The history of the famous counting song begins in the North American States in the 1860s. It was then that Septimus Winner, an author from Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, North in the Civil War), wrote the song “Ten Little Indians” based on folk humor.

After some time, as part of a cultural exchange, the song ended up in Victorian England and was enthusiastically accepted into the then light theatrical shows, but previously underwent some changes. Английский автор-песенник Фрэнк Грин адаптировал текст под потребности времени и места, переписав некоторые строки и поменяв индейцев на негритят (точнее негров - niggers). But this had to be changed not only because blacks, more than Indians, are understandable to the European public. An important point It was that at that time, techniques were popular in entertainment genres in which actors grotesquely made up themselves as blacks and performed their numbers in this form. This image feature existed for quite a long time and was later actively used in jazz - “white” music passed off as “black”, which can be seen in newsreels of the first half of the 20th century.

As a result, this English version of F. Greene about “Ten Little Indians” became canonical literary, and in this form returned to America, where it was luxuriously published in 1890 in the form of a colorful children’s book, becoming one of the brightest artifacts of the “Golden Age of Children’s Literature.” "

In some ways, “Ten Little Indians” is the same North American classic as “The Wizard of Oz” or “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” but it is unlikely that in the current format of society, anyone perceives it that way. The “racist” background is much easier to see here than the lively humor and signs of the time. In fact, there is no racism there - people thought so then, they lived in such a world. In addition, slavery was abolished, the black population began to acquire rights. The prospects were excellent.

The counting song about black children received powerful PR and popularity from a new side after the release of Agatha Christie's detective novel of the same name in 1939. However, during reprints, the book, for politically correct reasons, changed its title several times to “Ten Little Indians,” “And Then There Were None.” In the 70s, the novel was seemingly republished under the original title - “Ten Little Indians”, but still in the English-language segment of world literature it is better known as “Ten Little Indians”. In our country, due to the absence of problems with blacks and slavery, the book was always published under its native title, and in 1987 a famous film was made.

I accidentally discovered photographs of the miracle book at an online auction. There was no cover, and, accordingly, there was no left side of the picture on the first spread. I don’t remember what text was used in A. Christie’s book and the film and I don’t want to look for it, so I offer my free translation with semantic reference to the illustrations.

Ten little black kids gathered for a ride.
One sold his bike - there were nine left.

Nine little black kids had a blast half the night.
One slept through the fun, the eight of them remained.

Eight little blacks drove 10 miles.
One got stuck on the road, but seven made it.

Seven blacks were trying to chop wood in the yard.
One overdid it, and six were left.

Six little blacks were playing with beehives in the apiary.
One was severely bitten, and five escaped.

Five black boys were sorting out cases in court.
One went to prison, and four ran away.

Four black children went swimming in the sea.
One was eaten by a fish, and there were three left.

Three little black boys in the menagerie laughed loudly.
One bear was captured, but two escaped.

It was hot in the sun for two little black boys at noon.
One went crazy, the other was lucky.

The latter did not experience loneliness for long.
He married successfully. And there are no blacks left...

At the end I would like to give a sample of our Russian urban folklore on the theme of ten little black men. I recall from childhood:

Ten little Indians went swimming in the sea,
Ten little Indians frolicked in the open space.
One of them drowned
They bought him a coffin.
And here's the result:

Nine little Indians went swimming in the sea...

None of the little blacks go swimming in the sea,
None of the little blacks frolic in the open air.
But then one resurrected
They bought him a cross.
And here's the result:

One of the little black kids goes for a swim in the sea...

And so on until all ten are resurrected, and then begin to drown again...
This is such metempsychosis, such is the cycle of blacks in nature. Our little blacks never disappear “for no reason, no matter what”, they always come back...

