In the new western and science fiction mashup, "Cowboys and Aliens," there are cowboys, invading space aliens, and Indians; there should also be Jews.

As I sit in the darkened theater watching this film set in the New Mexico Territory in 1873, I wonder: were there any Jews living there at that time?

Not that the mysterious shackle around the arm of the memory-less stranger (played by Daniel Craig) is some kind of futurist tefillin. But since in the small desert town of Absolution, where the film is set, everyone is all duded out in dusty cowboy attire, I assume somewhere in town, there's a place to buy clothes.

In the Southwest, even before the Civil War, the dry goods business was a good fit for Jews.

According to the New Mexico Jewish Historical Society website, around the time of the movie there were pioneer mercantile Jewish families living in almost every area of the then New Mexico Territory.

"Most of the families came from German-speaking Europe, although a few were East European immigrants, who arrived in the post-19th century era."

A photo taken in 1870 shows seraped and sombreroed Jewish businessmen, posing with a couple of Kiowa Indians, leading me to ask: who are the cowboys and who are the aliens?

According to Noel Pugach, professor emeritus at the University of New Mexico, some Jewish immigrants even learned "how to speak Spanish before they learned English."

With their facility for language, and the ability to see American life from an outsider (alien) point of view, some even became quite successful and influential trading with the Territory's Native American communities.

One of the most enduring stories of the Jewish traders, whose life is its own movie, is that of Solomon Bibo (1853-1934), who was a friend to whom many Americans at the time treated as aliens.

The Bibo story would be another mashup--between two cultures.

According to Albuquerque Anthropologist Dr. Gordon Bronitsky (who runs an international cultural marketing firm) writing in a well researched piece titled, "New Mexico Jewish Pioneers," Solomon Bibo journeyed to Santa Fe circa 1869. His brothers trading operations put them in close contact with the local Indians, and Solomon grew fascinated with their culture.

He became "the trusted adviser of the Acoma Pueblo Indians near Santa Fe," representing them in court on tribal land issues.

They called him "Don Solomono."

In "Cowboys and Aliens" there's a tense scene where a character needs to translate the Indian chief's words into English.

Bibo could have handled it.

Along with Laguna, Navajo, Zuni, Spanish, German, Yiddish and English German, Bibo became fluent in the Acoma language.

Son of a cantor, raised in an observant home, he fell in love and married Juana Valle,
the granddaughter of a former Acoma chief.

"There was no rabbi available in the territory of New Mexico at that time and two marriage ceremonies took place, an Indian one before a Catholic priest on May 1, 1885 at Acoma and a civil one before a justice of the peace on August 30."

Though raised a Catholic, several sources report that Bibo's new wife observed the Jewish faith, and that her children were raised as Jews.

As a result of his marriage to an Acoma woman, Bibo became a member of the Acoma tribe. He and his bride lived at Acoma Pueblo.

During a phone interview Bronitsky, related that Bibo, was chosen by the pueblo's elders (in 1885), to became the governor of Acoma Pueblo, "the only non-Indian ever to serve as a governor of an Indian Pueblo."

The ending of the Bibo story is less predictable than any Hollywood movie. As his and his family's legacy, he left behind a script that travels beyond a sequel. Until this day, Jews, Hispanics and Indians all carry the Bibo name.

Edmon J. Rodman has written about making his own matzah for JTA, Jewish love music for the Jerusalem Post, yiddisheh legerdemain for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, a Bernie Madoff Halloween mask for the Forward, and what really gets stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits for the Los Angeles Times. He has edited several Jewish population studies, and is one of the founders of the Movable Minyan, an over twenty-year-old chavura-size, independent congregation. He once designed a pop-up seder plate. In 2011 Rodman received a First Place Simon Rockower Award for "Excellence in Feature Writing" from the American Jewish Press Association."