapons and costumes which has grown into one of the most colorful in existence. But when he came home and started getting his Boy Scouts dressed up in Indian outfits and dancing Indian dances, most La Junta people smiled, and joked about "Buck's brats."

It is a distinction in La Junta today to be one of Buck's brats. Until Buck started the Koshare (a Pueblo Indian word pronounced Ko-shar-ey and meaning playmaker), La Junta boys seldom stayed in scouting beyond the time when the fuzz began to form on their cheeks. But Indian dancing - that was something else again! Many of the youngsters have grown up and been away to college, or to war, but they still count themselves among the brats. At last year's show, more than 20 "old" chiefs, back from military service, were out dancing in full Indian regalia. One even had his own papoose along - also in full costume.

It's Real Indian Country
La Junta is a railroad town of some 15,000 people. Kit Carson, great-grandson of the original Kit, works in the freight depot. The countryside still abounds in flint arrowheads and other Indian relics, and a few miles out beyond the railroad tracks are the picturesque rocks among which the Indians used to camp.

Real Troopers
Since its first exhibition of Indian dancing, over ten years ago, the Koshare has put on more than 250 performances, and has developed a repertory of some 35 dances, many of which even the surviving Indians had forgotten. The boys dig them out of the literature of the past (the La Junta Public Library has a special shelf of Indian lore).

The annual spring ceremonial show in La Junta, usually in June, is the biggest performance of the season, as many as a hundred dancers participating. Throughout the summer, the Koshares put on performances in other towns within a 300-mile radius. Once, scheduled a perform in Denver at a Rotary International convention, one committee member balked at the idea of watching a bunch of Boy Scouts play Indian. Buck Burshears still has the letter he received afterward from this same man, saying how much he liked the show. Yes, they look like real Indians.

The Boys Love It
Originally just one of the projects of an ordianry scout troop, there were soon so many boys flocking into Buck's den that the place wouldn't hold them, and before too long the Koshare had to be confined only to First Class Scouts. Membership has become a privilege toward which La Junta youngsters work almost from the cradle. The city has more Boy Scouts per capita than any other town in the Rocky Mountain Council, and claims more Eagle Scouts, in proportion to its size, than any other in the country. And they don't believe it's kid stuff, for twenty-six members became Eagle Scouts while they were in the armed forces.

Not A Bad Boy In Town
La Junta has another proud boast. It has one of the lowest juvenile delinquency rates in the country. And the two facts quite evidently go together. Buck puts it this way: "The boys get so deep in Indian lore they don't have time - nor inclination - to hang around pool halls or get into mischief."

Rain-Maker
In a performance in Kansas last spring, the boys did their spectacular Snake Dance, a traditional supplication for rain. Two hours later rain drenched the Kansas wheat fields which were all but devastated by a long dry spell.

"Brother," said one rancher to one of the boys' fathers, "what those boys have done is worth ten million dollars." "Brother," came the reply, "you're low on that estimate. And I'm not talking about the rain making."