THE STORY OF THE DISAPPEARANCE OF AGATHA CHRISTIE The most mysterious and unsolved work of Agatha Christie so far was her own disappearance. In December 1926, after her husband asked her for a divorce, admitting that he had fallen in love with another woman. Agatha Christie disappeared, and for 11 days almost the entire country was looking for her. Agatha Christie left her home in Berkshire on December 3, 1926, driving away in her Morris Cowley. The next morning, she abandoned the car, which had parking tickets on the windshield, near a chalk quarry. The car was soon discovered, and a fur coat and an expired driver's license were found inside. Christie herself got to the nearest railway station and left for London, and from there she moved to North Yorkshire (northern England). Subsequently, the writer introduced herself everywhere as Teresa Neal (the surname coincided with the surname of Nancy Neal, to whom her husband was about to leave). She chose a fashionable hotel at a hydrotherapy resort for her anonymous stay. At this time, the fugitive was already missed, and the news about the car abandoned in the wilderness gave rise to the most alarming rumors. The story was picked up by newspapers and radio, and a police investigation began. Fans of the detective queen, as befits their favorite genre, began to build theories about the murder. For several days, Archibald Christie fought off attacks from the press and questions about his involvement in the incident. Answering reporters, he did not mention his own intrigue. Such an explanation for his wife's disappearance would undoubtedly destroy his reputation. On the fifth day, the Daily Mail began to assure its readers that the missing woman had a revolver with her and could have shot herself. Meanwhile, Agatha Christie herself went to the post office to advertise in The Times. The message asked for responses from friends and family of Teresa Neil, who had recently arrived in the UK from South Africa. The fugitive was discovered after an appeal from hotel guests, who a week later finally identified the traveler as the heroine of the front pages of British newspapers. Soon Archibald arrived at the hotel with the knowledge of the police. When they met, Agatha introduced herself to him as Teresa Neal. Mr. Christie told the press that his wife had experienced amnesia and had trouble defining her own self. This version is still alive today - its supporters believe that due to stress, the writer was struck by a dissociative fugue (short-term memory disorder). After examination, doctors confirmed amnesia. Agatha Christie herself never commented on the most mysterious episode of her biography. In her autobiography, December 1926 is not mentioned at all. Perhaps there was no amnesia, and everything turned out to be simpler. In England at that time, divorces were granted only in exceptional cases, were considered something out of the ordinary and often entailed public disgrace. Christie, who was already a prominent figure in British literature, was shocked by the possibility of a scandal that would cause divorce proceedings. By the way, the writer never liked the annoying press. Whatever caused Agatha Christie to stun England with her disappearance, her quarrel with her husband still ended in divorce, the certificate of which was issued in 1928. Just two weeks later, Archibald married Nancy Neal. The writer, along with her nine-year-old daughter, went to the Canary Islands, where she completed the novel “The Secret of the Blue Train.” photo: Mr. and Mrs. Christie after their wedding (1914).

Collins Crime Club
Word
AST, Eksmo, Manager, ABC

256 (first edition)

978-0-00-713683-4

Plot

Ten complete strangers (except for one married couple) come to Negro Island at the invitation of Mr. and Mrs. A. N. Onim (Alec Norman Onim and Anna Nancy Onim). There are no onims on the island. In the living room there is a tray with ten porcelain little angels, and in the room of each of the guests there is a children's rhyme reminiscent of Ten Green Bottles:

When the guests gather in the living room, the butler Rogers, according to the written order Onim left for him, turns on the gramophone. The guests hear a voice that accuses them of committing murders.

• Dr. Armstrong operated on an elderly woman, Mary Elizabeth Klees, while drunk, resulting in her death.
• Emily Brent kicked a young servant, Beatrice Taylor, out of the house after learning that she became pregnant out of wedlock; the girl drowned herself.
• Vera Claythorne was the nanny of Cyril Hamilton, who stood in the way of her lover Hugo's inheritance. While swimming, Vera allowed the boy to swim behind a rock - as a result, he fell into the current and drowned.
• Police officer William Henry Blore gave false testimony in court, which led to the imprisonment of the innocent Landor in hard labor, where he died a year later.
• John Gordon MacArthur During the war, he sent his subordinate, his wife’s lover Arthur Richmond, to certain death.
• Philip Lombard threw 20 people, natives of the East African tribe into the veld, stealing all the provisions, leaving them to certain death.
• Thomas and Ethel Rogers, while serving Miss Brady, an elderly sick woman, did not give her medicine on time; she died leaving the Rogerses a small inheritance.
• Anthony Marston ran over two children, John and Lucy Combe, with a car.
• Lawrence John Wargrave sentenced Edward Seaton to death.

