Gender and Sexuality in Indigenous North America, 1400-1850

by Sandra Slater (Editor)

Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the New World, Native Americans across the continent had developed richly complex attitudes and forms of expression concerning gender and sexual roles. The role of the berdache, a man living as a woman or a woman living as a man in native societies, has received recent scholarly attention but represents just one of many such occurrences of alternative gender identification in these cultures. Editors Sandra Slater and Fay A. Yarbrough have brought together scholars who explore the historical implications of these variations in the meanings of gender, sexuality, and marriage among indigenous communities in North America. Essays that span from the colonial period through the nineteenth century illustrate how these aspects of Native American life were altered through interactions with Europeans.

Organized chronologically, Gender and Sexuality in Indigenous North America, 1400-1850 probes gender identification, labor roles, and political authority within Native American societies. The essays are linked by overarching examinations of how Europeans manipulated native ideas about gender for their own ends and how indigenous people responded to European attempts to impose gendered cultural practices at odds with established traditions.

Representing groundbreaking scholarship in the field of Native American studies, these insightful discussions of gender, sexuality, and identity advance our understanding of cultural traditions and clashes that continue to resonate in native communities today as well as in the larger societies those communities exist within.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Feminism, Indigenous, Native American History, American History, Queer

202 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 30, 2011

About the author

Sandra Slater is an assistant professor of history and an affiliate faculty of women's and gender studies at the College of Charleston.

Reviews

[Cam's Corner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gender and Sexuality is a collection of eight essays that explore the “variation in the meanings of gender, sexuality, and marriage by examining indigenous communities in North American from the colonial period through the nineteenth century” (1). With several overarching themes such as race and class, historians discuss several historical documents regarding how white European (and eventually American) men considered the gender roles of Native American women and men. Variety in authorship from scholars living in the United States, Canada and Mexico allows for a wide range of interpretations of what it meant to be “two-spirited,” a woman, and a man through an Indigenous lens.
M. Carmen Gomez-Galisteo’s Subverting Gender Roles in the Sixteenth Century focuses on Cabeza de Vaca, a conquistador who took on a “woman’s” role when he was held in Native captivity for about eight years. Positioning himself as a trader and eventual healer, he highlights “the masculine attributes that his new identity… provided him, such as the freedom to travel” (11). Ultimately, these traditional native women roles ensured his survival until he eventually made his way back to Spain in 1537.
Roger M. Carpenter’s Womanish Men and Manlike Women examines the historical evidence surrounding two-spirited warriors among Native Americans. From the early sixteen century to the beginning of the twentieth century, he examines European (and later American) literature on the existence of two-spirited people, referred to as berdache (a problematic and dated term). Some Europeans, such as the French trader and soldier Pierre Liette were outraged at the concept; even going as so far as to blame Native women for “[repressing] the young men” for [they] could not satisfy ‘their passions as much as they would like’” (151). Others, like Pierre Marquette who “noted that two-sprit people… commanded a good deal of respect” (152) were intrigued.
Gabriel S. Estrada’s Two-spirit Histories in Southwestern and Mesoamerican Literatures takes a different perspective and argues that two-spirit historians have the right to be critical “of accepting Spanish and Eurocentric voices as the sole authorities on their cultures’ sexual and gender traditions” (165). For example, Deborah Miranda (of Esselen/Chumash people) is able to offer key insights of “California Indian joyas” (166) based on colonial Spanish sources. They are able to discuss the importance of two-spirit individuals in the involvement of the spiritual world/afterlife and how that role diminished during missionization in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Carrie House (of Navajo/Oneida), on the other hand, feels that academia has no place and right to intercede on two-spirit business: “It is not appropriate to have our creation stories and mythology challenged with Western scientific theories” (172).
While the contribution of various authors is greatly appreciated, this collection is not without its shortcomings. Because the essays are written independently, there is a missed opportunity for the authors to engage in each others works and debate possible discrepancies. For example, while Carpenter acknowledges that the “term berdache itself is somewhat controversial and is considered offensive by some” (147), Estrada flatly rejects the term as a whole stating that “most Native American and conscientious scholars refuse to use the term berdache, noting its Eurocentrism and roots in Old World and Arab concepts of ‘male prostitution’” (166). It would have been interesting if Estrada’s piece was as a response to Carpenter.
All in all, this anthology is a very simple and straight forward read and should be welcomed in both undergrad and graduate seminars.

[Josh Adamek]

More historiography work

Last two chapters are most useful due to presence of academic debate

[Michelle Boyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of essays dealing with American Indian gender and sexuality, specifically from 1400-1850 which covers pre-contact and post-contact. Some of the essays are pushed a little to an extreme, and you might not be convinced of the thesis the author is attempting to make. However, there are a lot of essays that I found valuable.

There are two essays on the two-spirit individual, and how these individuals become warrior figures, and how they are presented in literature from the southwest. Both are great reading, quite interesting, and were essays I was pleased to see in a new text. If you're interested in the role of two-spirit people, I suggest the essays by Roger M. Carpenter and Gabriel S. Estrada that are in this collection.

[Allison6876 · Rating 4 out of 5]

used for gender roles paper for AMIN 3301