A skirmish erupted on the floor of the National Western Complex’s arena. Thunderous pops of gunfire, shouting and fancy equine footwork unfolded inside the Denver events center one Saturday morning last month, as a group of boys outfitted in authentic 19th-century U.S. Cavalry uniforms clashed with kids dressed in fringed pants, moccasins, headbands and a feathered war bonnet. The Westernaires, a Golden-based nonprofit that teaches kids horsemanship, has performed this reenactment of the Battle of Little Bighorn for decades. October’s “Horsecapades” show was the organization’s 75th annual hoorah. On the arena floor, the children clad in Native-inspired clothing whooped and shot blanks at the kids in Cavalry uniforms, who fell and played dead. Taps boomed over the sound system and announcers thanked veterans and active-duty military members for their sacrifices. In the stands, 11-year-old Jamilah Maldonado said she clapped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut, tears streaming down her cheeks. Jamilah Maldonado, 11, right, and her younger sister Jaylah, 5, pet Spritz as he takes licks off of a salt lick after riding in an outdoor arena in Englewood, Colorado on Nov. 3, 2024. Jamilah, 11, and middle sister Justice, not pictured, are both riders with the Westeranaires in Jefferson County. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post) The young Westernaires rider, a member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe, was so disturbed by the battle scene enacted by her peers that a volunteer walked her out. “It makes me feel disrespected and dishonored,” Jamilah said in a later interview. “Like they don’t really care what they’re doing and they think it’s cool, but it’s not.” Jamilah, her family and some Westernaires members believe it’s long past time to change the storied organization’s representation of Native Americans — particularly the portrayal of soldiers responsible for the genocide of Indigenous ancestors as tragic heroes. Others within the group disagree, saying the Little Bighorn reenactment should be preserved as an important, and educational, recognition of the past. The Westernaires’ internal debate over their characterization of Native culture and history illustrates the complicated and changing relationship Colorado has to its Western traditions. The Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave, a top tourist destination in Golden, has long been criticized by Native groups for whitewashing the past. During the protests ignited by the murder of George Floyd in 2020, demonstrators in Denver toppled a controversial Christopher Columbus statue and the city proactively removed a Kit Carson statue, both of which officials said will not be replaced out of respect for the Native community. Colorado mountains and landmarks christened with the names of disgraced historical figures or Indigenous slurs are being renamed. After stark criticism by Native tribes, History Colorado scrapped its first Sand Creek Massacre exhibit in 2013 and took years of partnering with Indigenous people to get it right the second time. “People romanticize the Wild West,” said Raven Payment, who is Ojibwe and Kanien’kehà:ka and co-chairs Denver’s American Indian Commission. “They say it was pure Americana. They say it’s tradition. Native Americans are so often talked about in this historical context and not in the contemporary. We need to try to retrain our brains and society and understand the issues we deal with historically and how they’re making these contemporary issues for us.” What do Western traditions mean at a time when the president of the United States last month apologized to Native people for the “sin” of a federal boarding school system that for decades separated Indigenous children from their parents in a violent effort to strip them of their culture? When a state report last year identified at least 65 students who died more than a century ago at Colorado’s two most prominent Indian boarding schools? How does glorifying how the West was won feel when 15 times more people annually visit the museum on Lookout Mountain that celebrates Buffalo Bill Cody — who portrayed himself scalping a Cheyenne warrior in his famed Wild West shows — than the Sand Creek Massacre National Historical Site? A sign that is part of the Bluff Trail Interpretive Walk at Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site on Nov. 14, 2022, near Eads, Colorado. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post) Denver has long sat at the confluence of Native issues, serving as a meeting place and point of cultural exchange for Indigenous communities from all over, said Matthew Makley, an Indigenous history scholar at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. What was once an old cowtown has become a microcosm of a nation coming to terms with its violent past as it grapples with preserving history while mitigating harm. At last month’s “Horsecapades” show, Jamilah said she imagined the boys thinking it was fun handling guns and dressing up in clothes meant to be sacred. But the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn in what is now Montana — a major defeat of U.S. forces also known as Custer’s Last Stand or, to Natives, the Battle of Greasy Grass — was a brief victory for Indigenous people amid the greater American Indian Wars, during which the military helped colonize the West with violent force