The following is reproduced here with permission of the author, Will Roscoe
THE ZUNI MAN-WOMAN
In Life Where There Are Only Differences,
`good'/`bad' Are Merely Interesting Ideas
There is an old joke that the typical Zuni household consists of a mother,
father, children, and an anthropologist. In fact, the Zunis are one of the
most written-about tribes in the world. . . . It was with genuine
disappointment, then, that I came to realize how often the impact of these
outsiders on the objects of their fascination has been disruptive and
detrimental. Despite their admiration of the Pueblos, early anthropologists
more often bolstered the image of the vanishing Indian than challenged it. .
. .
Early observers were convinced that the cause of science and the immenent
disappearance of tribal cultures justified their actions. . . . Such
predictions enact what James Clifford has termed the redemptive allegory of
anthropology -- the assumption that the "primitive" cultures are doomed to
disappear except for those artifacts "rescued" by Western scientists. Such
predictions are not only self-serving -- since they inflate the importance
of the fieldworkers's reports -- they can also be self-fulfilling. They
sustain and foster the idea of Indians as a vanishing race by referring only
to their past.
The alternative view, however, challenges many comfortable assumptions:
that there are neither primitive nor civilized, inferior nor superior,
simple nor advanced societies -- only different ones. This view requires
learning to think in "plurals" -- imagining the multiple histories and
cultural stories of human societies in every part of the world as parallel,
equal developments intersecting without necessarily merging, and associating
non-Western societies such as Zuni with the future of the planet instead of
its past. We must question the assumption that change means the loss of
something essential and find ways to discuss cultural differences without
encasing them in value-ladened descriptions.
"The Fascination of Zuni", from the Preface, pp.x,xi,xii
THE ZUNI MAN-WOMAN, Will Roscoe, 1991
i love this book for many reasons. Among them are the
depiction of an expression of being human wondrously
liberated from the Calvinistic and puritanical mindset
that equates sexuality and the experience of its
psychic-sensual pleasure and energy as evil, dirty, and
shameful -- especially where women are concerned. There
is also the fact that Zuni cosmology and the culture
their ancestors manifested is another example of the
human experience here on earth that confounds an
underlying assumption of western civilization and
thought: that war is inevitable and justifiable since
man is naturally ambitious, possessive, competitive, and
"wired to fight".
Stories such as this, that articulate other
qualities of what constitutes the nature of being human
outside the scope of a culture preoccupied with "the
sterner virtues -- initiative, ambition, an
uncompromising sense of honor and justice, intense
personal loyalties", are infinitely precious during this
present wintertime of the human spirit. Consider a
culture based upon a set of psychic values where "[t]he
most honored personality traits are a pleasing address,
a yielding disposition, and a generous heart." This is
not to romanticize or project any western experience of
"paradise lost" onto another group of people who did not
transmit their psychic inheritance down through the ages
as my European ancestors did. The fact is there are many
worlds of being and awareness beyond the extremely
limited and constrained one which our industrial,
consumer-based culture touts, props up, and incessantly
promotes.
The most precious awareness made conscious inside
from taking in this story is that the only comparison
one can actually draw between two distinct things is
that they are different. Any other conclusion one draws,
including such either/or thinking as good-evil,
right-wrong, superior-inferior, beautiful-ugly, inject
an interpretation into perception that can and usually
does fundamentally distort the fact of what one
experiences with one's awareness and senses. Having been
raised in the increasingly impersonal modern world of
the 20th century, and taught to unconsciously practice
the violence of psychological comparison, The Zuni Man
Woman was one of the sources that opened me up to seeing
more of the whole of life and the infinite range of what
we can manifest, create, and give expression to here as
each of us learns what the nature of being human means.
--ratitor
The following excerpts are taken from The Zuni-Man Woman by Will Roscoe, a
portion of which is included below
. . . According to Edmund Ladd, "Men are responsible for the
universe. Women are responsible for the family and the tribe."
These roles were distinct but complementary; both were essential
to the welfare of society as a whole.[30] For example, men
constructed the houses, but women plastered the outside walls. And
while men were responsible for growing corn, women were
responsible for storing and distributing it. Men were not even
allowed to enter the granaries. . . .
Religion was the special concern of men. This is what Ladd
referred to as being "responsible" for the universe; for in Zuni
belief, religious ceremonies were necessary for the welfare of all
living beings and the world itself. Some men, if they had a "good
heart" and even temperament, and depending upon their clan
membership, became priests. A priest or religious official, as one
Zuni explained, "is not supposed to fight even though he is
threatened. . . . When he is sworn in, he is supposed to love all
the people and the animals."[32] Other Zuni men became warriors by
defending the village or joining raiding parties. If they killed
an enemy and returned with a scalp, they had to undergo initiation
into the warrior society. This cleansed them from their exposure
to violence and death and made them safe for contact with other
Zunis. . . .
If men did indeed take over responsibility for growing corn
from women at some point during Southwest prehistory, women's
status still remained high. Among the historic Zunis, this was
reflected in such traditions as matrilineal descent and matrilocal
residence (husbands lived with their wives' families); the
ownership of houses by women, including their repair and periodic
plastering; the control of the store rooms by women; and the
assignment of fields by female-run households. Marriage was
largely a private matter, transacted without ritual or ceremony.
To divorce a husband, a woman simply set his possessions out on
the doorstep. "When he comes home in the evening, " Ruth Benedict
explained, "he sees the little bundle, picks it up and cries, and
retums with it to his mother's house. He and his family weep and
are regarded as unfortunate." Kroeber noted, "The woman's title to
the house is absolute. . . . When a man has built such a house,
and he and his wife quarrel and separate, even for no other reason
than her flagrant infidelity, he walks out and leaves the edifice
to her and his successor without the least thought of being
deprived of anything that is his. . . . The Zuñi does not even
have an inkling of having been chivalrous in such an abandonment.
