Pretentious Hipster Western made by people whose only exposure to the...

Too late. I saw Sukiyaki Western Django and it was retarded. Yojimbo was great. Seven Samurai was great. Sukiyaki Western Django was a hideous abortion.

I usually know better than to get involved with online back-and-forth, but... eh, I'm in a mood today. Anyway:

1. Non-native blacks in the US:

From the Schomburg Center (http://www.inmotionaame.org/home.cfm;jsessionid=f8302244681440678734283?bhcp=1):

In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience presents a new interpretation of African-American history, one that focuses on the self-motivated activities of peoples of African descent to remake themselves and their worlds. Of the thirteen defining migrations that formed and transformed African America, only the transatlantic slave trade and the domestic slave trades were coerced, the eleven others were voluntary movements of resourceful and creative men and women, risk-takers in an exploitative and hostile environment.

(though the wheelchair-bound part is pretty much dramatic license, I'll give you that)

From Whaling Museum via the WaybackMachine (http://web.archive.org/web/20061231054329/www.whalingmuseum.org/kendall/heros/index_h.html - those the site itself is still live; their basic point is that there were Africans migrating to the US specifically to work in the whaling industry):

From Colonial times to the twentieth century, men of African ancestry were active in New England’s whaling industry as sailors, blacksmiths, shipbuilders, officers, & owners.

By the 1840s, Black sailors constituted about one-sixth of the labor force; and by 1900, African Americans and Cape Verdeans had become a majority.

and

Men and women of color had been involved in the Yankee whaling industry almost from the beginning. By the time photographers began to capture whaling images on film around the turn of the century, a majority of American whalemen were of African descent.

The largest and most conspicuous group were Portuguese-speaking Creoles from the Cape Verde Islands off the West Coast of Africa, for whom the whale fishery itself was the attraction to America.

2. Native American mud painting:

Some examples from http://www.powwows.com/2011/07/21/face-painting-traditions-among-men-of-the-plains/:

a. Densmore, Frances. 1918. Teton Sioux Music, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin No. 61, U.S. Government Printing Office, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

On the Standing Rock Reservation is found a yellow ocherous substance which, after being reduced to a fine powder, is used by the Indians in making yellow paint. This substance, when treated by means of heat, yields the vermilion used on all ceremonial articles as well as in painting the bodies of the Indians.

b. Fletcher, Alice C. and Joseph Laflesche. 1911. The Omaha Tribe, Bureau of American Ethnology, 27th Annual Report 1905-06, U.S. Government Printing Office, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.

"Men generally painted their faces and bodies in accordance with dreams or in representation of some achievement or accorded honor"... "before the advent of the looking glass a young man was painted by his friend"... "when going into battle, on the surround at the tribal buffalo hunt, when taking part in the Hedewachi Ceremony, at the Hethushka Society, and the Pebble Society, the painting on their faces and bodies had a serious significance partaking of the nature of an appeal or prayer."

More examples at http://www.warpaths2peacepipes.com/native-american-culture/war-paint.htm


3. Absinthe

Absinthe was very much available in New Orleans. The first US cocktail (which gave rise to the word) was the Sazerac, which was altered to include rye whiskey and absinthe in 1873 (http://www.sazerac.com/cocktail.aspx).
There are newspaper articles about it contributing to a Salt Lake City murder at the end of the 19th / beginning of the 20th century. (http://wormwoodsociety.org/forums/topic/7256-absinthe-in-the-old-west/)

So no reason to say it couldn't have shown up in the old west somewhere, especially since New Orleans was a major port, and absinthe was legal in the US until around 1912.

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