Two-Spirit
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Two-Spirit is a term for third gender people (for example, woman-living-man) that are among many, if not most, Native American tribes. It usually implies a masculine spirit and a feminine spirit living in the same body. It is also used by gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and intersex Native Americans to describe themselves. There are also native terms for these individuals in the various Native American languages.
The old term "berdache" (from French bardache, from Spanish bardaxa or bardaje/bardaja, from Italian bardasso or berdasia, from Arabic bardaj, from Persian bardaj or barah meaning "kept boy," "male prostitute," or "catamite") is a generic term used primarily by anthropologists and is frequently rejected as inappropriate and offensive by Native Americans. It has widely been replaced with Two-Spirit.
These individuals are often viewed as having two spirits occupying one body. Their dress is usually a mixture of traditionally male and traditionally female articles. They have distinct gender and social roles in their tribes. For instance, among the Lakota there was one ceremony during the Sun Dance that was performed only by a two-spirited person of that tribe. (See winkte)
Two-Spirit individuals perform specific social functions in their communities. Some are counselors while others are medicine persons or spiritual functionaries. They study skills including story telling, theater, magic, hypnotism, healing, herbal medicine, ventriloquism, singing, music and dance.
The word "berdache," though not universal, is most often used by anthropologists today to signify a traditional cross-gendered male-bodied individual performing an important function (perhaps, but not always, spiritual in nature) in any society from Native American (with the above semantic caveat) to Siberian to Island-Pacific.
Some examples of Two-Spirits in history include the accounts by Spanish conquistadors who spotted a two-spirited individual(s) in almost every village they entered in Central America and whom they then murdered. The Hopis used to hold a ritual in which a 16 year old male-bodied Two-Spirit was dressed as the Corn Goddess. All the men of the village then performed anal sex with this individual in order to bring fertility to the corn crop for the year. Subsequently a huge feast was held in the youth's honor.
There are descriptions of Two-Spirit individuals having strong mystical powers. In one account, raiding soldiers of a rival tribe begin to attack a group of foraging women when they perceive that one of the women, the one that does not run away, is a Two-Spirit. They halt their attack and retreat after the Two-Spirit counters them with a stick, determining that the Two-Spirit will have great power which they will not be able to overcome.
Alternate spellings are "Two Spirit" and "Twospirit."
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Terms
- Blackfoot (Southern Peigan)
- Male-bodied: Ake'skassi ("acts like a woman") [ editor's note: this is how Schaeffer spelt it and is also the spelling that Roscoe and Lang use, however a more correct spelling may be aakíí'skassi ]
- Female-bodied: Sakwo'mapi akikwan ("boy-girl") [ editor's note: this is how Schultz spelt it and is also the spelling used by Roscoe, however a more correct spelling may be saahkómaapi'aakííkoan, *strickly a nickname given to Running Eagle* ]
- Crow
- Male-bodied: Bote/Bate/Bade (not man, not woman)
- Lakota
- Male-bodied: Winkte ("['wants' or 'wishes'] to be [like] [a] woman." A contraction of winyanktehca)
- Female-bodied: Bloka egla wa ke ("thinks she can act like a man") [ editor's note: cited by Beatrice Medicine, its age unknown ]
- Navajo
- Male/female/intersexed-bodied: Nadleeh or nadle (gender class/category), nadleehi (singular), nadleehe (plural) ("one in a constant state of change," "one who changes," "being transformed")
Two-Spirit like identities outside of North America
- Asia
- African
See also
Sources/Recommended reading
[ * = most important ]
- The Kutenai Female Berdache in Ethnohistory 12(3):193-236, 1965, by Claude E. Schaeffer
- Blackfeet tales of Glacier National Park (1916) and Running Eagle (1919) by James W. Schultz
- Changing Native American Roles in an Urban Context and Changing Native American Sex Roles in an Urban Context in Two-Spirit People [see below], pg. 145-148, by Beatrice Medicine *
- The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Cultures by Walter L. Williams
- Living the Spirit: A Gay American Indian Anthology by Will Roscoe
- The Zuni Man-Woman by Will Roscoe
- Sex and Conquest: Gendered Violence, Political Order, and the European Conquest of the Americas by Richard C. Trexler *
- Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality edited by Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Lang *
- Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America by Will Roscoe *
- Men as Women, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native American Cultures by Sabine Lang *
External links
- Directions in Gender Research in American Indian Societies: Two Spirits and Other Categories by Beatrice Medicine (http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~culture/medicine.htm)
- Northwest Two-Spirit Society (http://www.nwtwospiritsociety.org/) - See The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture (http://www.ifge.org/books/spirit_and_flesh.htm) by Walter L. Williams
- The Two-Spirit Tradition (http://androgyne.0catch.com/2spiritx.htm) article at the Androgyne Online site
- The Two-Spirit Tradition (http://www.androphile.org/preview/Culture/NativeAmerica/amerindian.htm) article in the Androphile Project site
- Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits (http://www.baaits.org) includes links to other two-spirits groups
- GLBTQ.com: Berdache (http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/berdache.html)
- Indigenous Literature with a Queer/LGBT/Two-Spirit Sensibility (http://oncampus.richmond.edu/faculty/ASAIL/Two-Spirit.htm)