His conduct is as much a matter of course as resigning oneself to
anything inevitable."[37] A possessive attitude on the part of
fathers toward their offspring was also absent at Zuni. Men did
not "own" children -- they belonged to their mothers' clans. In
the case of divorce, children remained with their mother, and her
next husband doted on them as if they were his own.
These practices addressed one of the fundamental questions all
societies face -- the welfare of children. The Zuni solution,
however, did not depend on the institution of marriage. Married,
divorced, or single, women always had a home. And in a matrilineal
system, there was no such thing as an illegitimate child. Children
only needed mothers to be ensured membership in a household and a
clan. Thus, Zuni women were free to choose sexual partners without
economic or moral compulsion, to practice birth control (including
abortion and natural contraceptives), in short, to control their
own bodies.[38] . . .
A telling measure of the status of Zuni women was the response
of children to a test administered in the 1950s. When Zuni boys
were asked who they would like to be if they could change
themselves into anything else, 10 percent wanted to be their
sisters or mothers. Such a high percentage cannot be explained as
an epidemic of gender dysphoria, but simply as a reflection of the
prestige of female roles. (It is interesting to note that no Zuni
girls made cross-sex choices.)[41] In fact, Zuni folk tales and
kachinas included a variety of role models for women, an
indication of the range of behaviors open to them.
Benedict described the Zunis as Apollonian, "a people who
value sobriety and inoffensiveness above all other virtues."
According to Ruth Bunzel, "The most honored personality traits are
a pleasing address, a yielding disposition, and a generous heart.
All the sterner virtues -- initiative, ambition, an uncompromising
sense of honor and justice, intense personal loyalties -- not only
are not admired but are heartily deplored. The woman who cleaves
to her husband through misfortune and family quarrels, the man who
speaks his mind where flattery would be much more comfortable, the
man, above all, who thirsts for power or knowledge, who wishes to
be, as they scornfully phrase it, `a leader of his people,'
receives nothing but censure." Benedict added, "Even in contests
of skill like their foot-races, if a man wins habitually, he is
debarred from running. They are interested in a game that a number
can play with even chances, and an outstanding runner spoils the
game: they will have none of him."[42]
The Zunis referred to these ideals with the term k'okshi which
meant at once "be good, be obedient, be attractive."[43] For the
Zunis, k'okshiwas anything that promoted human survival and
happiness. . . .
These values were evident in the attitudes of Zuni men toward
women. Dennis Tedlock has recorded a story told by a Zuni in which
one of the trickster War Gods passes as a woman by placing a
bottle-necked gourd between his legs to simulate a vagina.
Although quite explicit about other details, the storyteller never
used the common Zuni name for "that which gives a woman her
being." When Tedlock persisted in asking why he had not been more
explicit, the storyteller's son gave him a lecture "in an
irritated tone of voice, not unlike the lectures that are given
the young man in the story":
Didn't I know that the bodies of women are tehya --
precious, valuable, guarded? No, it wasn't just a matter
of sex: "That's secondary. It's their bodies that are
tehya." Finally, in one last effort to make me
understand, he crossed the horizon of my own mythic
world and said, "It's like Eve. She found she wanted to
be tehya at that spot, so she put a big leaf to it." And
so there she was, Eve as a Zuni saw her, not discovering
evil and shame, but choosing to make a part of herself
precious, valued, and guarded.[47]
. . . from the book jacket:
THE ZUNI MAN-WOMAN
by Will Roscoe
University of New Mexico Press
© 1991 Will Roscoe.
All Rights Reserved.
First Edition.
In 1886 the nation's capital hosted a
remarkable cultural ambassador. The "Zuni
maiden" named We'wha (WAY-wah) mingled with
"the most enlightened society of the
metropolis," demonstrated arts and crafts,
befriended the Speaker of the House and other
dignitaries, and appeared in a major charity
event to the "deafening applause of an
audience that included President Grover
Cleveland.
Although he was the "tallest, certainly
the strongest" member of his tribe, and
despite his "rather large" features, no one in
Washington doubted that We'wha was a woman.
It was a long way from the dusty pueblo
in New Mexico where We'wha lived as a
traditional Zuni berdache -- a man who
preferred women's work and adopted female
dress. But for such an individual exceptional
behavior was expected. Zunis believed that men
skilled at women's crafts (and women skilled
in male activities) combined the two sexes.
This made them extraordinary in every respect.
The Zuni Man-Woman focuses on the life of
We'wha, perhaps the most famous berdache in
American Indian history. Through We'wha's
exceptional life, historian Will Roscoe
creates a vivid picture of an alternative
gender role whose history has been hidden and
almost forgotten.
The account of We'wha is followed by a
fascinating look at Zuni concepts of gender
and sexuality and the religious and
mythological dimensions of the berdache role.
The Zuni Man-Woman also tells for the first
time the story of the U.S. government's
concerted but ultimately ineffective efforts
to change Indian "morals" and suppress
berdaches. Today the berdache tradition has
been undergoing a surprising renewal among
contemporary gay American Indians.
WILL ROSCOE is the editor of Living the
Spirit: A Gay American Indian Anthology.
--- -=-======|======-=- ---
. . . from the "Prologue, A Death That Caused Universal
Regret", pp.4-6:
. . . as the setting sun lighted up the
western windows, darkness and desolation
entered the hearts of the mourners, for We'wha
was dead.[4]
Among the Zunis, the death of a berdache like We'wha
elicited "universal regret and distress." But from the
Spanish and Anglo-Americans who overran the Southwest,
berdaches often evoked dismay, disgust, anger, or, at
the least, ridicule. Berdaches were anomalies -- freaks
of nature, demons, deviants, perverts, sinners,
corrupters. They committed the "nefarious vice, " the
"abominable sin." Over the centuries, Europeans have
resorted to a bewildering variety of terms to describe
them -- in Spanish, soméjticos (sodomites), amarionadas
(from Mary, meaning "effeminate), mujerados (literally
"made women"), putos (male prostitutes), and bardajes
(from "bardaj," Persian and Arabic for "slave" or "kept
boy"), and in English, "hermaphrodites," "sodomites,"
"men-women," "inverts," "homosexuals," "transvestites,"
and "transsexuals."[5]
Today, anthropologists have settled on the term
berdache, a version of bardaje used by French explorers.
