Manly Hearted Women, Two Spirited People, and just plain confused Europeans
So beckyh2112 has been doing some awesome research on women who have taken on men’s roles in various cultures, and when she put out the call on Twitter I responded with the question - “Have you ever heard of Two-Spirited people?” After a quick discussion, I agreed to transcribe a fascinating passage from a fascinating book, detailing a subject that very few people actually know about.
The book itself was published by the University of Alberta Press (I go to this university! <3 ). I picked it up this summer because they had a sale on the history books at the Fort Edmonton giftshop, and since I’d walked past this shelf every day for months on my way in and out of work, and this particular book had been recommended to me many times by my co-workers… The temptation was too much to resist. I can claim it’s research for work, too, because I portrayed a Metis country wife. ;)
Sarah Carter’s The Importance of Being Monogamous: Marriage and Nation Building in Western Canada to 1915 (2008) deals not only with aboriginal peoples, but also later polygamous religious societies like Mormon groups. The chunks of the book on aboriginal culture were particularly relevant to me and my work, though, and fascinating to boot. Analyses of societies like these really do demonstrate that the supposedly “natural”, heterosexual, monogamous model proposed by Western Europeans… isn’t exactly as “natural” as it is made out to be.
This particular passage (pages 122-125) is on Two-Spirited people, who are super-cool. Originally, Becky was looking for specifically female-to-male gender reversals, I believe, but the reverse is also fascinating, and some cultural expectations applied to both groups.
“Aboriginal people of the plains also permitted marriages of people of the same sex. One of the spouses might be a “two spirit” who took on the activities, occupations, and dress of the opposite sex, in whole or in part, temporarily or permanently. There was no insistence on conformity to binaries of masculinity and femininity. Indian agents were frustrated by their inability to tell men and women apart, and they made mistakes, or were misled, when describing certain individuals. Oftentimes they did note the flexibility of gender roles when they described individuals to which annuities were paid, as is evident in terms such as “wife shown as boy last year,” “boy paid as girl last year,” and “boy now a man formerly ran as a girl.” Clothing, hair, footwear, and personal décor did not differentiate men from women in the way that Euro-Canadians were accustomed to. Qu’Appelle storekeeper Edward J. Brooks wrote in a 1882 letter to his wife-to-be that “I saw a couple of pure blooded Indians down at the station a couple of days ago and could not tell whether both were Squaws or not but finally made up my mind that they were man and wife. They were both dressed as nearly alike as possible, had long braided hair, wore lots of jewellery and had their faces painted with Vermillion paint.” An English visitor to Western Canada named Edward Roper wrote in his 1891 book that “most of us found it almost impossible to tell the young men and women apart; they were exactly alike in face [the men had no ‘beards or whiskers’], and being generally enveloped in blankets the difficulty increased.” All wore similar beautifully decorated moccasins, bangles, and earrings, Roper wrote.
In Plains societies there were women who did not marry and pursued activities mostly associated with men. They hunted buffalo and went to war. An informant to Goldfrank described a woman warrior who was treated as a true leader. She was renowned for acts of bravery such as going into an enemy’s tipi and taking headdresses from behind the bed. “She used to leave her legging at the enemy camp and they would say ‘that woman has been here again.’ She always slept alone, while the men remained in camp. She would sleep on top of the hill and she sang a song. The next day she would know where to lead the party.” This may have been the warrior another informant identified as “Trim Woman,” saying that “that kind of woman is always respected and everyone depends on them. They are admired for their bravery. They are ‘lucky’ on raids and so the men respect them.” Another Kainai woman, Empty Coulee, had a story similar to Trim Woman’s, but she had more courage, killing enemies and capturing guns, while Trim Woman only captured horses. After she became expert in raiding she changed her name to Running Eagle, a man’s name. She wore women’s clothing, but she “got respect as a ‘real man.’ She never married.
Some of the women who took on “manly” roles were married. In the book Five Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri, Edwin Thompson Denig, a fur trader during the years 1833 and 1856, described a Gros Ventre woman who was a respected warrior, negotiator and hunter, and who was regarded as the third-ranked chief of her band. She had a wife. Denig wrote, “Strange country this, where males assume the dress and perform the duties of females, while women turn men and made with their own sex.” There were also married women who participated in “manly” activities with their husbands. A Kainai woman named Elk-Yells-in-the-Water went on several war raids with her husband. She gave her adopted mother a horse she captured when she accompanied her husband on a war raid.