The boat that brought the guests does not return, a storm begins and the guests get stuck on the island. They begin to die one after another, in accordance with the children's rhyme about little blacks whose statuettes disappear with each death.

Marston dies first - there is potassium cyanide in a glass of whiskey. Rogers notices that one of the porcelain babies has disappeared.

The next morning Mrs. Rogers dies; a lethal dose of sleeping pills was mixed into her glass. The judge states that Onim is most likely a dangerous maniac and murderer. The men search the island and the house, but find no one. MacArthur is found murdered. Wargrave states that the murderer is among the guests, since there is no one else on the island. No one had an alibi for the period of the general’s death.

In the morning, Rogers, the butler, is found hacked to death. That same morning, Emily Brent dies from a cyanide injection; a bumblebee crawls on the glass. Miss Brent was injected with Dr. Armstrong's syringe. At the same time, Lombard’s revolver, which he brought with him, disappears.

Vera goes up to her room, a minute later the others hear her screams. The men rush into Vera's room and discover that she has lost consciousness because she touched the seaweed suspended from the ceiling in the dark. Returning to the courtroom, they find the judge shot dead, wearing a red robe and wig. The pawnshop finds a revolver in his drawer.

That same night, Dr. Armstrong disappears. Now the rest are sure that the doctor is the killer. In the morning they leave the house and stay on the rock. Blore returns to the house for food, Vera and Lombard hear a strange rumble. They find Blore murdered - a marble watch in the shape of a bear was dropped on his head. They then find Armstrong's body washed ashore by the tide.

Only Vera and Lombard remain. Vera decides that Lombard is a murderer. She gets his revolver and kills Philip. Vera returns to the house, confident that she is safe, enters her room and sees a noose and a chair. In deep shock from what she experienced and saw, she climbs onto a chair and hangs herself...

Epilogue

The police arriving on the island find 10 corpses. Inspector Mayne and Sir Thomas Lagg from Scotland Yard are trying to restore the chronology of events and solve the mystery of the murders on the black island, but in the end they come to a dead end. They build versions regarding the last killed:

• Armstrong killed everyone and then threw himself into the sea, his body washed ashore by the tide. However, subsequent tides were lower and it was definitely established that the body had been in the water for 12 hours.
• Phillip Lombard brought the watch down on Blore's head, forced Vera to hang himself, returned to the beach (where his body was found) and shot himself. However, the revolver was lying in front of the judge's room.
• William Blore shot Lombard and forced Vera to hang herself, after which he brought the watch down on his head. But no one chose this method of suicide and the police know that Blore was a scoundrel, he had no desire for justice.
• Vera Claythorne shot Lombard, dropped a marble watch on Blore's head, and then hanged herself. But someone picked up the chair she had knocked over and placed it against the wall.

Killer Confession

The fishermen find a bottle with a letter and take it to Scotland Yard. The author of the letter is Judge Wargrave. Since his youth, he dreamed of murder, but his desire for justice prevented him, which is why he became a judge. Being terminally ill, he decided to satisfy his passion and selected ten people who committed murders, but for some reason escaped punishment. The tenth was the criminal Isaac Morris, through whom Wargrave acquired the island. Before being sent to the island, the judge poisoned Morris. While on the island, he exterminated the others. After killing Miss Brent, he conspired with Armstrong, saying that he suspected Lombard. Armstrong helped the judge fake his death, after which the killer lured him onto a rock at night and threw him into the sea. After making sure that Vera had hanged herself, Wargrave went up to his room and shot himself, tying the revolver with an elastic band to the door and to the glasses that he placed under himself. After the shot, the rubber band came untied from the door and hung on the temple of the glasses; the revolver remained at the threshold.

