Homosexual identity precedes modern capitalism, part II

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Will Roscoe. Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders In Native America.
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998. viii + 320 pp. Illustrations, tables,
glossary, tribal index of alternative gender roles and sexuality, notes,
bibliography of native gay and lesbian literature, bibliography, index .
$16.95 (paper), ISBN 0-312-22479-6.

Reviewed by Donna M. Dean, Independent Scholar . Published by H-Minerva
(October, 2000)

DUALISM'S JUST A CONSTRUCT

In discussing gender and sexuality, it is important to recognize and
acknowledge that the Western, or Euro-centered construct of a binary, or
dualistic gender structure is not necessarily held by other cultures. Nor
is gender necessarily determined by genitalia, sexual activities or choice
of sexual partners, or even gender-based roles. Western culture views
gender as essentially based on a binary system: " we have boys and we have
girls, and they act in certain ways, have sex with the opposite sex and are
suited for pre-determined roles, and any deviation from this template is a
freak; unnatural, a biological accident or wantonly evil." This narrow
perspective is then utilized as a perceptual filter through which all human
cultures and societies are viewed.

However, many cultures did not utilize this particular construct,
particularly in the past, prior to European contact with the concomitant
pejorative and destructively violent imposition of Western belief systems
and societal constructs, and the more insidious, but equally devastating
imposition of Western religious beliefs and moral judgments in a context
which would be utterly inappropriate. North American natives comprise many
tribal groupings, each unique and with its own culture and social
structure. At least 155 of these tribes had documented third genders, and
perhaps fourth. Roscoe defines third gender people generally as male or
sometimes female tribal members who undertook a lifestyle of another
gender. Often called berdaches by Europeans, most tribes had special gender
designations for these individuals.

Occasionally, tribes had a designation restricted to women who undertook a
male lifestyle, thus the status of "fourth gender." These genders were
predicated upon any number of factors; dress, genitalia, religious or
spiritual roles, work roles, governing roles, sexual preference or choice,
sexual practices, dream or vision imperatives, parental decisions, and
other aspects of individuals' lives. The sheer complexity of the tribal
differences, and the necessity of examining them not only through a
comprehensible methodology, exacerbated by a frustrating inadequacy of
empirical data makes even the examination of alternative gender systems
difficult. Time and distance, and the overwhelming destruction of native
cultures through conquering colonization combine to make even present day
tribal members largely ignorant of their own history, and also to produce
in them the alien and inappropriate judgmental morality of their
conquerors. Roscoe manages to pull together literally hundreds of
multi-lingual sources, a multiplicity of tribes and social systems and
constructs and produces a coherent, highly readable work.

This alone makes the book well worth reading for anyone even remotely
interested in gender studies. While the majority of the book deals with
male berdaches, Roscoe does devote one chapter to the topic of females who
became warriors, chiefs, or who managed to acquire wealth and thus power
through various means, normally through widowhood. Women's status in the
various tribes varied; some tribes were very egalitarian, others subjugated
women severely. However, all tribes had at least some ways women could gain
power and prestige. Some warrior women and chiefs were well-known and
admired even by Europeans post-contact. In chapter four, devoted to the
alternative identities and genders for native women, Roscoe presents
arguments that not only did past chroniclers and observers report
observations and opinions (often the same thing) through their own cultural
biases, they often do so today.

He dissects feminist theory as applied to native history as coming out of
the same Euro-centered assumptions about women and their roles, and their
concomitant status within the tribal groups. While work roles did tend to
be genderized across the range of tribes and type of culture, whether
hunter-gatherer, agricultural, warrior, highly mobile, etc., the ability to
cross genders and assume roles and lifestyles as desired, or at times
determined by others, the status and power attached to those roles did not
align with the European social aspects of the same roles, nor did they form
the conditions of pan-Indianism often assumed by many observers. Roscoe
repeatedly remarks upon the built-in bias of historical primary resources
in any attempt to reconstruct what conditions and cultural and societal
structures of pre-contact native tribes actually were. For the most part,
chroniclers found native ways so alien to their preconceived beliefs of
their own moral superiority that they were incapable of interpreting what
they saw in the context within which they saw it.