against Native men, women and children. While there are calls from within the Westernaires to change how the organization represents Native Americans, Jean Mensendick, who sits on the group’s Board of Directors, said there’s disagreement. “The process of changing the course of a ship is frustratingly slow, and there are voices in the organization not yet convinced change is needed,” said Mensendick, who responded to The Denver Post after a reporter sought comment from Westernaires director Bill Schleicher and the board. Jim Hoyt, a third-generation Westernaire who now oversees the Cavalry team, falls somewhere in the middle. He has infused more Indigenous education into the program, but admits there is always room for improvement. But, like many in the organization, he wants to keep the battle scene. “It’s critical these kids see this history,” Hoyt said. “History isn’t here for you to like or dislike. There is an opportunity for the kids to learn it wasn’t always great and it wasn’t always terrible.” “The best traditions of the West” Picture a NASCAR pit crew, but swap cars for horses and drivers with riders, and you’ve got an idea of what went on backstage at the “Horsecapades” show last month. Volunteers — most participated in the Westernaires as children, have kids in it now or both — swarmed around young performers, delivering last-minute pep talks and final costume touch-ups before they took to the arena floor. Hoyt conducted a walk-through, ensuring all was in order before the big show — the organization’s largest fundraiser of the year. With help from his mom Amber, left, Antonio Aranda-Stevens, 13, prepares for the Interpretive Indian Dancing where he will join fellow members of the Westernaires in their presentation during the Horsecapades Annual Fundraising Show at the Events Center at National Western Complex on Oct. 19, 2024 in Denver. (Photo By Kathryn Scott/Special to The Denver Post) Since 1949, the Westernaires have taught children and teens from 9 to 19 about horsemanship, responsibility and “to use their talents and skills in the best traditions of the West,” according to the organization’s marketing materials. Hoyt was a Westernaire when he was a boy, like his father before him. Now, Hoyt’s sons are in the program, too. Hoyt is among the 500 adult volunteers who keep the program running so the 900 kid and teen riders can stay in the saddle. Hoyt said he volunteers around 40 hours a week on top of his regular job out of sheer love for the program and the kids. Every Saturday, children at the Fort Westernaire facility, adjacent to the Jefferson County Fairgrounds in Golden, learn to care for horses that are rented out to members hourly. Members learn to ride, perform mounted routines and progress through a hierarchy of teams and events with names like Pony Hoedowners, Colorado Rangers, Braves and Warriors. Some learn lasso routines, circus tricks and stunts, while others stick to precision drills. There’s also classroom time, during which members get a taste of Western history. Hoyt assigns his Cavalry reenactors to pick Native American chiefs and give presentations on them. He’s taken the boys to the site of the Sand Creek Massacre. “They learn about the good and the bad of the Sand Creek Massacre — and there wasn’t much good,” Hoyt said. Everyone, Hoyt said, learns respect. It’s an organization big on “yes ma’ams” and “no sirs.” Hoyt has made changes to the Little Bighorn scene to make it more appropriate over the years, he said. Narration during the battle that used to describe Indigenous people as “savages” has recently been axed, he said. The Indian team used to wear “really offensive” long, black wigs a few years ago that are no longer in use. Stan Aschenbrenner oversees the Westernaires’ “interpretive Indian dancing,” which features a team of about 30 young folks outfitted in Native-inspired clothing who are taught different Indigenous dances like the jingle dress and men’s fancy dance, along with drumming and singing. Aschenbrenner, now in his 50s, said he’s been performing Native dances since he was a teen. He said he tells the kids about the cultural significance of the dances. Some of his students, he said, have Native heritage, even if they don’t look like it. As for himself, Aschenbrenner said he’s “a little bit of Pawnee,” but mostly “a mutt.” Ensuring the kids are dressed in appropriate Native clothing is important to Aschenbrenner, he said. He frequently reminds fellow volunteers that the Indigenous attire is not a costume, and he’s upgraded the quality of clothing. He has pushed back when he felt Native representation in Westernaires was inappropriate, like using ratty, inauthentic outfits, he said. More and more, people are listening when he speaks up, he said. “We’re doing what we can with what we have to have them look appropriate and represent properly,” Aschenbrenner said. “There’s a willingness to change at this point that I don’t feel was there previously.” Before the “Horsecapades” show, Aschenbrenner stood before his students. Horses whinnied, Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” bellowed from the speaker system and moms fastened their kids into elaborate Native-inspired clothing, heavy with beadwork, feathers, headdresses and fringe. The interpretative Indian dancing was the show’s first act. The dancers, drummers and singers shared the floor with a circus act going on simultaneously. Jamilah Maldonado, 11, looks up at Scout before going riding with her sisters in Englewood, Colorado on Nov. 3, 2024. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post) Jamilah watched from the stands, too young to be in the show but wide-eyed at the thought of being out there one day. The 11-year-old loves horses. She treasures riding and the friendships with her Westernaire teammates. “It feels like family, honestly, because you’re so close to them that they start feeling like sisters, and you can tell them anything,” Jamilah said. But when she watched non-Natives dressed in regalia doing renditions of dances that meant something special to her culture, it felt wrong. “The scene of the massacre and the Indian dancers kind of ruins what I love about it,” she said. “It doesn’t make me feel happy like everything else.” “I don’t want to cancel the Westernaires” Marjorie Lane first reached out to Westernaires leadership two years ago when her granddaughter Jamilah was new to the organization. Lane rides horses and heard the Westernaires could provide her Native granddaughters, who she is raising, with excellent equine education. Lane loved the organization and found the volunteers to be dedicated and kind. That’s why the first “Horsecapades” show she watched shocked her. Marjorie Lane, left, helps her granddaughter Jamilah Maldonado, 11, put the bridal on Spritz before going riding in Englewood, Colorado, on Nov. 3, 2024. Jamilah and younger sister Justice, 10, right, are both riders with the Westeranaires in Jefferson County. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post) Indigenous dancing, she said, is a sacred, ceremonial act that shouldn’t be treated like a sideshow. She couldn’t believe they chose to reenact the Battle of Little Bighorn and celebrate the Cavalry while depicting Native people as killers. Custer’s Last Stand reenactments hearken back to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows, popular from the 1870s to the 1920s. The shows featured stereotypical portrayals of cowboys, Indians, military members and outlaws who performed horse tricks and skits, including staging the Battle of Little Bighorn. The shows were known for being exploitative and sensational toward Native Americans, who were sometimes involved in the production. During the 1876 battle, warriors of the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes defeated the men of the 7th Regiment of the U.S. Cavalry in the southern Montana Territory after the military displaced Native Americans and tried to take their land. The U.S. military used the aftermath of the battle to galvanize white Americans into supporting war against Native people, said Megan Alvarado-Saggese, an assistant professor of Native American and Indigenous studies at Durango’s Fort Lewis College. “The entire purpose of reenacting that is to say, ‘They truly are savage. Look what they did. We, therefore, need to gather together and exterminate them,’ ” Alvarado-Saggese said. During the Westernaires’ battle reenactment, announcers told the crowd they do their best to honor the truth in history and educate the public on the foundations of the West. What the show fails to capture is that it was primarily white colonizers who put the “wild” in the Wild West, inflicting heinous acts of violence on the Indigenous people who came before them, said Makley, the MSU Denver professor. “The violence against Native peoples that played out in places like Sand Creek is so horrific, it shocks the 21st-century sensibilities,” Makley said. On Nov. 29, 1864, the Colorado Territorial militia invaded a peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho village on the Eastern Plains, killing around 230 Indigenous people, most of them women, children and the elderly. The American soldiers committed atrocities on the dead before their departure. It stands as the deadliest day in Colorado history. Gov. John Hickenlooper was the first state governor to apologize for the tragedy in 2016. Gov. John Hickenlooper, right, backed by tribal leaders, speaks to members and supporters of the Arapaho and Cheyenne Native American tribes at a gathering marking the 150th anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre, on the steps of the state Capitol in Denver, Wednesday Dec. 3, 2014. During his speech, Hickenlooper apologized on behalf of the state for the massacre. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley) “I really do think there is this legacy of violence that we have not come to terms with and, unexamined, it continues to manifest in toxic ways at a societal level,” Makley said. During last month’s “Horsecapades,” the Westernaires’ Indian team rode out into the arena, shooting roaring blanks at the Cavalry until kids in military uniforms piled motionless on the floor. The announcers said lives were lost on both sides of the battle. They did not mention the nation’s broken treaties with the Indigenous population, land grabs, attacks on innocent civilians and attempted extermination of Native people. “It’s like I was watching colonization happen before my eyes,” Lane said. Lane served as an educator and school counselor for more than 40 years throughout metro Denver. She also worked for Denver Public Schools’ Native American Culture and Education Department, where she helped Native students apply for college. When Lane was a high school principal, she met a Native family in crisis. When the