Characters

"Negres"

1. Anthony Marston- a young guy. Loves to drive cars.
2. Ethel Rogers- wife of Thomas Rogers, cook.
3. John MacArthur- old general. He came to terms with the idea that he was going to die. He often remembered his late wife Leslie.
4. Thomas Rogers- Butler. He and his wife were hired by Mr. Onim.
5. Emily Brent - elderly woman. Bible fanatic; She was sure that death would pass her by.
6. Lawrence John Wargrave- old judge. A very smart and wise man, at some point he was investigating murders on the island.
7. Edward Armstrong- Doctor from Harley Street. Quite a weak-willed person. Has an addiction to alcohol.
8. William Henry Blore- retired inspector. He was a scoundrel and always confident in his abilities.
9. Philip Lombard- engaged in dirty deeds. Came to the island at the suggestion of Isaac Morris.
10. Vera Claythorne- a young girl who came to the island at the suggestion of Mrs. Onim to become her secretary.

Minor characters

• Fred Narracott- Boat driver, brings guests to the island.
• Isaac Morris- Mr. Onim’s mysterious lawyer, organizes the crime, the tenth “black kid”. He dealt drugs, which caused the death of the daughter of one of Wargrave's friends.
• Inspector Maine- Investigates murders on the island in the epilogue of the novel.
• Sir Thomas Legge- Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard.
• Old sailor
• Station worker

• All the characters in the novel, including the murderer, die.
• The book has gained great popularity throughout the world and is considered the best work of Agatha Christie.
• Despite the fact that the title of the novel was changed, it is still known to this day under the title “Ten Little Indians” and was published under this title in many countries.

In culture

Play

There is a 1943 play called And Then There Were None, written by Agatha Christie. Consists of three acts. The play was staged in London with director Irene Hentschell. It premiered at the New Wimbledon Theater on 20 September 1943, before moving to the West End at St James's Theater on 17 November the same year. The play received good feedback and ran for 260 performances until February 24, 1944, when a bomb hit the theater. The production then moved to the Cambridge Theater on 29 February and ran there until 6 May, before returning to St James's on 9 May and finally closing on 1 July.

The play was also produced on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theater by director Albert de Corville, but under the title Ten Little Indians. The premiere took place on June 27, 1944, and on January 6 the production moved to the Plymouth Theater and ran there until June 30. In total, there were 426 performances on Broadway.

The text of the play is still published to this day. For production reasons, the names of some characters and their crimes have been changed in the play, and, unlike the novel, the play ends with a happy ending. Vera, unknowingly, only wounds Lombard when she shoots him, after which she is confronted by the killer (the killer's identity has not been changed), who tells her that he took a slow-acting poison, and when he dies, Vera will have nothing left , except to commit suicide to avoid being arrested. Then Lombard appears, kills the killer with a pistol, which Vera drops after she thinks she killed him, and that's where the play ends. For the sake of such an ending, Vera’s crime and Lombard’s biography were changed - in the play, Vera is suspected of the death of her sister’s husband, but from the very beginning she says that she has nothing to do with it, and Lombard admits in the finale that he is in fact not Philip Lombard, and his friend Charles Morley, and that the real Philip Lombard died a mysterious death shortly before, but Charles found his invitation to Negro Island and came here under his guise, thinking that this would help reveal the secret of his death. This ending was used in the first film adaptation in 1945 and was subsequently used in all subsequent ones, except for the Soviet one in 1987.

Film adaptations

The novel has been filmed many times. The first film adaptation was the American film “And Then There Were None,” filmed in 1945 by Rene Clair. The main difference from the novel was the ending, remade as a happy ending based on what Agatha Christie wrote for the play, with only one difference: Lombard offers Vera in advance to fake his murder, after which Vera deliberately shoots past Lombard, since they are standing outside home and the killer from the window cannot hear what they were talking about. Subsequent remakes of the film (1965, 1974 and 1989), released under the title Ten Little Indians, used the same ending. Only the Soviet 2-part television film “Ten Little Indians” directed by Stanislav Govorukhin (1987) used the original title of the novel and was fully consistent with the storyline with a dark ending.