In fact, variations of berdache were once current in
Spanish, French, English, and Italian. The Oxford
English Dictionary defines "bardash" as "a boy kept for
unnatural purposes." Although such a practice has very
little to do with the North American berdache role,
Europeans had no better terms for such a status. Their
languages forced them to make a choice between labeling
the gender variation of berdaches (with terms like
hermaphrodite and mujerado) or their sexual variation
(with terms like sodomite and berdache).[6]
Male and female berdaches (that is, women who
assumed male roles as warriors and chiefs or engaged in
male work or occupations) have been documented in over
130 North American tribes, in every region of the
continent, among every type of native culture, from the
small bands of hunters in Alaska to the populous,
hierarchical city-states of Florida. Among the Pueblo
Indians of Arizona and New Mexico, male berdaches have
been recorded at Acoma, Hopi, Isleta, Laguna, Santa Ana,
Santo Domingo, San Felipe, San Juan, Tesuque, and Zuni.
In the various languages spoken in these pueblos they
were called kokwimu (Keres), hova (Hopi), lhunide
(Tiwa), kwidó (Tewa), and lhamana (Zuni).[7]
In traditional native societies berdaches were not
anomalous. They were integral, productive, and valued
members of their communities. But the European culture
transplanted to America lacked any comparable roles, and
the Europeans who saw berdaches were unable to describe
them accurately or comprehend their place in Indian
societies. Indeed, through a long span of history,
European social institutions have sought to suppress the
very economic, social, and sexual behaviors typical of
berdaches. Few aspects of European and American Indian
cultures conflicted as much as they did in this.
What is it that American Indians saw in these men
and women who bridged genders that Western civilization
has overlooked or denied? And what was it like to be
such a person? Although the answers that follow are
based on a study of the male berdache role in a single
tribe, and the career of a particular berdache, it is a
story that could have been told hundreds of times over
when the Europeans first arrived in North America, and
may yet be told again, for all the tribes that
recognized this status.
But first, we will begin with a visit to the home of
the Zunis, the land they call the Middle Place; for this
land and their relationship to it is at the heart of
what makes the Zunis different from the non-Indians who
are now their neighbors.
--- -=-======|======-=- ---
. . . from Chapter 1, "The Middle Place", pp.18-28:
THE ROLES OF MEN AND WOMEN
Although Zuni women and men specialized in separate
areas of economic, social, and spiritual life they
enjoyed equal prestige and status. According to Edmund
Ladd, "Men are responsible for the universe. Women are
responsible for the family and the tribe." These roles
were distinct but complementary; both were essential to
the welfare of society as a whole.[30] For example, men
constructed the houses, but women plastered the outside
walls. And while men were responsible for growing corn,
women were responsible for storing and distributing it.
Men were not even allowed to enter the granaries. Men
and women also specialized in different arts and crafts.
Men wove blankets, made jewelry, and manufactured their
own tools. They even knitted their wives' wool leggings
-- a disturbing sight for the first Americans who
visited the pueblo.[31] Pottery and ceramics, on the
other hand, were made exclusively by women. And while
weaving was usually a male craft among the Pueblos, at
Zuni women also wove, usually with the smaller waist
loom used to make belts and sashes.
Religion was the special concern of men. This is
what Ladd referred to as being "responsible" for the
universe; for in Zuni belief, religious ceremonies were
necessary for the welfare of all living beings and the
world itself. Some men, if they had a "good heart" and
even temperament, and depending upon their clan
membership, became priests. A priest or religious
official, as one Zuni explained, "is not supposed to
fight even though he is threatened. . . . When he is
sworn in, he is supposed to love all the people and the
animals."[32] Other Zuni men became warriors by
defending the village or joining raiding parties. If
they killed an enemy and returned with a scalp, they had
to undergo initiation into the warrior society. This
cleansed them from their exposure to violence and death
and made them safe for contact with other Zunis.
While women's participation in Zuni religion was
less institutionalized than that of men, it was no less
important. Their religious roles were conceptualized as
an extension of their responsibilities for "feeding" and
"producing life."[33] For example, women regularly "fed"
kachina masks stored in their houses by sprinkling them
with sacred corn meal. Women also could join any of the
medicine societies and "produce life" by learning the
techniques of curing life-threatening illness and
injury. Occasionally, women even joined the kachina
society -- Stevenson reported four female members in
1902 -- and women often acquired extensive knowledge
regarding the kachinas. In fact, until the turn of the
century, the council of rain priests included the
position of Shiwanoka, the "priestess of fecundity," and
one of her prerogatives, according to Stevenson, was the
right to dismiss the highest religious official of Zuni,
the Bekwin or Sun Priest.[34]
Many of the more striking features of Zuni life were
related to the high status and economic independence of
Zuni women. Through their waffle gardens, the collection
of wild foods, and their role in harvesting and storing
corn, women made substantial contributions to food
production. In fact, the role of Pueblo women in
agriculture may have been even greater in prehistoric
times, with the earliest permanent settlements organized
along lines similar to the historic Navajos -- women and
children tending nearby gardens while men roamed in
small groups to hunt and retrieve distant resources.
Cushing believed that traces of such a division of labor
could be found in the ritual role of Zuni women in
relation to corn.[35] The introduction of irrigation,
however, may have been associated with a change in male
and female roles. Elaborate diversion systems such as
those constructed in Chaco Canyon, and the use of river
and spring-fed irrigation by historic pueblos, are
typically the work of organized male labor.[36]
If men did indeed take over responsibility for
growing corn from women at some point during Southwest
prehistory, women's status still remained high. Among
the historic Zunis, this was reflected in such
traditions as matrilineal descent and matrilocal
residence (husbands lived with their wives' families);
the ownership of houses by women, including their repair
and periodic plastering; the control of the store rooms
by women; and the assignment of fields by female-run
households. Marriage was largely a private matter,
transacted without ritual or ceremony. To divorce a
husband, a woman simply set his possessions out on the
doorstep. "When he comes home in the evening, " Ruth
Benedict explained, "he sees the little bundle, picks it
up and cries, and retums with it to his mother's house.
