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.

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 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, a leader 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?

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 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, as many in the organization do, 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.”

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.

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 about 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 such as 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 been axed recently, 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 has 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 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.”

Marjorie Lane first reached out to Westernaires leadership two years ago when her granddaughter Jamilah was new to the organization.