#pine leaf

Pine Leaf, The Badass Female Native American Chief

Our newest interesting fact can be found here: http://www.factfiend.com/pine-leaf-badass-female-native-american-chief/ - written by Karl Smallwood

 A Two-Spirit person in many Native American cultures believed to possess both the spirit of a man and the spirit of a woman in one body. They were revered by Native American people often holding roles of power. Women often became feared warriors and chiefs, and men became shamans, prophets, and spiritual leaders.

 Two-Spirits were usually discovered at a young age and given the choice to fill the role of Two-Spirit. As Two-Spirit they were usually dressed in both traditional male and female clothing and carried important roles in their tribes. The Two-Spirit men were prized as wives for their superior strength and status in the tribe. If a rival tribe were to raid a group of women in a field and one of them fought back the attacking men would run away for fear that she was a Two-Spirit and would be too strong for them to handle.

 When the Americas where colonized in the late 1400's, the Spanish invaders where surprised to find that the natives were practicing sodomy so openly, finding a Two-Spirit person in nearly every tribe, so of course, they tried to kill them all. The Two-Spirit people where burned at the stake or torn apart by dogs, their existence was punished brutally, most often by death, until they were almost stamped out of Native American cultures or even reviled by their tribes. This part of Native American culture was almost destroyed, but today LGBT Native Americans are reclaiming this integral right of their heritage by taking up the traditions of the Two-Spirit.

     Pine Leaf

 Pine Leaf was a Two-Spirit woman (a lesbian), born to the Gros Ventres tribe. She was taken prisoner by the Crow tribe and later became their chief. She grew up learning all the traditionally masculine roles of the tribe though she only wore woman's clothing while hunting or waging war on the Blackfoot Confederacy.