Primary Sources
Catlin, George. “Rock Island, Upper Mississippi.” Letter 56 of
Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of North American
Indians. London: 1844.
George Catlin traveled around to different tribes observing their customs;
he documented what he saw through letters pictures. In this particular
letter he describes the Dance to the Berdashe This letter is pretty much
the epitome of how the white man viewed the berdaches; they obviously did
not understand the Indians traditions. Catlin also drew a picture
of what he saw:
Williams, Walter L. The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity
in American Indian Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986.
Walter Williams writes a great documentation of the berdache lifestyle
in his book The spirit and the Flesh. I listed him as primary source
because he has spent several years studying and living among tribes, including
those with berdache. Williams, during one of his stays on a Lakota
reservation, experiences a vision quest and tells about it in his book.
Williams also includes some interviews from his fieldwork in the northern
Plains, in one notable interview he discusses how other tribe members view
berdache. This book was very insightful and clearly written; his
first hand experience provided me with a better knowledge of the berdache.
Secondary Sources
Axtell, James, William T. Hagen, Theda Perdue, Glenda Riley, Richard
White, Angela Cavender Wilson. Rethinking American Indian History. Ed.
Donald L. Fixico. N.p.: University of New Mexico Press, 1997.
This book was very helpful with providing information about how women
adopted masculine roles. In addition to that, this book led me to
other sources about women’s roles and some important American Indian women
throughout history. Some of those women are Waheenee, Cockacoeske,
and Nancy Ward.
· Bataille, M, Gretchen and Kathleen Mullen Sands. Native American
Women: Telling Their Lives. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska
Press, 1984.
This book had little information about the berdach culture but did
help confirm some information about women’s gender roles of the Indian
lifestyle.
· DRK. Native American Perspective on the Theory of Gender Continuum.
1999. Online. Available from http://hermaphrodite.arriba.net/twospirit.htm.
Accessed 25 April 2005.
Native American Perspective on the Theory of Gender Continuum
This website was very helpful to me because the author gives
a description of several different aspects of the berdache life.
I came across this website after I had gotten all of my books so when she
referred to a book I could easily look it up and get information more elaborate
information. It also helped because I couldn’t read every page of
all my books so she helped point me in the right direction.
Forgey, Donald G. “The Institution of Berdache Among the North
American Plains Indians.” The Journal of Sex Research 1 (1976): 1-15.
This article offered a great variety of information about the berdache
tradition. Although its main focus is on Plains Indians much valuable
information is included that relates to berdaches collectively. Forgey
includes a clear definition of the berdache and the roles that are included,
he talks about the vision quest and the importance of it, as well as an
emphasis on this socially accepted group of men and their strive for prestige.
Lang, Sabine. Men as Women, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native
American Cultures.Trans. John L. Vantine. Austin: University of Texas Press,
1998.
This is the first book that I read about the subject of berdaches,
and I’m glad it was. It is organized so clearly and set up so that
it’s easy to follow. Lang divides up all her information, therefore,
it’s easy to look up what you need in the index and find it. I like
this book because Lang uses an abundance of other resources to back up
her statements, although sometime its gets confusing and contradictory.
In addition to each chapter Lang includes a summary at the end, this helps
to further clarify each part. Several charts, maps, and tables are
included to allow the reader to visualize the written information.
Roscoe, Will. The Zuni Man-Woman. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1991
This book is written based on the institution of berdaches in the Zuni
tribe, mainly the life of one specific berdache, We’wha. We’wha
was a very skilled in women’s and men’s tasks such as weaving and farming
and was perhaps the most famous berdache in American Indian history.
Roscoe provides several great pictures of We’wha working and living.
Although the book relates most of its information on We’wha, there is still
more information about the existence of other berdaches and his tribe members.
This is a picture of We’wha:
Trexler, Richard C. “Making the American Berdache: Choice or Constraint?”
Journal of Social History 35 (spring2002): 613-636.
Richard C. Trexler composes a very detailed and up to date account
of berdache’s in America. Trexler does a very good job of taking
previously documented information and combines it with new information.
Because there is little information of the berdache its hard to make conclusions,
but Trexler tries to set the record straight. Much of the information
I read in this article I have seen in another book or reference, which
helped confirm the importance of it.
Tara Carney