Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
This landmark book combines the voices of Native Americans and non-Indians, anthropologists and others, in an exploration of gender and sexuality issues as they relate to lesbian, gay, transgendered, and other "marked" Native Americans.
Focusing on the concept of two-spirit people--individuals not necessarily gay or lesbian, transvestite or bisexual, but whose behaviors or beliefs may sometimes be interpreted by others as uncharacteristic of their sex--this book is the first to provide an intimate look at how many two-spirit people feel about themselves, how other Native Americans treat them, and how anthropologists and other scholars interpret them and their cultures.
1997 Winner of the Ruth Benedict Prize for an edited book given by the Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists.
Table of Contents
Is the "North American berdache" merely a phantom in the imagination of Western social scientists? / Sue-Ellen Jacobs -- The Northern Athapaskan "berdache" reconsidered : on reading more than there is in the ethnographic record / Jean-Guy A. Goulet -- Cross-dressing and shamanism among selected Western North American tribes / Arnold R. Pilling -- Various kinds of two-spirit people : gender variance and homosexuality in Native American communities / Sabine Lang -- Traditions of gender diversity and sexualities : a female-to-male transgendered perspective / Jason Cromwell -- Changing Native American roles in an urban context and changing Native American sex roles in an urban context / Beatrice Medicine (Standing Rock Lakota) -- Navajo cultural constructions of gender and sexuality / Wesley Thomas (Navajo) -- A Navajo worldview and Nâadleehâi : implications for Western categories / Carolyn Epple -- M. Dragonfly : two-spirit and the Tafoya Principle of Uncertainty / Terry Tafoya (Taos/Warm Springs) -- I am a Lakota womyn / Beverly Little Thunder (Standing Rock Lakota) -- Traditional influences on a contemporary gay-identified Sisseton Dakota / Michael Red Earth (Sisseton Dakota) -- A postcolonial colonial perspective on Western misconceptions of the cosmos and the restoration of indigenous taxonomies / Anguksuar Richard LaFortune(Yupâik) -- Navajo warrior women : an ancient tradition in a modern world / Carrie H. House (Navajo/Oneida) -- I ask you to listen to who I am / Doyle V. Robertson (Sisseton/Wahpeton Dakota) -- A "berdache" by any other name-- is a brother, friend, lover, spouse : reflections on a Mescalero Apache singer of ceremonies / Claire R. Farrer -- Gender statuses, gender features, and gender/sex categories : new perspectives on an old paradigm / Lee M. Kochems and Sue-Ellen Jacobs -- On the incommensurability of gender categories / Alice B. Kehoe -- You anthropologists make sure you get your words right / Clyde M. Hall (Lemhi Shoshoni) -- The dilemmas of desire : from "berdache" to two-spirit / Gilbert Herdt -- Native American genders and sexualities : beyond anthropological models and misrepresentations / Evelyn Blackwood -- Dealing with homophobia in everyday life.