Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity

Kroeber, A. (1902-7) “The Arapaho,” pp. 19-20, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 18:1-229; Bowers, A. W. (1992) Hidatsa Social and Ceremonial Organization, pp. 325, 427 (reprint of the Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin no. 194, 1965) (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press).

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Pilling mentions the “wolf power” attributed to the well-known cross-dressing Tolowa shaman, also known as Doctor Medicine (Pilling, A. R. [1997] “Cross-Dressing and Shamanism among Selected Western North American Tribes,” p. 84, in Jacobs et al., Two-Spirit People, pp. 69-99). Turner reports the well-known Snoqualmie shaman who, though biologically male, was “like a woman” and had Grizzly Bear and Rainbow powers (Turner, H. [1976] “Ethnozoology of the Snoqualmie”, p. 84 [unpublished manuscript, available in the Special Collections Division, University of Washington Library, Seattle, Wash.]). Another possible association of Bears with sexual and gender variance has been reported (and widely cited) for the Kaska Indians: Honigmann mentions that cross-dressing women who were raised as boys, perform male tasks, and may have homosexual relationships with other women wear an amulet made of the dried ovaries of a Bear, tied to their inner belt and worn for life, to prevent conception (Honigmann, J. J. [1954] The Kaska Indians: An Ethnographic Reconstruction, p. 130, Yale University Publications in Anthropology no. 51 [New Haven: Yale University Press]). However, Goulet has challenged and reinterpreted this example, specifically with regard to the claims of cross-dressing, homosexual involvements, and the uniqueness of the Bear amulet to these supposedly gender-mixing females (Goulet, J.-G. A. [1997] “The Northern Athapaskan ‘Berdache’ Reconsidered: On Reading More Than There Is in the Ethnographic Record,” in Jacobs et al., Two-Spirit People, pp. 45-68).

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Miller, J. (1982) “People, Berdaches, and Left-Handed Bears: Human Variation in Native America,” Journal of Anthropological Research 38:274-87.

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Among the Hopi people, a parallel view exists regarding hawks and eagles: these creatures are all thought of as mothers, and individual raptors are sometimes even given names such as Female Bear for this reason (Tyler, H. A. [1979] Pueblo Birds and Myths, p. 54 [Norman: University of Oklahoma Press]).

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For indigenous views on bears and menstruation, as well as further information on the Bear Mother figure, see Rockwell, D. (1991) Giving Voice to Bear: North American Indian Rituals, Myths, and Images of the Bear, pp. 14-17, 123-25, 133 (Niwot, Colo.: Roberts Rinehart Publishers); Buckley, T., and A. Gottlieb (1988) Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation, p. 22 (Berkeley: University of California Press); Shepard, P., and B. Sanders (1985) The Sacred Paw: The Bear in Nature, Myth, and Literature, pp. 55-59 (New York: Viking); Hallowell,A. I. (1926) “Bear Ceremonialism in the Northern Hemisphere,” American Anthropologist 28:1-175; Rennicke, J. (1987) Bears of Alaska in Life and Legend (Boulder, Colo.: Roberts Rinehart).

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Miller, “People, Berdaches, and Left-Handed Bears,” pp. 277-78; Drucker, P. (1951) The Northern and Central Nootkan Tribes, p. 130, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin no. 144 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution); Clutesi, G. (1967) “Ko-ishin-mit Invites Chims-meet to Dinner,” in Son of Raven, Son of Deer: Fables of the Tse-shaht People, pp. 62-69 (Sidney, B.C.: Gray’s Publishing); Sapir, E. (1915) Abnormal Types of Speech in Nootka, Geological Survey, Memoir 62, Anthropological Series no. 5 (Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau).

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