five children were removed from their parents due to substance use and physical abuse, Lane took them in and secured permanent legal custody of the three youngest boys. She kept the boys in contact with their biological family, attending ceremonies and visiting relatives at the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming during the summers. The boys grew up, and now Lane is the guardian of their older sister’s four girls. Her granddaughters are involved in school, sports and activities through the Native American Culture and Education Department, the Denver Indian Center and the Westernaires. Lane and her granddaughters loved the Westernaires. They didn’t want to walk away from the organization. They wanted to help educate its leadership in hopes they would make appropriate changes. Two years ago, Lane said she sent a letter to board leadership, praising the Westernaires and the organization’s volunteers, but raising concerns with the Battle of Little Bighorn reenactment. She asked for a sit-down to talk. Lane said she didn’t receive a response until after a Post reporter recently began asking the group questions. The Westernaires board replied to her saying that it was “an ongoing challenge to display this era of American history in a way that is both accurate and sensitive to the varied perspectives of our audiences.” The letter felt more like a checked box to Lane than a commitment to listening, learning and growth. She said she couldn’t understand why the organization chose to commemorate Native history in a way that felt painful and outdated. “I think it’s something that maybe was acceptable 50 years ago, but it’s time to really have a new approach and to realize the past needs to be discussed in different ways to include other voices,” said Gabi Kathoefer, a University of Denver cultural studies professor who has two daughters in the Westernaires. Kathoefer wrote the board a letter similar to Lane’s letting, the organization know her discomfort with its Indigenous portrayals. She said she did not hear back. Lane and Kathoefer wondered why an organization claiming to want to do better seemed resistant to inviting Native educators into the space to teach leaders and members more appropriate ways to showcase Indigenous history. “Part of the problem with Westernaires is that so many people have been there for years,” Lane said. “They want to do it the way they’ve always done it. I don’t want to cancel the Westernaires. I want to change it. I want it to be accurate.” Clashes over representation — now and then In 2021, the Golden History Museum & Park hosted a family festival and invited the Westernaires to perform. Nathan Richie, the museum’s director, said he expected the organization to show off its horsemanship and perhaps some roping tricks, but he wasn’t prepared to see non-Native children dressed in Indigenous-inspired attire performing interpretive Indian dances. “It was shocking,” Richie said. “It felt inauthentic. It didn’t feel right.” Richie fielded complaints from festivalgoers and his staff who were offended by the performance. When it came time for the festival the following year, Richie reached out to the Westernaires and said the museum liked the horsemanship, but had deep concerns about Native representation. The conversation, Richie said, was not well-received. Ultimately, he said, the organization’s director told him the Westernaires were too philosophically different from the Golden History Museum and would not partner with the cultural facility. “It was really a cathartic, catalytic moment for us,” said Richie, who added that the museum since 2020 has worked to better uplift voices that had previously been excluded or underrepresented. “I think so much of what the Westernaires do is so good and worthwhile,” he added. “But this part is really distressing. As a museum, we’re an educational platform, and I could not in good conscience be a platform for this. I felt it was important to confront it and was quite surprised by their reaction. They seemed quite married to this program, and I don’t know why.” In this file photo from March 11, 1972, part of the Westernaires contingent ride saddleless ponies while dressed in Native American outfits during the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Denver. The American Indian Movement objected to Westernaires dancers but were restrained by a court order prohibiting interference. (Photo by Dave Buresh/The Denver Post) Native people have been critical of the Westernaires’ Indigenous depictions for decades. A 1972 article in The Post chronicled tension between the Westernaires and the American Indian Movement in Denver over the city’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, during which Westernaire members would be “dressed as Indians and performing Indian dances.” “They’re jumping around dressed like Indians, and the whole thing makes us look silly,” an AIM spokesman said in the article. The Westernaires countered, saying the dances and clothing were “completely authentic” and a product of “long research.” The newspaper reported the Westernaires had obtained a temporary restraining order against AIM members who had “interfered and physically accosted young members” of the group who were dressed in Native costumes. In the end, AIM members did not show up at the parade, The Post reported. “It doesn’t hurt to have a little understanding” Pam Skelton, 