The “manly-hearted women” of the Blackfoot excelled at feminine occupations, had the finest (women’s) clothing, and were always married, often several times, and had children. But they also displayed characteristics classified as “masculine”: they were aggressive, independent, bold, and sexually forward. As Esther Goldfrank wrote, “the essential pattern of their lives always remained safely within the framework set for women as a sex,” but a manly-hearted woman would “make advances in affairs of the heart; she may refuse to marry the man of her father’s choice; she will marry in her own time, and she will not hesitate to beat off an irate husband. She is usually an excellent worker. This as well as her passionate response to love make her a desirable mate despite her wilfulness and domineering ways.”
There were also biological males who lived as women, many of whom married men. One Kainai named Pidgeon Woman, who was biologically male, “from babyhood until death… lived a female life - like a widow - no husband - used female expressions,” according to Goldfrank’s notes. Informants to the Hanks described two men who acted like women, had husbands, and did women’s work. One of these “really acts like a woman. Dresses like a woman, has bracelets up to his elbows, rings on fingers and had a husband. He made clothes and tanned hides like other women.” Another dressed and acted as a woman “from the start,” and he played with girls. His father and mother “were not shy about the way he was acting; all family knew he was a boy.” He “looked like a good looking woman” and was married several times. One man who dressed and acted as a woman was a renowned warrior who “sewed moccasins better than any woman, made buckskin suits and beaded blankets better than any woman.” He went on highly successful expeditions against the enemy Cree and Crow dressed as a woman. He had a devoted husband and was described as the only wife of the man. In his narrative of his many years spent among the Plains Saulteaux of southern Manitoba, John Tanner wrote about the son of a celebrated chief who was “one of those who make themselves women, and are called women by the Indians.” She (Tanner’s pronoun) had several husbands in the past and wanted to marry Tanner. When he refused, another man with two wives married her. When asked how they got married “if everyone knew they were not women,” a Hanks informant said, “No one said anything. Husbands knew and got them for wives. They knew but didn’t care if he was not a woman. Why have a woman like this? These husbands knew they were good at tipi and bead work. That is how they made up their mind. In every way they treated these men just like other women.”
“Two Spirits” were believed to have special gifts among Plains societies. Manitoba Dakota Elder Eva McKay explained, “they were special in the way that they seemed to have more skills than a single man or a single woman… He is two persons, this is when people would say they have more power than a single person. They were treated with respect.”
Note on terminology: in Canada, it is generally no longer considered entirely acceptable to refer to an individual as an “Indian”, as it is considered a pejorative term. “Squaw” has similar associations to the word “Negro” in the United States, and should generally be avoided unless quoting a historical source. There are lots of debates surrounding the most appropriate terminology; some natives themselves prefer the term “Indian” (arguing, basically, that hey, if I’ve been an Indian my whole life you can’t just tell me I’m not all of a sudden), but most, I’m told, dislike it. Other terms more frequently used are “aboriginal” (not to be confused with “aborigine”, which is an Australian term which is also considered pejorative), “native”, “first nations”, etc. When in doubt, the best thing to do is refer to them by their original tribe name, i.e., the Inuit, the Mi’kmaq, the Cree, the Piikani, etc. You wouldn’t want to lump everyone together in any case; generalizations like “all Europeans believe X” are probably inherently wrong anyway. The same should be said of the vastly diverse cultural groups that exist in the Americas.
(I’ll get off of my soapbox now. >_> I just got a little bit angry when elderly American tourists called me a “squaw” a few times this summer. Once I had a really old man look at me, raise his hand, and say “How!” and call me a squaw. He then proceeded to look extremely pleased by himself, like he had remembered the proper way to greet me or something. :\ I almost broke down when less than thirty seconds later his wife followed him and tugged on my braids to see if they were real, without so much as a by-your-leave. :P )
If anybody is interested in learning more on this subject, I can natter on for ages, so don't hesitate to ask questions! Is it spelt “Piegan” or "Peigan”? (Quick answer: both! Depends on what side of the border you’re on!) Why do the Blackfoot and the Cree hate each other so much? What is an Indian agent? How did plains marriage ceremonies work? How common was scalping, really?
