Winnetou and the (Mescalero) Apaches

Silke-Katrin Kunze

may 2002 · GRIN Verlag

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Project Report from the year 2001 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,0 (A), Dresden Technical University (Institute for Anglistics/American Studies), course: GLC 6 Project, language: English, abstract: When I was a teenager I read several of those books written by Karl May that are set in the "Wild West." I was very impressed, not only by the "Winnetou" trilogy but also because I knew Karl May never went there. - [...] - Ever since then I have wondered about the accuracy and truth of his writings, which I now was given the chance to investigate by visiting a particular state, one he has also used for several of his plots, Arizona. Before I crossed the ocean by plane on January 20, 2000, I knew I would be spending two weeks in Globe, Arizona, adjacent to the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, and four weeks in Dragoon, Arizona, at the Amerind Foundation, the former to see how a special group of Native Americans is living today, the latter to view reference books. At both places I conducted a depth interview and compared my results to Karl May′s "Winnetou" trilogy, which I read once more. By doing so, I most of all wanted to find out how accurate Karl May describes the country, his characters, and their customs, but also how much exposure certain Americans had had to his works so far, and what their reactions would be to an extract of it, the "Winnetou" trilogy. With these aims in mind, I conducted my research. I chose interesting passages from the aforementioned trilogy for both my questionnaire and interview questions, which I later asked the native speakers to fill out and answer. In order not to leave out historical research, I visited the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, and at the Amerind Foundation I surveyed at least ten reference books about Native American peoples, their history and culture. As a result of this research my aims were well fulfilled: Firstly, there are certain topics I can disagree or agree with Karl May about, to various degrees. Secondly, I am more familiar with the exposure that the people I talked to had to Karl May before I stepped into their lives, and thirdly, I experienced their reactions to the events in the "Winnetou" trilogy. These results met my two expectations: one, Karl May was no historian, and two, his works should be promoted more aggressively in the American Southwest, if not the entire United States.