77, remembers the conflict well. When Skelton was a little girl, her father sat her down in their Denver living room and told her she was an Eastern Band of Cherokee Indian, but to never tell anyone. As a Native man who grew up in the Deep South, he wanted to save his children from the discrimination he experienced. For nearly 40 years, she obeyed. “Nobody knew,” Skelton said. “I had this dark secret.” The Westernaires gave Skelton an identity she felt safe claiming as a young woman — a horse girl. Skelton thrived in the Westernaires. That’s where she met her husband — the son of the lawyer who represented the Westernaires against the American Indian Movement. He later went on to teach the Cavalry boys. Their three children rode in the Westernaires. Now, Skelton is a Westernaires volunteer who teaches riding and gives tours of a museum on the organization’s grounds. Skelton went to law school in her 40s and got involved with the National Native American Law Students Association, where she finally began coming to terms with her background and unraveling the parts of herself she had buried. “Since then, I have been learning about that part of my life that was denied to me,” Skelton said. Members of the Westernaires participate in their Custer’s Last Stand reenactment during the Horsecapades Annual Fundraising Show at the Events Center at National Western Complex on Oct. 19, 2024 in Denver. (Photo By Kathryn Scott/Special to The Denver Post) Sometimes, the lessons are painful. She could never stomach watching the Westernaires’ Cavalry vs. Indians battle. The spectacle was — and remains — too painful. She wants the organization she loves, which gave her purpose, fulfillment and family, to wipe away the stain that mars it. She wants the Westernaires to listen to Lane, Jamillah and other Native voices and commit to doing right by them. “For the people who want to live in the romance of the West — who are, by and large, very good people in the Westernaires — it’s hard to thread that needle,” Skelton said. “They feel they are being attacked for something they had nothing to do with. But it doesn’t hurt to have a little understanding and an open mind and heart and to listen. I am really, seriously hopeful that this issue is going to come to a head now and that we can get past it in some way and get on to the next thing.” Righting historical wrongs The members of Denver’s American Indian Commission would love to have more news to celebrate and have to respond to fewer events that invoke rage. “We don’t want to be the doom Indians,” said Payment, the commission’s co-chair. “We want to celebrate successes and good examples of being represented the way we want to be.” Members of the commission — formed in 2007 to improve communication between the Native community and the city and county of Denver — seek out joy and celebration, but they’re also busy righting wrongs. They’ve been active in abolishing Native American mascots and changing problematic landmark names, such as the mountain that used to bear the name of disgraced Colorado territorial Gov. John Evans, who was forced to resign after the Sand Creek Massacre. They’ve discussed replacing toppled statues in Denver’s Civic Center Park with Indigenous scenes. They are relieved to hear about the looming closure of Buffalo Bill’s gift shop and restaurant in Golden. Ten miles away from the Westernaires’ training facility towers Lookout Mountain Park, home to the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave. According to the city of Denver, which owns the land, the museum is considered a top cultural destination with up to 80,000 annual visitors and half a million visits a year to William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s gravesite. William F. Cody’s gravesite at the Buffalo Bill Museum & Grave on Lookout Mountain in Jefferson County, Colorado, on Jan. 12, 2018. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post) At the end of 2024, the gift shop — which critics argue sells racist Native American souvenirs — and cafe next to the museum will temporarily close, according to the city of Denver said. The closure will allow the city to make operational changes, address maintenance and structural concerns and enable preservation efforts. “Buffalo Bill gets a nice museum and a fancy grave and people think he’s such a great guy, but he was directly responsible for trying to eradicate Natives off this planet,” Payment said, referring to Cody’s participation in government efforts to eradicate the buffalo in order to cut off Natives Americans’ food supply. The commission offered to act as a liaison and speak to Westernaires leadership about how they could improve Native representation. So did University of Colorado Boulder professor Patty Limerick, among the leading American West scholars in the nation. Limerick was not interested in condemning the Westernaires, but in educating and connecting the organization to resources to usher it into the future. She said she would tell the group she can see they are moving toward an important change. “You have these customs, and they are an effort to reckon with the history of Indian people, and they’re not all they can be,” Limerick said. “In fact, they’ve kind of headed down a shallow direction, and you want to give this depth. That story was getting kind of boring when it was just, ‘Here come some white folks and they’re in charge,’ and they romanticize