He and his family weep and are regarded as unfortunate."
Kroeber noted, "The woman's title to the house is
absolute. . . . When a man has built such a house, and
he and his wife quarrel and separate, even for no other
reason than her flagrant infidelity, he walks out and
leaves the edifice to her and his successor without the
least thought of being deprived of anything that is his.
. . . The Zuñi does not even have an inkling of having
been chivalrous in such an abandonment. His conduct is
as much a matter of course as resigning oneself to
anything inevitable."[37] A possessive attitude on the
part of fathers toward their offspring was also absent
at Zuni. Men did not "own" children -- they belonged to
their mothers' clans. In the case of divorce, children
remained with their mother, and her next husband doted
on them as if they were his own.
These practices addressed one of the fundamental
questions all societies face -- the welfare of children.
The Zuni solution, however, did not depend on the
institution of marriage. Married, divorced, or single,
women always had a home. And in a matrilineal system,
there was no such thing as an illegitimate child.
Children only needed mothers to be ensured membership in
a household and a clan. Thus, Zuni women were free to
choose sexual partners without economic or moral
compulsion, to practice birth control (including
abortion and natural contraceptives), in short, to
control their own bodies.[38] "Trysting is an accepted
Zuni pattern, and premarital sexual intercourse is
expected as a part of the culture," one study concluded.
"Courtship is often initiated by the girl and premarital
affairs take place in her home. According to one male
Zuni informant: `If a girl asks you to her house, you
just sleep with her, and you leave before morning
several times. Then one day you stay later and you're
seen, and then everyone knows you're married.'"[39]
Another anthropologist, who observed the flirtation
between girls and boys every evening at the community
well and the furtive comings and goings of adults,
concluded that the "open-air evenings at Zuñi are
magically charged . . . everybody seems to be sneaking
around in a sneaking atmosphere."[40]!
A telling measure of the status of Zuni women was
the response of children to a test administered in the
1950s. When Zuni boys were asked who they would like to
be if they could change themselves into anything else,
10 percent wanted to be their sisters or mothers. Such a
high percentage cannot be explained as an epidemic of
gender dysphoria, but simply as a reflection of the
prestige of female roles. (It is interesting to note
that no Zuni girls made cross-sex choices.)[41] In fact,
Zuni folk tales and kachinas included a variety of role
models for women, an indication of the range of
behaviors open to them.
Benedict described the Zunis as Apollonian, "a
people who value sobriety and inoffensiveness above all
other virtues." According to Ruth Bunzel, "The most
honored personality traits are a pleasing address, a
yielding disposition, and a generous heart. All the
sterner virtues -- initiative, ambition, an
uncompromising sense of honor and justice, intense
personal loyalties -- not only are not admired but are
heartily deplored. The woman who cleaves to her husband
through misfortune and family quarrels, the man who
speaks his mind where flattery would be much more
comfortable, the man, above all, who thirsts for power
or knowledge, who wishes to be, as they scornfully
phrase it, `a leader of his people,' receives nothing
but censure." Benedict added, "Even in contests of skill
like their foot-races, if a man wins habitually, he is
debarred from running. They are interested in a game
that a number can play with even chances, and an
outstanding runner spoils the game: they will have none
of him."[42]
The Zunis referred to these ideals with the term
k'okshi which meant at once "be good, be obedient, be
attractive."[43] For the Zunis, k'okshiwas anything that
promoted human survival and happiness. Being good,
obedient, attractive was the way to live in balance and
travel on the Good Road, "the way of life of the ideal
cooperative and economically productive family man, who
deeply desires an harmonious existence with his fellows,
who is hard working, self-effacing and moderate in all
things."[44] As the term suggests, moral good was also
aesthetically pleasing. One Zuni might say of another,
"A pretty personality [that is, k'okshi; he's happy all
the time and always joking."[45] This concept is easier
to appreciate when we consider the kachina who portrays
this ideal -- Kokk'okshi (k'okshi with the prefix ko-,
from kokko or gods) -- the stately rain dancer
considered the oldest and most sacred kachina. As a Zuni
explained to Bunzel, "Kokokci never makes people
frightened or angry. He is always happy and gentle, and
he dances to make the world green. . . . During the war
with the Kana.kwe they were the only ones who did not
fight. They never fight, because they are always kind
and gentle."[46]
These values were evident in the attitudes of Zuni
men toward women. Dennis Tedlock has recorded a story
told by a Zuni in which one of the trickster War Gods
passes as a woman by placing a bottle-necked gourd
between his legs to simulate a vagina. Although quite
explicit about other details, the storyteller never used
the common Zuni name for "that which gives a woman her
being." When Tedlock persisted in asking why he had not
been more explicit, the storyteller's son gave him a
lecture "in an irritated tone of voice, not unlike the
lectures that are given the young man in the story":
Didn't I know that the bodies of women are
tehya -- precious, valuable, guarded? No, it
wasn't just a matter of sex: "That's
secondary. It's their bodies that are tehya."
Finally, in one last effort to make me
understand, he crossed the horizon of my own
mythic world and said, "It's like Eve. She
found she wanted to be tehya at that spot, so
she put a big leaf to it." And so there she
was, Eve as a Zuni saw her, not discovering
evil and shame, but choosing to make a part of
herself precious, valued, and guarded.[47]
THE ZUNI BERDACHE
While the traditional roles of men and women were
well defined, the Zunis viewed gender as an acquired
rather than an inborn trait. Biological sex did not
dictate the roles individuals assumed. Nor did Zuni
thought limit gender to only two versions. Zuni
berdaches occupied an "alternative" gender, a status
anthropologists have termed berdache and the Zunis
called lhamana.[48]
Stevenson defined berdaches as men who "do woman's
work and wear woman's dress." The decision to become a
lhamana was made by the boy in childhood and based on a
preference for "hanging about the house." It became
final at puberty when the youth adopted female dress.
