100 Things I've Learned---As I Learn Them #8

Today, I have a little bit of LBGT history for you. While studying the Ojibwe people of Wisconsin, I came across a story about a famous warrior known as Yellow Head, or Ozaawindib. Ozaawindib was a transgender person, a biological male who identified as a female. John Tanner, an interpreter who lived among the Ojibwe for many years, wrote of Ozzawindib in 1880, "This man was one of those who make themselves into women and are called women by the Indians." However, among the Ojibwe this wasn't considered much of a wonder as they did not recognize gender differences as other cultures did. Men could chose to stay home and raise kids while the women went out to fight or hunt. They felt that it was all a matter of what your spirit called you to do. And people were free to marry transgender people or those of the same sex.

American geologist, Henry Schoolcraft, knew Ozaawindib personally and wrote of him...At the mouth of River Broula[4] I encountered Ozawondib,[5] or Yellow Head, and Mainotagooz,[6] or the Handsome Enunciator, two Chippewas from the Cassinian source of the Mississippi, being on their way to visit me at the seat of the agency. They reported that the Indians of Leech Lake had raised a war-party, and gone out against the Sioux of the Plains. Both these Indians returned with me to Cass Lake. The former afterward guided me from that remote point to the source of this river.[7]

There is a picture of Ozaawindib behind this cut...( Read more... )

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