Hi, Iâve got a question for you (or your followers, especially if theyâre Native American, preferably Cree) regarding people who are Two-Spirit. One of my characters comes from a Cree tribe and is Two-Spirit, and Iâve noticed that different tribes have specific terms of their own to describe Two-Spirit people, so Iâd like to use that in my novel as well when this character describes her identity. I came across the Cree phrase âiskwĂȘhkĂąnâ which, according to wikipedia, means âone who acts/lives like a womanâ, but creedictionary.com doesnât recognize it as a word, I think, because the site only gives me a similar word, which is âkĂźskwĂȘhkĂąnâ that means âfool, a mentally ill personâ. Which, as you imagine, is definitely not what I was going for.
Iâm wondering if I should use another word in the book? Also, if itâs possible, can you recommend me another word or even redirect me where I could continue my search? I admit, I havenât looked further than wikipedia and creedictionary.com yet because I havenât gotten around to writing the chapter, in which this character is introduced. Iâd love some pointers on this topic, though, because I really donât want to be ignorant or even offensive to either the trans community or to the Indigenous people. (Also if I phrased anything in an offensive or ignorant way, I apologize. Iâm not very educated on this topic yet, but Iâm trying to get there)
I asked a Cree friend of mine this, and sheâs nearly positive that the derogatory meaning was a mistranslation in the ethnography the term was popularized with. This is the thing with ethnographies, where they are often filtered through a white lens, and as a result a lot of nuance is lost.
The word was originally used to describe the sibling of a man named Fine Day, and the translator misgendered them. And the white interpretation seems to have simply stuck.
The thing is, Cree isnât a gendered language and doesnât really have the concept of âpronounsâ, unless you attach a gender to the sentence (my friend has been called he and she by Cree elders who learned English late in life as a result).
So gender is a much less obvious thing, and any sort of derogatory meaning has a high likelihood of being a colonialist interpretation. And the lack of recognition in any sort of database is also likely colonialist, since two spirit people were a target of eradication.Â
The term is probably fine, and itâd be nice to see it used in a positive way.
In case youâre afraid that iskwĂȘhkĂąn would be transphobic, no, lemme try to break the words down to show you whatâs going on here:
Iskwew means âwomanâ. Â
Meanwhile, kĂźskwew means ⊠Iâd call it âmade mentally affected, mental state alteredâ because while yes, it can turn into kĂźskwehkĂąn it also can turn into words like kĂźskwesin (stunned, dazed, concussed) or  kĂźskwesiw (dizzy, sick) or kĂźskwepewin (intoxicated). Â
Their similarity between these words is either a coincidence (consider words like âdoughâ vs âdoeâ, they donât have anything to do with one another), or it could be kind of like the English word âhystericalâ â a word that has a meaning derived from some culturally contextual attitudes towards women regardless of whether they still apply today.
KĂąn is a suffix you add to a word to denote that it is false (not as in counterfeit, but as in created, not originally natural), and you can see the neutral nature of its connotation in words like mĂźpitihkĂąna or âdenturesâ (false teeth).
IskwĂȘhkĂąn means, then, âfalse womanâ in a way: it probably would be more suitable to translate it into something like âcrafted womanâ to reflect its grammatically neutral construction.
-Elaney