The women of the family "are inclined to look upon him
with favor, since it means that he will remain a member
of the household and do almost double the work of a
woman, who necessarily ceases at times from her labors
at the mill and other duties to bear children and to
look after the little ones; but the ko'thlama [lhamana]
is ever ready for service, and is expected to perform
the hardest labors of the female department." Stevenson
had known five lhamanas at Zuni. Two were among "the
finest potters and weavers in the tribe."[49]
Another early, although less sympathetic, observer
was Mary Dissette, who began teaching at the
Presbyterian mission school at Zuni in 1888. Over
thirty-five years later, Dissette recorded her
recollections of Zuni berdaches in a letter preserved in
the papers of the Indian Rights Association.[50]
Dissette had known five lhamanas, whom she considered
"victims of a religious superstition." Two died shortly
after her arrival; one, named Manna, had done some
weaving for her. Most interesting is her account of a
younger lhamana "in course of training." Kwiwishdi
("Que-wish-ty") was the cousin of a Zuni girl named
Daisy, whom Dissette had adopted. At the time that
Dissette first offered him a regular meal, enrollment in
the mission school, and a dollar a week for doing chores
and laundry, he had not yet formally entered lhamana
status -- that is, he still wore male clothing. But he
already manifested several traits typical of Zuni
berdaches, especially his enthusiasm for hard work. As
Dissette recalled, "He was so strong and so quick and
willing." Kwiwishdi's blossoming as a lhamana, however,
left the school teacher bewildered and dismayed:
He was with us a year or two and always spoken
of as a boy by us and by the Inds. [Indians].
After a time he began to wear the `Petone'
[bidonne] or large square of cloth over the
shoulders [a traditional article of women's
clothing] and was in great demand at grinding
bees and other female activities in the
village. In another year he had quite an
illness it appeared and came to tell me of it,
and that he could not work for me any longer.
. . . I did not see him at all that winter but
in the spring [of 1890] a camping party which
included Dr. Fewkes came to Zuni and hired
Quewishty as cook and he came out in full
female attire.
Not long after this, Kwiwishdi formed a relationship
with a young Zuni man and the couple set up
housekeeping.
Dissette found Kwiwishdi's behavior
incomprehensible. When she asked him (through Daisy as
interpreter) the reason he had adopted women's clothing,
he replied that it was because he did women's work. "But
I often do a man's work, Quewishty," she responded, "and
I do not put on a man's clothes to do it." Daisy spoke
to Kwiwishdi for several minutes and then told the
teacher, "He say[s] you do not love all peoples in the
world as much as he do[es], and that's why he do[es]
that." Still confused, Dissette concluded, "This
accounts for a kind of spiritual arrogance that is
peculiar to those creatures."
By all indications, the berdache role was an ancient
one. It has been documented in tribes in every region of
North America, with every type of social and economic
organization. Kroeber believed that some form of
berdache practices, such as cross-dressing and
homosexual relations by shamans, existed among the
ancient Siberians who began migrating from Asia to North
America thirty thousand years ago. In North America,
however, a distinction between shamans and berdaches
developed that is not apparent in Asia.[51]
Archaeological remains may provide some evidence of
prehistoric berdaches. At the Zuni village of Hawikku,
which was occupied until the time of the Pueblo Revolt,
men and women were often buried with implements that
indicated their occupations and social roles (a practice
that continues to this day). Women, for example, were
sometimes buried with pottery-making tools or an unfired
ball of clay. A ball of clay in at least one male burial
at Hawikku, therefore, may indicate the presence of a
male berdache who engaged in the female craft of
pottery-making. Equally suggestive are the baskets
included in some male burials, another female craft,
and, in one case, the burial of a woman wearing both a
dress and a man's dance kilt.[52] Other clues are
provided by comparing the portrayal of the Zuni berdache
kachina -- the subject of Chapter 6 -- to examples of
prehistoric rock art and kiva murals. This figure has a
characteristic hairstyle: one side wound around a board
in a whorl, a female style, while the other side was
allowed to hang straight in the male style (Figure 26).
The same arrangement appears on a figure from the kiva
murals at Pottery Mound some one hundred miles northeast
of Zuni, dated between A.D. 1300 and 1425. Like the Zuni
berdache kachina, who carries a bow and arrows in one
hand and corn in the other, this figure carries a bow
and arrows and a basketry plaque -- male and female
symbols, respectively (Figure 6).[53] A similar
hairstyle appears on a figure scratched into the rocks
at Indian Petroglyph State Park in the bluffs
overlooking Albuquerque (Figure 7). Although both sites
are in the prehistoric culture area of the Keres
Indians, the Zunis' Pueblo neighbors to the east, the
similarity of this iconography is suggestive.
The earliest American account of Pueblo berdaches
was that of William A. Hammond, a former surgeon general
of the army, published in 1882. While stationed in New
Mexico in the early 1850s, Hammond had conducted medical
examinations of two men dressed as women, called
mujerados, at Acoma and Laguna.[54] "Of course the most
important parts to be inspected were the genital
organs," he reported, but these were normal.[55] Like
many authorities of his time, Hammond believed that if
an individual did not conform to the social role
considered appropriate for his sex, there had to be a
physiological cause -- namely, hermaphroditism.
