Stop me if you've heard this one before:

This prosperous paleface shows off his watch to a redskin: "See, these dials tell me what time of day it is, even if I can't see the sun!". The native is highly impressed, mumbling something about "heap big medicine".

Some time later, the Indian comes upon the white guy again, but this time, the Mechanical Marvel isn't working. Whitey tries winding it up, fiddling with the adjustments, tapping gently on the back of it, etc, etc... All to no avail. Finally he opens up the watch and shakes it -- and out falls a dead fly that somehow got in there and gummed up the works!

To which the Noble Savage observes: "Aha, that why no work -- engineer dead!".