Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Two Spirited Natives On Western Wednesday...!

While many folks have questions about how we deal with and handle sexual preferences in this day and age, but as far back as we care to go in our history the questions have been handled in many different ways.

Even the Native Americans, considered by many to be "savages", dealt with the issue far better than some of us in this era of enlightenment. Maybe we should take some pointers, ya think?

Native Americans



Photo credit: The Numinous


The phrase “two-spirited” has become an LGBT catchphrase. It’s something a lot of people embrace, imagining a precolonial America in which LGBT people were celebrated. In a way, they were—but it was a bit different than most people imagine.

The concept of “two-spirited” people existed in about 130 North American tribes, which is a lot, but there were more than 500 tribes, so it was by no means the majority. Every tribe was different, too, so the details were never exactly the same.

Generally, though, a two-spirited person was someone who didn’t fit gender norms. If a young boy showed an interest in sewing, for example, or a girl showed an interest in hunting, some tribes would say that they had two spirits and would give them a special role in the community.

A two-spirited man might end up wearing women’s clothing and doing a woman’s work, but he wasn’t necessarily gay. It was perfectly natural for a two-spirited person to be heterosexual or even to switch between male and female clothes from day to day.


For savages, I'd say they handled the situation in a manner that was peaceful and certainly with more dignity than some today. More power to them is all I can say.

Coffee in the kitchen this morning, needless to say. Another storm moving in masquerading as a cold front.

6 comments:

Momlady said...

Native Americans handled a lot of things better. I understand the two-spirited philosophy. Two-three days after you get storms we get them. Yes we need rain, but not all at once! I'm sure not getting much yard work done!

linda m said...

I love the way they handled it. Much more civilized than the way we do it today. No "hoop-la"; it is what it is; no one saying you must accept it or else. Rained here again yesterday and this morning. My poor grass just grows like crazy with it never dry enough to mow it. We are expecting a bumper crop of skeeters and ticks this summer.

HermitJim said...

Hey Momlady...
Guess they felt it was better to all get along. Pretty heavy storms the past couple of days.
Thanks for stopping by today!


Hey Linda...
I'm afraid that all of us are going to have a skeeter problem this year, for sure.
Thanks for coming over this morning!

JO said...

This is interesting. Nice to know it is handled so well. You would think in this day and age people would stop the nonsense already and just move on. And yes it is what it is.

Going to be a scorcher here so I am going to enjoy this morning while I can.

HermitJim said...

Hey Jo...
Guess the savages were ore civilized than we gave them credit for, right?
Thanks, sweetie, for coming over today!

Noki said...

They built cities, they had commerce between "nations", they fought the Vikings and won, they built roads, they knew where to find fish and how to grow vegetables. The bow and arrow were superior to muskets, and they knew what was edible and what wasn't. It's no surprise, really, that they had civil rights for minority groups and celebrated diversity.