Also, I did neglect to put in the footnotes when I transcribed this passage, so if anybody wants more information about the sources for the above text, don’t hesitate to ask! :)
The book itself was published by the University of Alberta Press (I go to this university! <3 ). I picked it up this summer because they had a sale on the history books at the Fort Edmonton giftshop, and since I’d walked past this shelf every day for months on my way in and out of work, and this particular book had been recommended to me many times by my co-workers… The temptation was too much to resist. I can claim it’s research for work, too, because I portrayed a Metis country wife. ;)
Sarah Carter’s The Importance of Being Monogamous: Marriage and Nation Building in Western Canada to 1915 (2008) deals not only with aboriginal peoples, but also later polygamous religious societies like Mormon groups. The chunks of the book on aboriginal culture were particularly relevant to me and my work, though, and fascinating to boot. Analyses of societies like these really do demonstrate that the supposedly “natural”, heterosexual, monogamous model proposed by Western Europeans… isn’t exactly as “natural” as it is made out to be.
This particular passage (pages 122-125) is on Two-Spirited people, who are super-cool. Originally, Becky was looking for specifically female-to-male gender reversals, I believe, but the reverse is also fascinating, and some cultural expectations applied to both groups.
“Aboriginal people of the plains also permitted marriages of people of the same sex. One of the spouses might be a “two spirit” who took on the activities, occupations, and dress of the opposite sex, in whole or in part, temporarily or permanently. There was no insistence on conformity to binaries of masculinity and femininity. Indian agents were frustrated by their inability to tell men and women apart, and they made mistakes, or were misled, when describing certain individuals. Oftentimes they did note the flexibility of gender roles when they described individuals to which annuities were paid, as is evident in terms such as “wife shown as boy last year,” “boy paid as girl last year,” and “boy now a man formerly ran as a girl.” Clothing, hair, footwear, and personal décor did not differentiate men from women in the way that Euro-Canadians were accustomed to. Qu’Appelle storekeeper Edward J. Brooks wrote in a 1882 letter to his wife-to-be that “I saw a couple of pure blooded Indians down at the station a couple of days ago and could not tell whether both were Squaws or not but finally made up my mind that they were man and wife. They were both dressed as nearly alike as possible, had long braided hair, wore lots of jewellery and had their faces painted with Vermillion paint.” An English visitor to Western Canada named Edward Roper wrote in his 1891 book that “most of us found it almost impossible to tell the young men and women apart; they were exactly alike in face [the men had no ‘beards or whiskers’], and being generally enveloped in blankets the difficulty increased.” All wore similar beautifully decorated moccasins, bangles, and earrings, Roper wrote.
In Plains societies there were women who did not marry and pursued activities mostly associated with men. They hunted buffalo and went to war. An informant to Goldfrank described a woman warrior who was treated as a true leader. She was renowned for acts of bravery such as going into an enemy’s tipi and taking headdresses from behind the bed. “She used to leave her legging at the enemy camp and they would say ‘that woman has been here again.’ She always slept alone, while the men remained in camp. She would sleep on top of the hill and she sang a song. The next day she would know where to lead the party.” This may have been the warrior another informant identified as “Trim Woman,” saying that “that kind of woman is always respected and everyone depends on them. They are admired for their bravery. They are ‘lucky’ on raids and so the men respect them.” Another Kainai woman, Empty Coulee, had a story similar to Trim Woman’s, but she had more courage, killing enemies and capturing guns, while Trim Woman only captured horses. After she became expert in raiding she changed her name to Running Eagle, a man’s name. She wore women’s clothing, but she “got respect as a ‘real man.’ She never married.
Some of the women who took on “manly” roles were married. In the book Five Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri, Edwin Thompson Denig, a fur trader during the years 1833 and 1856, described a Gros Ventre woman who was a respected warrior, negotiator and hunter, and who was regarded as the third-ranked chief of her band. She had a wife. Denig wrote, “Strange country this, where males assume the dress and perform the duties of females, while women turn men and made with their own sex.” There were also married women who participated in “manly” activities with their husbands. A Kainai woman named Elk-Yells-in-the-Water went on several war raids with her husband. She gave her adopted mother a horse she captured when she accompanied her husband on a war raid.