Computer game

see also

• Nursery rhymes

Notes

Links

• Ten Little Indians in the Library of Maxim Moshkov
• Ten Little Indians on the website www.agatachristie.ru

Works of Agatha Christie
Characters	Hercule Poirot · Miss Marple · Tommy and Tuppence · Ariadne Oliver · Arthur Hastings · Superintendent Battle · Chief Inspector Japp · Parker Pyne · Mr. Harley Keene · Colonel Race
Novels	The Mysterious Incident at Styles The Mysterious Assailant The Golf Course Murder The Man in the Brown Suit The Chimneys Castle Mystery The Murder of Roger Ackroyd The Big Four The Blue Train Mystery The Seven Dials Mystery The Vicarage Murder The Sittaford Mystery The Endhouse Mystery · Death of Lord Edgware · Murder on the Orient Express · Why not Evans? · A Tragedy in Three Acts · Death in the Clouds · The Alphabet Murders · Murder in Mesopotamia · Cards on the Table · Silent Witness · Death on the Nile · An Appointment with Death · Ten Little Indians· Easy to Kill · Hercule Poirot's Christmas · Sad Cypress · Evil Under the Sun · N or M? · One, two, the buckle barely holds... · Body in the Library · Five Little Pigs · One Finger · Zero Hour · Death Comes in the End · Glittering Cyanide · The Hollow · Fortune's Shore · Crooked Little House · Murder Announced · Baghdad Meetings · Mrs. McGinty Lost Her Life · Using Mirrors · After a Funeral · Pocket Full of Rye · Destination Unknown · Hickory Dickory Dock · Dead Man's Folly · 4.50 from Paddington · Trial by Innocence · Cat Among the Pigeons · White Horse Villa · And in the Cracks a Circle of Mirrors · Clock · Caribbean Mystery · Bertram's Hotel · The Third Girl · Endless Night · Snap Your Finger Only Once · Halloween Party · The Frankfurt Passenger · Nemesis · Elephants Can Remember · Gates of Fate · Curtain · A Forgotten Murder
Novels (under the name Mary Westmacott)	Bread of Giants · Unfinished Portrait · Separated in Spring · Rose and Yew · Daughter is Daughter · Burden
Collections of stories	Poirot Investigates · Partners in Crime · The Mysterious Mr. Keene · Thirteen Mysterious Cases · The Hound of Death · The Listerdale Mystery · Parker Pyne Investigates · Murder in the Passage · The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories · The Labors of Hercules · The Prosecution Witness and Other Stories · Three Blind Mice and other stories · The Loser and other stories · The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding · Double Sin and other stories · The Golden Ball and other stories · Poirot's Early Cases · Miss Marple's Last Cases · Trouble at Pollensa and other stories · Harlequin's Tea Set · While the Light Lasts and other stories
Plays

A scary counting rhyme about ten little Indians. This counting rhyme appeared in the detective novel by the English writer Agatha Christie, which is called “Ten Little Indians”. According to the plot of the novel, the counting rhyme hung in every hotel room of the heroes of the novel.

Ten little Indians went to dinner,
One choked, there were nine left.

Nine little Indians, having eaten, nodded off,
One couldn’t wake up, there were eight of them left.

Eight little blacks went to Devon later,
One did not return, only seven remained.

Seven little black boys chopped wood together,
One killed himself - and there were six of them left.

Six little black boys went for a walk in the apiary,
One was stung by a bumblebee, there are five left.

Five little black boys did the judging,
They convicted one, leaving four.

Four black girls went swimming in the sea,
One took the bait, leaving three of them.

Three little blacks ended up in a menagerie,
One was grabbed by a bear, and the two were left alone.