people whose land they took. That is not a story that needs repeating.” Changing time-honored traditions can be uncomfortable, but growth can be good, Limerick said. More than anything, she said, it’s important to treat children with dignity. Dressing them up and having them act out scenes so painful to the communities they’re claiming to commemorate is not doing right by them, she said. “Getting the most accurate details we can” Logan Quereau, 18, disagrees. The Parker teen joined the Westernaires when he was 9 and his older sister was already involved in the organization. When Quereau watched a performance and saw the big Native American costumes, he was entranced and set on joining. Quereau gave Indian dancing a go, but didn’t connect with it. The teen preferred horse tricks and messing around with his friends, so he joined the Cavalry team, where he remains. Members of the Westernaires participate in a Battle of Little Bighorn  reenactment during the “Horsecapades” annual fundraising show at the National Western Complex’s events center on Oct. 19, 2024, in Denver. (Photo By Kathryn Scott/Special to The Denver Post) “It’s a really nice place to be,” Quereau said. “Riding horses is really fun. Being able to be around all those big animals and jumping on and off them, being crazy with my friends — it’s fun and enjoyable. Plus, I get to shoot guns off of horses.” In the classroom, Quereau and his teammates learned horse drills and history lessons about the Battle of Little Bighorn. They learned what led to the battle, he said, and researched Native American chiefs. During a field trip to the Sand Creek Massacre site, Quereau said he learned where and how Native people lived. He said he understood the Indigenous people were betrayed during the massacre. Quereau said he learned more about Native American history through the Westernaires than he did in school. “It’s important to us to make sure the boys understand this is all history,” said Hoyt, his cavalry instructor. “They’ve got the Native American point of view and the Western migration point of view happening at the same time.” Quereau said he never felt hesitant donning his Cavalry uniform and acting out the battle, nor has he heard complaints about it. The battle is an important moment in history — one that should be remembered and understood, he said. “We do the best that we can,” Quereau said. “It’s not going to be perfect… we want to represent both sides and note that we are showing how both sides were fighting for what they thought was right… I think we do a good job of showing respect and getting the most accurate details we can.” A commitment to discuss representation Jamilah’s grandmother Lane met with Westernaires board member Mensendick and lifelong Westernaire Skelton shortly after the 75th annual “Horsecapades.” Related Articles Colorado News | History Colorado tries again to get the story of the Sand Creek Massacre right Colorado News | Biden visits Indian Country and apologizes for the “sin” of a 150-year boarding school policy Colorado News | Inside Colorado’s lesser-known Native American boarding schools that operated in metro Denver Colorado News | New report identifies student deaths linked to Colorado’s Native American boarding schools: “No child should ever die at school” Colorado News | Denver Art Museum removes case of Native American ceramics as new federal regulations take effect Colorado News | Scars of history, hope of healing: Fort Lewis College removes inaccurate depictions of its Indian boarding school past After repeated attempts to broach the subject, Lane said she finally had the ear of the organization that brought her granddaughters joy and pain. She hoped to move the needle firmly into joy’s camp. Mensendick and Skelton agreed change was needed, Lane said. At a meeting of the Westernaires’ nine-person Board of Directors on Tuesday, the board formed a committee to discuss the organization’s Native American representation, Mensendick said. “It’s in the air,” Skelton said. But what change will look like is still up for debate. “I don’t think there’s a way to heal by saying we’re not going to do Cavalry and Indians, but I think there’s a way to make it better,” Mensendick said. “The boys just learn too much from it.” Skelton thinks Native voices should help the organization plot its next moves. Lane wants the Little Bighorn reenactment gone. She also wants to end the practice of non-Native children dancing in regalia. So, too, does Jamilah, who said she just would like to get through a show without tears. More than anything, Lane said she hopes Native voices are the guiding light to lead the Westernaires toward a place where they can tell the story of the West in a way that honors Indigenous people. “What it requires, ultimately, is vulnerability,” said Makley, the Indigenous history scholar at MSU Denver. “Members of the Westenraires would have to be willing to be vulnerable to have a conversation with members of the Native community who are also being vulnerable. Shared vulnerability and dialogue can help us create new understandings of the past that might help us with a healthier understanding of who we are and where we’re going.” Jamilah Maldonado, 11, give a hug to Scout after riding with him in an outdoor arena in Englewood, Colorado on Nov. 3, 2024. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post) Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter.