#berdache

"Maybe the Two Spirit Person is closer to truly human than the rest of us."

José Arroyo

Begochidi or Begochiddy is a Navajo trickster God

Begochidi was the son of the sun. The sun committed adultery with everything in the world. This was how so many monsters were born. After this, the sun was put a way off so that could not happen again. But as the sun came up he touched a flower which became pregnant and gave birth to be’gochidi. He was the youngest son of the sun, and the sun spoiled him. He was put in control of many things, such as game and domestic animals. He was a berdache and the first pottery maker.

SO BEFORE I START I NEED TO TELL YOU I’M WHITE AF SO IF YOU’RE FROM ONE OF THESE CULTURES PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I’M WRONG, THIS IS BASED OFF MY ANTHRO CLASS

I am taking cultural anthropology and I just read some really cool stuff about the berdache, which varies from culture to culture, but for a lot of them are actually treated very well and in some cases essential to Native American life. These do not include all Native American tribes, but include many scattered throughout the Northwest, Southwest, Prairie, Great Plains, the western Great Lakes, and I think the southern part of the East. I think the Navajo have a good example of this idea!

So, the basic thing goes like this: the spirit of a person is more inherent of a person’s gender than their genitalia, which, in our terms, would be more the character of a person. If, for example, a boy’s actions seem to be more feminine, their parents will begin to notice it and plan a ceremony. In some, the boy is given the option of picking between something traditionally considered masculine or feminine, and if he chooses something feminine, he enters the role of a berdache.

A berdache is separate from both female and male, but a sort of mix of both, a mediator between the two and in some cases life itself. Each thing has a polar opposite, but it also has something in between that can keep it together. Many peoples believe that a berdache is essential in order to keep things from falling too far apart.

Berdaches are even included in the Navajo origin myth: in the first world, there is man and woman, and in the second world, they meet twins that “change,” White Shell Girl and Turquoise Boy. Turquoise Boy remains with the people, carrying on traditionally feminine activities, while White Shell Girl becomes the moon.

I thought it would be really cool to share stuff I learned from class relating to LGBT for pride month! Happy pride and show off your colors friends!! Because in a lot of these cultures, you’re valid!!

(If someone can tell me the born female equivalents, please do!!)

Wewha

“The New World.” This romanticized term inspired legions of Europeans to race to the places we live in search of freedoms from oppressive regimes or treasures that would be claimed in the name of some European nation.

two-spirits

The Europeans saw new geography, new plants, new animals, but the most perplexing curiosity to these people were the Original Peoples and our ways of life. Of all of the foreign life ways Indians held, one of the first the Europeans targeted for elimination was the Two Spirit tradition among Native American cultures. At the point of contact, all Native American societies acknowledged three to five gender roles: Female, male, Two Spirit female, Two Spirit male and transgendered. LGBT Native Americans wanting to be identified within their respective tribes and not grouped with other races officially adopted the term “Two Spirit” from the Ojibwe language in Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1989

Perhaps one of the most famous Two Spirits of the past was We’wha (1849-1896), of the Zuni nation. We’wha was biologically a male and engendered with a female spirit. By all accounts, she was a very intelligent person who became the Zuni Ambassador in Washington, D.C. and was celebrated by the Washington elite as “The Zuni man-woman.” This photo depicts We’wha in traditional Zuni female clothes.

Wewha

Read the whole thing at link below

via Two Spirits, One Heart, Five Genders – ICTMN.com

Dance to the Berdashe, print by George Catlin from the 1903 edition of his book North American Indians, written 1832-1839