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rabid1stToday, 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...
Many Ojibwe warriors were transgender and referred to as egwakweg or "two-spirits." While the modern American military debates the wisdom of things like "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the Ojibwe saw no reason why women or gay people or transgender people couldn't fight if they wanted to do so. Their open policy on sexual identity didn't stop them from being considered very fierce warriors. They drove the Lakota and the Fox people from their territory in separate wars. Ozaawindib was a "pillager" which was similar in our culture to The Marines. Pillagers were the advanced guard, leading an invasion or charge and Ozaawindib was considered one of the best. Still active in his/her 50s, Ozaawindib tried to seduce John Tanner, but failed. She gave up the pursuit when she become the third wife of a Chief Wenji-Dotaagan, she already had several husbands by that time.
Ozaawindib had a biological twin, Chief Shakopee II, an adopted son of the Dakota people, who self-identified as both Ojibwe and Dakota. I have no information on how he came to be adopted by the Dakota, but after the above mentioned war he was pressured to pick a side and ended up on the Dakota one. In Ojibwe, he was called Zhaagobe, and his descendants who identified themselves as Ojibwa rather than Dakota are surnamed either "Shaugobay" or "Shagobince".
To Learn More About the 100 Things Challenge...go here...http://jdbracknell.livejournal.com/165714.html
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...
Many Ojibwe warriors were transgender and referred to as egwakweg or "two-spirits." While the modern American military debates the wisdom of things like "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the Ojibwe saw no reason why women or gay people or transgender people couldn't fight if they wanted to do so. Their open policy on sexual identity didn't stop them from being considered very fierce warriors. They drove the Lakota and the Fox people from their territory in separate wars. Ozaawindib was a "pillager" which was similar in our culture to The Marines. Pillagers were the advanced guard, leading an invasion or charge and Ozaawindib was considered one of the best. Still active in his/her 50s, Ozaawindib tried to seduce John Tanner, but failed. She gave up the pursuit when she become the third wife of a Chief Wenji-Dotaagan, she already had several husbands by that time.
Ozaawindib had a biological twin, Chief Shakopee II, an adopted son of the Dakota people, who self-identified as both Ojibwe and Dakota. I have no information on how he came to be adopted by the Dakota, but after the above mentioned war he was pressured to pick a side and ended up on the Dakota one. In Ojibwe, he was called Zhaagobe, and his descendants who identified themselves as Ojibwa rather than Dakota are surnamed either "Shaugobay" or "Shagobince".
To Learn More About the 100 Things Challenge...go here...http://jdbracknell.livejournal.com/165714.html
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-13 07:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-13 06:31 pm (UTC)Whenever the subject of giving homosexual people their full lot of civil rights over here comes up, the next thing out of the mouth of some naysayer is..."Then why not let people marry [insert animal the Republican has considered having sex with here]?" To me, this just about sums up the Consciousness of Separation that these people live in...when you leave their sphere of what they consider right, you become so much less than human.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-13 06:36 pm (UTC)I take your point, though, that the argument unconsciously reveals the mode of thought that gay = less than human.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-13 11:47 pm (UTC)I knew that there were "two spirit" people in other Native traditions, and honored roles for gay people, but i didn't know about Ozaawindib or that the Ojibwe had such an open view of gender.