Berdaches have been referred to as hermaphrodites
since the time of Columbus. In his 1881 census of the
Zunis, Cushing recorded We'wha's gender as
"hermaphrodite," and Alexander M. Stephen, who lived
among the Hopis, noted in his 1893 journal: "We'we is a
man, but of the abominable sort known to the Hopi as
ho'va, to the Navajo as nûtlehi, to the Zuñi as lah'ma
i.e. hermaphrodite." While some berdaches may indeed
have been individuals born with anomalous genitals, the
known incidence of such a condition is too rare to
account for their numbers among the Zunis and other
tribes. As Dissette observed, "While nature might make a
blunder once in awhile, she did not make them
systematically."[56]
In any case, the meaning of hermaphrodite, like that
of berdache, has changed significantly over time. The
Oxford English Dictionary, for example, while providing
the familiar zoological and botanical definitions, also
defines hermaphrodite as "an effeminate man or virile
woman, a catamite," and "a person or thing in which any
two opposite attributes or qualities are combined. In
the late nineteenth century, slang variants of
hermaphrodite -- hermaphy, moff, morph, morphdite,
muffie, murfidai, maphro, and so on -- were used by
Americans to refer to flamboyant male homosexuals.[57]
The same terms were sometimes applied to berdaches. In
1892, anthropologist J. Walter Fewkes identified a Hopi
man who "wore woman's clothes throughout life and
performed a woman's duties," as Morphy.[58] The
restriction of the term hermaphrodite to a physiological
condition is a twentieth-century development.
Adolph Bandelier, another early investigator of the
Pueblo Indians, mentioned berdaches only once in his
writings, and then only in his private journal. In 1882,
he made note of a "singular being" he had met in an
Acoma village named "Mariano Amugereado," adding that
there were four amugereados (compare mujerado) at Acoma
and two, at least, at Santo Domingo. Bandelier was
particularly curious about berdache sexual practices.
"They have no inclination for women," he confided, "but
pay men to sleep with them. When such propensities show
themselves in a man, the tribe dresses him in a woman's
dress and treats him kindly but still as a woman." In
1900, Sumner Matteson photographed an Acoma berdache and
noted, "He is far more particular of dress than the
women."[59]
Stevenson was less forthcoming when it came to the
subject of sexuality. "There is a side to the lives of
these men," she wrote, "which must remain untold. They
never marry women, and it is understood that they seldom
have any relations with them." Dissette, on the other
hand, confided that "these creatures practice Sodomy."
In fact, the evidence shows that lhamanas were typically
homosexual, although perhaps not exclusively so. That
is, they formed sexual and emotional relationships with
non-berdache men, often long term in nature. One of the
lhamanas Stevenson knew, for example, was among "the
richest men of the village" when he "allied himself" to
another man. "They were two of the hardest workers in
the pueblo and among the most prosperous." Parsons also
described marriages between berdache and non-berdache
men. Some lhamanas, however, appear to have enjoyed more
casual relations. In the 1940s, anthropologist Omer
Stewart observed a lhamana whose home was the site of
frequent male socializing. The Zunis joked about his
ability to attract young men to his house.[60] Other
lhamanas may have had sexual relations with women. In
fact, Stevenson reported rumors that We'wha was a father
-- although there is no other evidence to confirm it,
and it is more likely that children used parental
kinship terms with We'wha out of respect or to
acknowledge the role he played in their
relationship.[61] In any case, if some berdaches were
not exclusively homosexual, non-berdache men were not
always heterosexual since some formed relationships with
lhamanas.[62]
After Stevenson, Parsons was the next anthropologist
to take an interest in Zuni berdaches. On her first
visit to Zuni in 1915, she observed three adult lhamanas
and a six-year-old boy considered to be a future
lhamana. She described two of the adults as masculine.
Kasineli had "the facial expression and stature of a
man," she wrote, and Tsalatitse walked with a long,
heavy stride. The lhamanas were skilled potters,
plasterers, and weavers, their presence especially
welcomed in households with a shortage of daughters.
One, named U'k, was developmentally disabled. The Zunis
considered U'k a simpleton because he spoke and acted
like a child. Parsons watched him in a kachina dance
during the Sha'lako festival. When he fell out of line
for a moment, the audience grinned and chuckled. "She is
a great joke," Parsons's host took pains to explain,
"not because she is a la'mana, but because she is
half-witted." One of Parsons's informants had known nine
lhamanas. Two had married men.[63]
Ruth Benedict and Ruth Bunzel first visited Zuni
together in the summer of 1924. Although Bunzel recorded
little on the subject of the lhamana, except to document
the berdache kachina, Benedict used the example of Zuni
berdaches in her famous book Patterns of Culture.
Summarizing We'wha's career, she concluded, "There are
obviously several reasons why a person becomes a
berdache in Zuni, but whatever the reason, men who have
chosen openly to assume women's dress have the same
chance as any other persons to establish themselves as
functioning members of the society. Their response is
socially recognized. If they have native ability, they
can give it scope; if they are weak creatures, they fail
in terms of their weakness of character, not in terms of
their inversion."[64]
Parsons was the only anthropologist to record
information on the female counterpart of the male
lhamana. She described a woman named Nancy, who was
jokingly referred to as "the girl-man," or katsotstsi'.
Of the katsotse I saw quite a little, for she
worked by the day in our household. She was an
unusually competent worker, "a girl I can
always depend on," said her employer. She had
a rather lean, spare build and her gait was
comparatively quick and alert. It occurred to
me once that she might be a la'mana. "If she
is," said her employer, "she is not so openly
like the others. Besides she's been too much
married for one." She was, I concluded, a
"strong-minded woman," a Zuni "new woman," a
large part of her male.
Elsewhere, Parsons defined katsotstsi' as mannish, . . .
girl-man, a tomboy," and reported that Nancy was in
demand as a worker among American employers.[65]
Nancy had been initiated into the kiva society --
according to Parsons, to do "kiva work." In an important
ceremony discussed in Chapter 6, she wore the mask of
the berdache kachina, a mask usually worn by a male
lhamana.[66] In other words, the Zunis linked both men
and women who preferred the work of the other sex to the
same supernatural archetype. Zunis typically referred to
women who became members of the kachina society or
engaged in vigorous activities, including men's work, as
`otstsi', or manly, or with the verb lhamanaye,
literally, "being lhamana," that is, like a berdache.