Two little black boys lay down in the sun,
One burned down - and now there is one, unhappy, lonely.

The last little black man looked tired,
He went and hanged himself, and there was no one left.

There are several different translations and variations of this rhyme.

Version of Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak:

Ten little Indians were swimming.
You can't be naughty in the river, after all!
But the stubborn brother was so naughty,
That there were nine brothers.

Once Upon a Time Nine Little Indians
We were hunting for elk.
The ninth brother fell on the horn,
And now there are eight of them.

Eight little black boys were walking.
There was darkness in the forest,
My younger brother has gone missing
And there were seven brothers.

Speckle seven little blacks
Pie - and the village eats.
The greediest brother has eaten too much,
And there were six brothers.

Let's go six little brothers
Study the laws.
The eloquent brother entered the court,
And there were five brothers.

Five little brothers
I caught bees in the apartment,
The fifth brother was stung in the ear,
And there were four of them.

Four little black boys in the forest
The savages caught up.
The next brother was eaten
And there were three brothers.

There are three black boys in the menagerie
We climbed into the lion's cage.
The third brother was torn to death,
And there were two brothers.

Two little Indians were drowning
On a rainy day, a fireplace.
My brother fell into the fire alone,
And only one survived.

Another translation option:

One day ten little Indians sat down to have lunch.
One of them coughed - and there were nine of them left.

One day, nine little Indians fell asleep very late.
One of them never got up - and there were eight of them left.

Then eight little black kids wandered around Devon.
One remained there completely - and now there are seven of them.

All seven cheerful little blacks bought a cane.
One waved - an awkward gesture - and now there were six of them.

Now six little Indians have climbed into the apiary.
But one was stung by a bumblebee - and five remained.

Five of the strictest little blacks administered the harshest judgment.
They sentenced one - and there were four of them.

And so the four little Indians went to splash in the sea.
One got hooked - and there were three left.

Three people came to the zoo, the bear was walking in the wild.
I slammed one with my paw - there were two left.

Two little black girls were lying in the sun after that.
Suddenly a shot rang out - and one of them was gone.

And here he is, all alone. My heart sank with sadness.
He went and hanged himself. And there was no one.

There is also a funny parody of the counting rhyme that only programmers will understand. This parody, or rather a kind of song, was composed by users of the Fido network:

0A programmers decided to make a product,
One asked “Where is the money?”, and there were 9 of them left.

9 programmers appeared before the boss,
One of them did not know FoxPro, and there were 8 of them left.

8 programmers bought by IBM,
One said “Mak rulez!”, and there were 7 of them left.

7 programmers wanted to read helр,
One of the screws was covered, and there were 6 of them left.

6 programmers tried to understand the code,
One of them went crazy, and there are 5 of them left.

5 programmers bought a CD-ROM,
One brought a Chinese CD - there were four of us left.

4 programmers worked in C,
One of them praised Pascal, and there were 3 of them left.

3 programmers online played DOOM,
One hesitated a little, and the score became equal to two.

2 programmers typed in unison: “win”
One is tired of waiting for downloads - there is only 1 left.

1 programmer took control of everything,
But I met with the customer, and there were 0 of them left.

0 programmers were scolded by an angry boss,
Then he fired one, and they became FF.

In conclusion, here is what the text of the rhyme looks like in the original English:

Ten little nigger boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self, and then there were nine.

Nine little nigger boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself, and then there were eight.

Kight little nigger boys travelling in Devon;
One said he?d stay there, and then there were seven.

Seven little nigger boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in half, and then there were six.

Six little nigger boys playing with a hive;
A bumble-bee stung one, and then there were five.

Five little nigger boys going in for law;
One got in chancery, and then there were four.

Four little nigger boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one, and then there were three.

Three little nigger boys walking in the Zoo;
A big bear hugged one, and then there were two.

Two little nigger boys sitting in the sun;
One got frizzled up, and then there was one.

One little nigger boy left all alone;
He went out and hung himself and then there were None.