Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity

Teit, J. A. (1917) “Okanagon Tales,” Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society 11:75-76 (reprinted in GAI and Roscoe, Living the Spirit, pp. 89-91); Mandelbaum, M. (1938) “The Individual Life Cycle,” p. 119, in L. Spier, ed., The Sinkaietk or Southern Okanagon of Washington, pp. 101-29, General Series in Anthropology no. 6 (Menasha, Wis.: George Banta); Brooks, C., and M. Mandelbaum (1938) “Coyote Tricks Cougar into Providing Food,” in Spier, The Sinkaietk, pp. 232-33, 257; Kroeber, “The Arapaho,” p. 19; Kenny, “Tinselled Bucks,” p. 22; Jones, W. (1907) “The Turtle Brings Ruin Upon Himself,” in Fox Texts, pp. 314-31, Publications of the American Ethnological Society no. 1 (Leyden: E. J. Brill); Radin, P. (1956) The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology, pp. 20-24, 137-39 (New York: Greenwood Press). Other, more tangential, associations between homosexuality and turtles occur among the Fox people. In a cautionary tale of two women who had an affair with each other, for example, the erect clitoris of one woman during lesbian sex is described as being like a turtle’s penis, while the child that resulted from their union is compared to a soft-shell turtle (“Two Maidens Who Played the Harlot with Each Other,” Jones, Fox Texts, pp. 151-53).

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Brant, B. (Degonwadonti) (1985) “Coyote Learns a New Trick,” in Mohawk Trail, pp. 31-35 (Ithaca: Firebrand Books) (reprinted in GAI and Roscoe, Living the Spirit, pp. 163-66); Steward, D.-H. (1988) “Coyote and Tehoma,” in GAI and Roscoe, Living the Spirit, pp. 157-62; Cameron, A. (1981) “Song of Bear,” in Daughters of Copper Woman, pp. 115-19 (Vancouver: Press Gang); Tafoya, “M. Dragonfly”; Robertson, D. V. (1997) “I Ask You to Listen to Who I Am,” p. 231, in Jacobs et al., Two-Spirit People, pp. 228-35; Brant, B. (1994) Writing as Witness: Essay and Talk, pp. 61, 69-70, 75, 108 (Toronto: Women’s Press); Chrystos (1988) Not Vanishing (Vancouver: Press Gang); Chrystos (1991) Dream On (Vancouver: Press Gang); Chrystos (1995) Fire Power (Vancouver: Press Gang).

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George Catlin’s original 1867 description of the ritual homosexuality and other sexual imagery in this ceremony was considered so scandalous at the time that it was eliminated from most published versions of his monograph. Only a few copies of the first edition of the book that were delivered to scholars included this material, and even then it was set aside in a special appendix. Catlin, G. (1867/1967) O-kee-pa: A Religious Ceremony and Other Customs of the Mandans, pp. 83-85, centennial edition, edited and with an introduction by J. C. Ewers (New Haven and London: Yale University Press); Bowers, A. W. (1950/1991) Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization, pp. 131, 145-46 (reprint of the 1950 University of Chicago Press edition) (Moscow, Idaho: University of Idaho Press); Campbell, J. (1988) Historical Atlas of World Mythology, Vol. 1: The Way of the Animal Powers, Part 2: Mythologies of the Great Hunt, pp. 226-31 (New York: Harper & Row).

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