Such a woman might be married and otherwise fulfill the
usual roles of a woman, but at least some Zuni women,
like Nancy, formally occupied lhamana status. That
female lhamanas were often among those women initiated
into the kachina society -- and that they should be the
ones, with their male counterparts, to impersonate the
berdache kachina -- is not surprising.[67]
The Zuni berdache role was assumed by individuals with a
wide range of traits and abilities. Some were unlikable;
others lazy or incompetent; still others, like U'k,
limited in capacity at birth. It is the exceptional
berdache, the one who enjoyed what Benedict called
"native ability," that we must turn to in order to map
the full scope of this role and its place in Zuni
society. An examination of such a case also promises
insight into the relationship of individual and social
factors in the development of gender identity and
sexuality. Thus, we turn to the life of We'wha, Zuni's
most famous berdache and perhaps the most renowned
"man-woman" in recorded American Indian history.
NOTES
4. Stevenson, "Zuñi Indians," 311-12.
5. Guerra, Pre-Columbian Mind, 43; W. N. Hammond, Sexual
Impotence, 163-64; Courouve, "The Word `Berdache'"; Roscoe,
"Bibliography," Table 1; Oxford English Dictionary, s.v.
"bardash".
6. Cognates include bardajo, bardaxo (Spanish); bardasso,
bardascia (Italian); berdache (French); bardash, berdash,
burdash, bardass, bardasso, bardassa, bardachio (English).
The English also used bardash to refer to a fringed sash worn
by men and considered a sign of effeminacy (see listings in
Oxford English Dictionary, s.v.)
7. See Roscoe, "Bibliography," "Glossary of Native Terms."
30. Ladd, "Zuni Religion and Philosophy," 28. Cf. Schlegel on
gender complementarity among the Hopis ("Male and Female").
31. "It was quite amusing to see the men knitting stockings,"
wrote a member of the Beale expedition in 1857. "Imagine
Hiawatha at such undignified work" (Lesley, Uncle Sam's
Camels, 188).
32. Smith and Roberts, Zuni Law, 127.
33. Young, "Women, Reproduction, and Religion," 437.
34. Stevenson, "Zuñi Indians," 65, 108, 166; Parsons, Pueblo
Indian Religion, 137, 471, 1130; Parsons, "Zuñi La'mana,"
527; Bunzel, "Zuñi Katcinas," 875.
35. Cushing, "Primitive Motherhood," 25, 44.
36. Wittfogel and Goldfrank, "Some Aspects of Pueblo Mythology."
On Anasazi irrigation, see Kintigh, Settlement, Subsistence,
and Society, 96-97; Plog, "Prehistory," 112; Vivian,
"Inquiry." On the organization of female gardening and
farming, its relationship to matrilocal and matrilineal
practices, and the transition from female farming systems to
male control of agriculture, see Martin and Voorhies, Female
of the Species, 216, 277, 283; O'Kelly and Camey, Women and
Men in Society, 38, 42, 53; Schneider and Gough, Matrilineal
Kinship, 552, 559, 661, 670; Boserup, Woman's Role in
Economic Development, 16, 19, 32. Such a change in the
division of labor may well have been contested. Wittfogel and
Goldfrank cite examples of myths from Hopi and Zia portraying
tension between the sexes, some overtly referring to control
of agriculture ("Some Aspects of Pueblo Mythology," 26-27).
In the Kan'a:kwe episode, such conflict is suggested in the
confrontation between the twin, male War Gods of the Zunis
and the warrior woman Cha'kwen 'Oka, who leads the Kan'a:kwe
(see chapter 6). Does the presence of the berdache kachina as
a go-between in this episode reflect a memory of a role
played by berdaches in the resolution of an historical
conflict?
37. Benedict, Pattems of Culture, 74; Kroeber, Zuñi Kin and Clan,
89.
38. Cf. Martin and Voorhies, Female of the Species, 188-89,
246-47.
39. Whiting et al., "Learning of Values," 104.
40. Li An-che, "Zuñi," 74.
41. Whiting et al., "Learning of Values," 107. The researchers
found no comparable responses among Anglo populations also
tested.
42. Benedict, Patterns of Culture, 59, 99; Bunzel, "Introduction
to Zuñi Ceremonialism," 480.
43. Newman, Zuni Dictionary, 23.
44. McFeat, "Some Social and Spatial Aspects," 18.
45. Kluckhohn, "Expressive Activities," 294.
46. Bunzel, "Zuñi Katcinas," 1012.
47. D. Tedlock, Spoken Word, 293. The tribe does hold a "Miss
Zuni" contest every year in conjunction with the Zuni Fair,
but, as Young points out, the event bears little resemblance
to Anglo beauty contests. Contestants appear in traditional
costume, answer questions about traditional culture, and
prepare traditional Zuni dishes. Needless to say, there is no
swim-suit contest or equivalent (see Young, "Women,
Reproduction, and Religion," 444, and Signs from the
Ancestors, 371.
48. The etymology of this term is not certain, although it may be
related to lha, "become large, grow," which also has the
sense of "too much" (D. Tedlock, Spoken Word, 241). The Zuni
plural form is 'a:lhamana. For convenience, I use the
Anglicized version, lhamanas.
49. Stevenson, "Zuñi Indians," 37; Parsons, "Zuñi La'mana," 527.
See also Gifford, Culture Element Distributions, 12, 66, 163.
Other comments of Stevenson require clarification. She
states, "The women of the family joke the fellow," and "the
men of the family . . . not only discourage men from unsexing
themselves in this way, but ridicule them." The distinction
between "joking the fellow" and "ridicule" is not clear. Zuni
fathers (and other male relatives) no doubt looked forward to
training and educating their sons to follow their footsteps.
