Десять маленьких индейцев: История детской считалки и романа Агаты Кристи

American children's counting out rhyme

"Ten Little Indians" is an American children's counting out rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 12976. In 1868, songwriter Septimus Winner adapted it as a song, then called "Ten Little Injuns", for a minstrel show.

Songwriter Septimus Winner created an elaborated version of the children's song, called "Ten Little Injuns", in 1868 for a minstrel show. It was sung by Christy's Minstrels and became widely known in Europe, where it was used by Agatha Christie in her 1939 novel of the same name, about ten killings on a remote island. The novel was later retitled And Then There Were None for the American edition, although the original title remained in use for the UK publication until 1985, and it remains one of her most famous works. The Spanish and Russian titles of Christie's novel today are still Diez negritos and «Десять негритят», respectively, and the German children's song, with a different melody, is called "Zehn kleine Negerlein". Variants of this song have been published widely as children's books; what the variants have in common is 'that they are about dark skinned boys who are always children, never learning from experience'. For example, it had been published in the Netherlands by 1913; in Denmark by 1922 (in Börnenes billedbog); in Iceland in 1922 (as "Negrastrákarnir"); and in Finland in the 1940s (in Kotoa ja kaukaa: valikoima runosatuja lapsille and Hupaisa laskukirja). The Bengali poem "Haradhon er Dosti Chhele" ("Haradhon's Ten Sons") is also inspired by "Ten Little Indians".

Because of changing sensibilities over the words used, modern versions for children often use "aeroplanes", "soldier boys" or "teddy bears" as the objects of the rhyme, among others. Icelandic publisher Skrudda's unaltered republication in 2007 of the 1922 Icelandic version of Ten Little Negroes caused considerable debate in that country, with a strong division between those who saw the book as racist and those who saw it as "a part of funny and silly stories created in the past". In Kristín Loftsdóttir's assessment of the debate

The republishing of the book in Iceland triggered a number of parodies or rewritings: Tíu litlír kenjakrakkar ("Ten little prankster children") by Sigrún Eldjárn and Þórarinn Eldjárn; 10 litlir sveitastrákar ("Ten little country boys") by Katrín J. Óskarsdóttir and Guðrún Jónína Magnúsdóttir; and Tíu litlir bankastrákar ("Ten little banker boys") by Óttar M. Njorðfjörð.