Wisconsin Pride – Two-Spirit

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Kai Pyle: If you are living in North America, you’re living on indigenous land, and you need to know the history of the land you’re living on.

[wind brushes grass field]

The history of Two-Spirit people is an important part of that.

Narrator: Two-Spirit is a term used today for Native people, past and present, believed to possess both masculine and feminine spirit. It could be a person born male, but drawn to characteristically female roles throughout their life. Historically, Two-Spirit people were widely accepted by their communities and were known by many names.

Kai Pyle: We have a really rich vocabulary for describing gender and sexual diversity. In Anishinaabemowin, our language, it’s agokwe. For the Navajo, it’s nàdleehé. For Dakota people, it’s winkte. We have terms for people like us.

Narrator: Names differed by nation and language, as did a Two-Spirit person’s role in their society. But often, Two-Spirit people were highly respected and believed to possess special talents and insight.

Kai Pyle: It encompasses our world views, which are often very different from how Euro-American society defines gender and sexuality.

Narrator: Though embraced by their communities, Two-Spirit people were met with disdain by Western travelers. In 1830, American artist George Catlin traveled the Mississippi River and witnessed a Sauk and Meskwaki ceremony centered on a Two-Spirit member of the tribe. While the event may have been held in honor of the Two-Spirit, the title of Catlin’s painting reveals his attitude toward the subject.

Kai Pyle: The painting was called “The Dance of the Berdache.” The term ‘Berdache’ came to refer to what they would call, like, a passive homosexual, in their derogatory terms. Catlin describes it as one of the most disgusting and abhorrent facets of the New World; that it should be eradicated before it even can be recorded in any more detail.

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Narrator: The Europeans who came to the New World brought very specific views
about those who deviated from heterosexual norms. Eventually, those norms would be rigidly enforced.

Kai Pyle: Starting in the late 1800s, there was a big push to civilize Native people. The United States government and often also the religious organizations that ran many of the boarding schools were trying to make the kids into ‘cookie cutters’ of American boys and American girls.

Narrator: For Two-Spirit people, this was especially traumatic.

Kai Pyle: There are stories of Two-Spirit people who disappeared, essentially, from boarding schools. Once discovered to be Two-Spirit, they were taken away and never seen again.

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