#One spirit native code#
#One spirit native plus#

Harmon Parkhurst, Image Courtesy of Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, New Mexico History Museum, Santa Fe.) Hastiin Klah (Diné) The Lhamana were imprisoned and the Zuni fought for their eventual release.Īfter getting out of prison, We’wha walked 40 miles back to the reservation and returned to their former life: leading ceremonies, making pottery, weaving with the women and hunting with the men. Similar to the experiences of the Crow, Christian missionaries arrived at Zuni (modern-day New Mexico and Arizona) in 1877, intent on converting the community. Things didn't go as well for the Zuni tribe, however. Largely perceived as a cisgender woman, We’wha became the toast of the town on this trip and gained a degree of national celebrity. in 1886 and met President Grover Cleveland. We’wha spoke English and struck up friendships with white outsiders, including the anthropologist Matilda Coxe Stevenson. They performed tasks that were typically divided by gender roles, distinguished as both a weaver and potter as well as a hunter and spiritual leader. ) We’wha (Zuni)Ī Lhamana (Zuni Two Spirit) from the area that is now New Mexico, We’wha was born a male-bodied person who wore a mix of women’s and men’s clothing. Hillers, Image Courtesy of: Smithsonian Institute. federal agents, ultimately gaining the Badés ’ release. But the Crow chiefs and warriors spoke out in support of Two Spirit values.

#One spirit native code#

It wasn’t long before Osh-Tisch and other Two Spirits became a target of the code and were imprisoned. Throughout the 1920s, tribal members who refused to abandon their traditions were penalized or imprisoned and their families’ treaty rations were cut or denied.

Obsessed with “The Code of Religious Offenses,” a moral directive that forbade non-Christian spiritual practices, they began persecuting Natives over their dating and marriage traditions, which were often in opposition to the Christian European standard of lifelong heterosexual monogamy. By the 1880s, missionaries began the process of attempting to “whitemanize” the Crow. Earning their name “Finds Them And Kills Them” in a fight against the Lakota, Osh-Tisch was a revered member of the tribe who had a lodge, a family and was considered a leader among the Badé.

Osh-Tisch was a keeper of the Badé tradition-a male-bodied person in the Crow community who lived their daily life in a feminine role. 2-17 (JSTOR)) Osh-Tisch (Apsáalooke or Crow) Fouch Retrieve from Montana: The Magazine of Western History Vol.

#One spirit native plus#

Please know that gender and pronouns can be fluid in Native America, so this article uses the gender-neutral pronoun 'they,' plus male and female pronouns. To get a sense of where we are today, let’s take a look back at some of the original Two-Spirit heroes who helped light the way. We have several of our own powwows, 501c3s and models that help sustain and preserve the Two Spirit way of life.

Today, dozens of Two Spirit organizations exist across the United States and Canada (North Valley Two Spirits, represent!). Not only did the Native-American population skyrocket in North America, but we've gone through a major shift in how Two Spirits are recognized and treated. and so-not my way, mind you.” I don’t recall the rest of the conversation, but I understood her comments to mean that winkte was not OK.įast forward a couple of decades, and wow. “I don’t like it,” I remember her telling me as she braided me up for one of our dances, “but we love N. I recall one of my elders sharing about a man from home who was that way. Still, in spite of prejudice, it was common knowledge that in “the old days,” most of our Nations accepted and honored gender fluidity. As for the concept-let’s just say that there were plenty of MCs making winkte (gay) jokes at the powwows I attended in the early '90s. The term 'Two Spirit' for LGBTQ+ Native Americans didn’t exist yet, at least not outside Ojibwe Territory. Not straight- laced, per se, but really hetero. Cigarette and beer companies frequently sponsored our powwows, recycling was unheard of, and the entire Native scene portrayed itself as very straight. Our rural communities were isolated, with communication limited to landlines and the mail. In the 1990s, Indian Country (as we called it) was a very different place for Native Americans.