Additionally, Europeans operated out of extraneous agendas of desired
exploitation and colonization that made it extremely desirable to
characterize natives as savages, beasts, and even, in some cases,
sub-humans as part of their need to justify their actions in the many
brutal incidents of genocide, mass forced "conversions" while indulging in
murderous behavior, enslavement, and so on. Obviously, then, accounts and
observations of contact and interaction between Europeans and natives tend
to be highly colored by these factors. Native women were particularly
vulnerable to biased and flawed observation, as sex enters in as an
additionally complicating factor. While many chronicles of European culture
meeting native cultures center around sexuality, the practices of many
tribes regarding sexual activity of males and berdaches normally resulted
in censorious and disgusted commentary by men who viewed those individuals
and their activities by European standards and beliefs.

However, those men had a different outlook when it came to women, often
possessing cultural beliefs of their own that most women were sexual
objects, and that what they saw as promiscuous and openly sexual behaviors
in many tribal women equated to loose morality, sexual availability
justifying any kind of sexual aggression against them, and a discounting of
the positions of power and respect the women really possessed. At the same
time, many chroniclers found themselves strongly attracted to native women,
so that sexual desire contributed to the highly colored fantasy or myth of
the incredibly wild and deliciously sexual wanton still prized today in
such films as the regrettable Disney offense "Pocahontas" in which a twelve
year old girl is depicted as a voluptuous, slender-waisted siren barely
clad in a conveniently clinging designer deerskin dress. In addition to the
thorough discussion of historical native cultures, the problems associated
with accurately determining what those cultures looked like because of the
origin of observations, the incompleteness of those records and
observations, and the lack of knowledge in the tribes themselves in the
present day due to the obliteration and repression of tribal identity and
cultures, Roscoe presents a discussion of today's gay and lesbian community.

It is here perhaps that this reviewer finds some question. In our society,
we deem same-gender sex and associated behaviors as homosexuality, and
Roscoe examines his resources minutely on that issue. While simultaneously
noting the negative results and aspects of historical reports when made
through cultural ignorance and bias, he appears to focus heavily upon
certain sexual preference and behaviors through his own cultural lens of a
dichotomous system. Admittedly, discussing the full spectrum of sexuality
in our basically binary world view, trans-gender, bisexual, cross-dresser,
ambiguous-gender, and true hermaphroditic people cannot be readily lumped
in as "homosexual". Historical reference must by necessity lack the
refinement necessary to examine sex and gender due to the lack of knowledge
on the part of the chroniclers to the nuances and differences among the
various individuals if they are to be discussed from our perspective. While
he does emphasize that often religious or spiritual roles, work roles,
parental or spiritual assignment of gender and so on could, and did, result
in assignment of gender or choice of lifestyle, he does seem to ignore this
in discussing present-day situations.

Here it would seem that he has ready access to individual stories and
motivations, as well as psychological insights and personal feelings, yet
he deals only with the groups he calls "homosexual," "gay," or "lesbian."
This issue is not a major one, as the primary purpose of the book is to
examine the generally little known and poorly understood sex and gender
roles of native people historically. Changing Ones is a valuable
contribution not only to scholars in native culture and history, but to
women's studies, gender studies, and related areas as well. It is also a
highly readable, well-organized compilation of hundreds of historical
references and accounts from a multi-lingual bank of European records and
commentaries which promotes a more realistic appreciation of alternative
genders and the derivation of their establishment as constructs. Roscoe is
a well-known scholar who writes on gender and sexuality in many cultures,
and this work continues his outstanding contributions to the fields. This
reviewer highly recommends it.


Louis Proyect
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