The “manly-hearted women” of the Blackfoot excelled at feminine occupations, had the finest (women’s) clothing, and were always married, often several times, and had children. But they also displayed characteristics classified as “masculine”: they were aggressive, independent, bold, and sexually forward. As Esther Goldfrank wrote, “the essential pattern of their lives always remained safely within the framework set for women as a sex,” but a manly-hearted woman would “make advances in affairs of the heart; she may refuse to marry the man of her father’s choice; she will marry in her own time, and she will not hesitate to beat off an irate husband. She is usually an excellent worker. This as well as her passionate response to love make her a desirable mate despite her wilfulness and domineering ways.”
There were also biological males who lived as women, many of whom married men. One Kainai named Pidgeon Woman, who was biologically male, “from babyhood until death… lived a female life - like a widow - no husband - used female expressions,” according to Goldfrank’s notes. Informants to the Hanks described two men who acted like women, had husbands, and did women’s work. One of these “really acts like a woman. Dresses like a woman, has bracelets up to his elbows, rings on fingers and had a husband. He made clothes and tanned hides like other women.” Another dressed and acted as a woman “from the start,” and he played with girls. His father and mother “were not shy about the way he was acting; all family knew he was a boy.” He “looked like a good looking woman” and was married several times. One man who dressed and acted as a woman was a renowned warrior who “sewed moccasins better than any woman, made buckskin suits and beaded blankets better than any woman.” He went on highly successful expeditions against the enemy Cree and Crow dressed as a woman. He had a devoted husband and was described as the only wife of the man. In his narrative of his many years spent among the Plains Saulteaux of southern Manitoba, John Tanner wrote about the son of a celebrated chief who was “one of those who make themselves women, and are called women by the Indians.” She (Tanner’s pronoun) had several husbands in the past and wanted to marry Tanner. When he refused, another man with two wives married her. When asked how they got married “if everyone knew they were not women,” a Hanks informant said, “No one said anything. Husbands knew and got them for wives. They knew but didn’t care if he was not a woman. Why have a woman like this? These husbands knew they were good at tipi and bead work. That is how they made up their mind. In every way they treated these men just like other women.”
“Two Spirits” were believed to have special gifts among Plains societies. Manitoba Dakota Elder Eva McKay explained, “they were special in the way that they seemed to have more skills than a single man or a single woman… He is two persons, this is when people would say they have more power than a single person. They were treated with respect.”
Note on terminology: in Canada, it is generally no longer considered entirely acceptable to refer to an individual as an “Indian”, as it is considered a pejorative term. “Squaw” has similar associations to the word “Negro” in the United States, and should generally be avoided unless quoting a historical source. There are lots of debates surrounding the most appropriate terminology; some natives themselves prefer the term “Indian” (arguing, basically, that hey, if I’ve been an Indian my whole life you can’t just tell me I’m not all of a sudden), but most, I’m told, dislike it. Other terms more frequently used are “aboriginal” (not to be confused with “aborigine”, which is an Australian term which is also considered pejorative), “native”, “first nations”, etc. When in doubt, the best thing to do is refer to them by their original tribe name, i.e., the Inuit, the Mi’kmaq, the Cree, the Piikani, etc. You wouldn’t want to lump everyone together in any case; generalizations like “all Europeans believe X” are probably inherently wrong anyway. The same should be said of the vastly diverse cultural groups that exist in the Americas.
(I’ll get off of my soapbox now. >_> I just got a little bit angry when elderly American tourists called me a “squaw” a few times this summer. Once I had a really old man look at me, raise his hand, and say “How!” and call me a squaw. He then proceeded to look extremely pleased by himself, like he had remembered the proper way to greet me or something. :\ I almost broke down when less than thirty seconds later his wife followed him and tugged on my braids to see if they were real, without so much as a by-your-leave. :P )
If anybody is interested in learning more on this subject, I can natter on for ages, so don't hesitate to ask questions! Is it spelt “Piegan” or "Peigan”? (Quick answer: both! Depends on what side of the border you’re on!) Why do the Blackfoot and the Cree hate each other so much? What is an Indian agent? How did plains marriage ceremonies work? How common was scalping, really?
Also, I did neglect to put in the footnotes when I transcribed this passage, so if anybody wants more information about the sources for the above text, don’t hesitate to ask! :)