To this end, they might have employed ridicule -- although
"joking" better describes the banter typical of Zunis. But in
this regard, every Zuni was the subject of jokes, especially
for idiosyncrasies in their manner or appearance (see
Greenberg, "Why Was the Berdache Ridiculed?"). Violent
outbursts of hatred or anger toward berdaches, comparable to
expressions of Western homophobia, have never been recorded
at Zuni. Perhaps the key distinction, one that will be
illustrated later, is that aside from jokes older male
relatives did not attempt to use authority or discipline to
prevent assumption of the role.
50. Dissette to Willard, 3 March I924, Incoming Correspondence
[IC], IRAP.
51. Kroeber, "Psychosis or Social Sanction?", 210. On Siberian
shamans, see Bogoras, Chukchee, 449-56; Jochelson, Koryak,
52-54.
52. Smith, Woodbury, Woodbury, Excavation of Hawikuh, 209, 239,
242, 243. A similar case of sex-specific burial practices was
found in Chaco Canyon where feather cloths occurred
exclusively in female burials, with one male exception
(Akins, Biocultural Approach to Human Burials, 93, 99).
53. Hibben, Kiva Art of the Anasazi, figure 49.
54. Variants of this term were in use throughout the
Spanish-speaking Southwest -- mujeringo, mojara, mojaro,
amejerado, amugereado. A dictionary of New Mexican Spanish
defines "mujerero" as "fond of women or given to spending his
time gossiping in the kitchen with the women, " while
mujerota is a "hard-working or brave female" (Cobos,
Dictionary, 115).
55. W. Hammond, Sexual Impotence, 165. On Hammond's account, see
Hay, "Hammond Report." In 1899, a doctor at Zuni also became
"curious to probe the mystery," examining Zuni berdaches to
determine their sex and concluding that "there was no
physical difference between them and any other man" (Dissette
to Willard, IC, IRAP).
56. Cushing, "Nominal and Numerical Census," ms. 3915, National
Anthropological Archives; Stephen, Hopi Journals, 276;
Dissette to Willard, IC, IRAP. On the incidence of physical
intersexuality, see Martin and Voorhies, Female of the
Species, 87-88.
57. Rodgers, Gay Talk, 105-6.
58. Fewkes, "A Few Tusayan Pictographs," 11.
59. Bandelier, Southwestern Journals, 326; Casagrande and Boums,
Side Trips, 82, 229.
60. Stevenson, "Zuñi Indians," 38; Dissette to Willard, IC, IRAP;
Parsons, "Zuñi La'mana," 526; Stewart, "Homosexuality among
the American Indians," 13-14.
61. Dissette, for example, who lived longer at Zuni than either
Cushing or Stevenson and reported other stories about We'wha,
makes no reference to his alleged paternity (Dissette to
Willard, 3 March 1924, IC, IRAP).
62. Another form of bonding among Zunis was the kihe
relationship, a kind of ceremonial friendship. Two
individuals, regardless of gender, might enter a kihe
relationship for various reasons. Kihe relationships often
included gift-giving and economic cooperation, but they could
be emotionally close, and they usually lasted for the
lifetime of the individuals (Goldman, "Zuni Indians," 326;
Parsons, "Ceremonial Friendship at Zuñi").
63. Parsons, "Zuñi Conception and Pregnancy Beliefs," 380;
Parsons, "Zuñi La'mana," 526, 528; Parsons, Notes on Zuñi,
295. Unfortunately, it is not possible to estimate the total
number of lhamanas in the overall Zuni population (or in any
other tribe, for that matter). Cushing, who lived in the
pueblo and knew the tribe much more intimately than
Stevenson, recorded only one berdache -- We'wha -- in his
1881 tally of 1,619 individuals ("Nominal and Numerical
Census," ms. 3915, National Anthropological Archives).
Obviously there were others in the pueblo, but Cushing must
have counted them as women. No accurate count of berdaches
has ever been done in any tribe. As a point of comparison,
Kinsey found 4 percent of American males were predominantly
or exclusively homosexual. At Zuni, with a population of
1,600 in the 1880s and assuming half were male, this would
equal 32. Since Kinsey's behavioral criteria would encompass
not only berdaches but the non-berdache men who were their
sexual partners, it seems reasonable that Zuni might have had
this many predominantly homosexual men. However, it is
important to remember that this comparison overlooks the
significant cultural differences between the berdache role
and the homosexual role. The number of transsexuals in the
United States, on the other hand, has been estimated at .001
to .003 percent of the population. In a population of 1,600,
this would account for only one case every other generation
(Bolin, In Search of Eve, 18).
64. Benedict, Patterns of Culture, 264.
65. Parsons, "Zuñi La'mana," 525; Parsons, "Waiyautitsa," 159;
Parsons, Notes on Zuñi, 246.
66. Parsons, "Zuñi La'mana," 525; Parsons, "Notes on Zuñi," 253.
67. Stevenson's earliest report on this subject is interesting in
this regard: "When a woman of the order [kachina society]
becomes advanced in age she endeavors to find some maiden who
will take upon herself the vows at her death. . . . After the
father is spoken to, he in turn spends the night in
explaining the duties of the position to his daughter and
that the gods would be displeased if she should marry after
joining the Kok-ko. . . . But even here in Zuñi . . . women
have been guilty of desecrating their sacred office and
marrying" ("Religious Life of the Zuñi Child," 555). Although
the implication that women who joined the kachina society
undertook vows of chastity has been contradicted by
subsequent investigators, it is possible that Stevenson
recorded a tradition that lapsed before it could be
confirmed. It is also possible that this custom did not apply
to all women who entered the kachina society but specifically
to those considered lhamanas, who would wear the mask of the
berdache kachina. Unfortunately, the available documentation,
unlike that for male berdaches, does not allow a fuller
treatment of female berdaches at this time. The entire
subject of female berdaches in North America is due for
re-evaluation and new research (see Blackwood, "Sexuality and
Gender"; Allen, "Lesbians in American Indian Cultures").