Two-Spirit Performance Traditions in Native/First Nations Cultures
4 min readMar 28, 2019
Context/Background
“Two-spirited is a reclaimed term designed by Aboriginals to define our unique cultural context, histories, and legacy.”-Michelle Cameron, Two-spirited Aboriginal people: Continuing cultural appropriation by non-Aboriginal society
- “Two-Spirit” is a newer term, developed at the 1990 third-annual Indigenous international gay and lesbian gathering in Winnipeg, to replace the previous and possibly offensive term “berdache”; “Berdache” was used by colonizers and non-native anthropologists to categorize gender-non-binary Native folks, and has an etymology deriving from words meaning “slave/kept boy/person engaging in sodomy/boy kept by a pederast”, and a pejorative connotation of judgement, sexual deviance, and abnormality.
- “Two-Spirit” is not meant to be understood in a Western context of gender and/or sexuality, and is ancillary to their primary ethnic identity; The term is meant to be applied to a defined role in tribal community, many of which have been lost post-colonialism, but also which are being restored by contemporary two-spirits who want to bring the role back into their tribes
- Many tribes have different terms for folks who may fall under the umbrella category of two-spirit, but those are relative to their own tribal cultural context, and “two-spirit” is not a blanket direct translation for whatever native term may be used to describe folks outside of the gender binary
- Much of the oral and traditional history of peoples who fall under the umbrella of two-spirit has been wiped out by colonialism, oppression, and the effects of Christian missionaries
(Performance?) Traditions
- There is an extremely limited amount of information on the performance traditions specifically enacted by those who identify as two-spirit, and they would vary from tribe to tribe anyway. The Indian Health Service states that historically, two-spirit individuals excelled in traditional arts, including pottery, basket-weaving, and leather work. The Navajo people have two-spirit folks who weave (traditionally men’s and women’s work) and serve as healers (traditionally a man’s role). Furthermore, two-spirits who also identified as female participated in hunting and warfare, and even became chiefs and leaders in war.
- Gender expression varies among two-spirits, and is sometimes distinguished through dress, temperament, lifestyle, and social roles.
- In many tribes two-spirit folks filled special religious roles such as healers, shamans, mediators, social workers, name givers, love potion/match makers, sun dancers, puberty ceremony leaders, peace makers, and other ceremony leaders. Two spirit identity was widely believed to be the result of supernatural intervention in the form of visions or dreams and sanctioned by tribal mythology.
- Two spirit people typically formed sexual and emotional relationships with non-two spirit members of their own sex, forming both short- and long-term relationships. Among the Lakota, Mohave, Crow, Cheyenne, and others, two spirit people were believed to be lucky in love, and able to bestow this luck on others.
Indian life for the Two-Spirit during the reservation system
- European and Native beliefs clashed.
- Missionaries fed the two-spirit people to the dogs.
- Christian beliefs forced upon Native people.
- Native Children placed in government schools.
- Cut the two-spirit male’s hair and forced them to dress in men’s clothing and girls to wear dresses
- Intimidation and out-right violence of the Churches and Government Agents, many Chiefs were reluctant to defend their two-spirit people.
- Out love and respect, Two-Spirit were asked to go underground in order to protect them.
Defining Characteristics of Two Spirit & Native Peoples
- Historical trauma
- Intergenerational trauma
- Band/Tribal membership
- Half-truths, misconceptions, stereotypes pervade all aspects our Indian life and history
- They are a small population — however it is precisely because their numbers are so small that the community should be declared a top priority — once they are gone — they are gone.
