Details of Iroquois traditions and life

[draechaeli]

The main character of my novel will be spending some time with an Iroquois Tribe from Ontario. There he will find a gay Japanese-Canadian (he is 16 at the current date in the story) is going to end up living with this particular Iroquois tribe. He met them a few times as a young child for single night events. He moved to stay with them permanently

Comments

[felis_ultharus]

I can answer one specific vector of this that you didn't ask, but since you mentioned your main character was gay

[draechaeli]

That is interesting. I have a friend who is part Canadian Iroquois who happen to also run the local PFlag metting etc. and she always talks about the Two-Spirit so I had just assumed

[chasecorbeau]

Hrmm... I thought the Japanese were especially accepting of homosexuality.

[draechaeli]

That is what I thought too, which is part of the reason the character is Japanese. But then I took modern Japan in College and a friend of mine who studied more about Japan mentioned this homophobia I read some LGBT articles.

What I learned is that for centuries the japanese were cool with LGBT stuff anhd then the Europeans came and the Japanese wanted to be like them to an extent and took on their homophobia. And that kind of stuck around for a while. Homosexuallity kind of became this thing that no one talked about or wanted to admit to, but became really popular in media because no one wanted to talk about. Japan is cooler with it now to my understanding.

But my characters parents would have been raised with the veiled homophobia. and since the character would have know his grandparents (still in Japan) He would believe that his parents would be against him being openly gay possibly against being gay at all.

[kutsuwamushi]

What I learned is that for centuries the japanese were cool with LGBT stuff

That depends on your definition of "cool." The Japanese didn't have a modern conception of "LGBT stuff." While they were more tolerant to some expressions of it than Europe of the time, they still had a narrow view of gender and sexuality that they expected people to conform to. The European view narrowed the allowed expressions further, but it's not as though Japan was a utopia for LGBT people prior to their arrival.

[felis_ultharus]

Sorry for the long pause - rarely around these days.

As I said, these were only the European viewpoints I was able to access. Here was the only thing I found, from French explorer Bacqueville de La Potherie, from his third volume of Histoire de l’Amérique septentrionale, which I'm cutting and pasting from my website:

“Perhaps these male Iroquois are so horrified by [doing] women’s work because they have seen among the nations of the south some men who act like women, and give up men’s clothing for those of women. You see this very rarely among the Iroquois and they condemn this way of life by the light of Reason.” (Translation mine)

The Iroquois themselves may have oral traditions contradicting this, and frankly I'd trust those more.

So unfortunately I don't have fine answers to your questions. I'd think it was really cool to hear what your friend has to say though, and find out what traditions she's received.