The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture

by Walter L. Williams

Winner of Gay Book of the Year Award, American Library Association; Ruth Benedict Award, Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists; Award for Outstanding Scholarship, World Congress for Sexology

Author’s Shortly after the second revised edition this book was published in 1992, the term "Two-Spirit Person" became more popular among native people than the older anthropological term "berdache." When I learned of this new term, I began strongly supporting the use of this newer term. I believe that people should be able to call themselves whatever they wish, and scholars should respect and acknowledge their change of terminology. I went on record early on in convincing other anthropologists to shift away from use of the word berdache and in favor of using Two-Spirit. Nevertheless, because this book continues to be sold with the use of berdache, many people have assumed that I am resisting the newer term. Nothing could be further from the truth. Unless continued sales of this book will justify the publication of a third revised edition in the future, it is not possible to rewrite what is already printed, Therefore, I urge readers of this book, as well as activists who are working to gain more respect for gender variance, mentally to substitute the term "Two-Spirit" in the place of "berdache" when reading this text. -- Walter L. Williams, Los Angeles, 2006

Genres: History, Native American, Nonfiction, Sexuality, LGBT, Gender, Anthropology

368 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1986

About the author

Walter Williams received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and taught American Indian Studies at UCLA, and as professor of anthropology, history, and gender studies, at the University of Southern California. He taught at Buddhist monasteries in Thailand, and was also Fulbright Research Professor at Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia. He is now retired and living in a Maya community in southern Mexico.

Reviews

[Nessie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I find it bitterly comical that Williams even bothers to try to pacify people who are offended by the word "berdache" but makes no mention whatsoever of the consistent mislabeling he does with the pronouns in the book.

His main thesis seems to be that all of the vast gender variance documented in indigenous American societies is somehow equivalent to modern Western homosexuality and has absolutely nothing to do with modern Western transsexuality. I returned my copy to the library as quick as I could, so here I can only paraphrase William's beef with transsexuals: "bodily mutilation is a heavy price to pay for the ideology of biological determinism." He assumes a lot here. He assumes that a person who willfully undergoes sexual reassignment surgery has mutilated herself, even if she follows safe medical procedures and is satisfied with the results. If I were to assume something in return, I would assume that Williams is a phallocentric fascist who can only see the conversion of a penis into a vagina as a downgrade. He also assumes that transsexuals do not accept people who fall outside of the gender binary, especially themselves. The strong alliances among transsexual, transgender, and genderqueer people in contemporary queer communities make this hard to believe, particularly if we consider the people who claim more than one of those identities. He calls us biological determinists because he assumes trans women believe a woman cannot be a woman without a vagina, but he himself denies our womanhood solely because we are born without vaginas.

Here are some other incongruities:

He acknowledges that in many traditions male-assigned two-spirit people are referred to with feminine pronouns, but he refers to almost all of these individuals with masculine pronouns, even going so far on several occasions as to insert "he" in brackets into someone else's quotation!

He cites a two-spirit informant who left a reservation to live in urban society as a woman, but upon experiencing the hardships of life as a trans woman in a misogynist transphobic patriarchy without family support, decided to live as a gay man. Apparently this pragmatic decision is proof that all trans women are really gay men in denial.

He mentions several tribes in which male-assigned two-spirit people refer to their genitals with female terminology and prefer not to have their genitals touched by their sexual partners. That sounds exactly like the experience of a gay man and nothing like the experience of a trans woman, right?

He mentions a female-assigned individual who lied to their tribe and announced that white people had magically changed their sexual anatomy to male. This was in the 19th century before sexual reassignment surgery existed, and thus challenges the transphobic notion that the medical institution created the demand for genital conversion. And yet Williams has no problem referring to this person as a lesbian and using female pronouns. Hm!



This book really is very interesting to read if you have any affinity for gender studies or Indian studies, but its usefulness is severely limited because it was written by a narcissistic, ignorant white man.

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Favorite part was when he argued that pirates and cowboys were a little gay bc they exude too much raw sexual energy to be celibate

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

A deeply frustrating read. At 30 years since publication, this book is still unsurpassed in the breadth and depth of evidence that it brings together about Two Spirit identities in American indigenous societies. Williams did exemplary archival research and he provides a vast array of information about different societies and time periods, drawn from early European exploration texts, anthropological and ethnological research, and other genres that you wouldn't necessarily expect (cowboy poetry!) Williams also spent years gathering information from native people about the Two Spirit roles and people in their societies. That new information collected by Williams is crucial evidence that some Two Spirit traditions have continued into contemporary times, and how they transformed along the way. It also goes some way to counteracting the anti-indigenous anti-gay attitudes that dominate the vast majority of the literature written by non-native authors about this topic.

Unfortunately, Williams squanders a great deal of the book's potential by cherrypicking evidence to build a narrative of his ideal of the Two Spirit role in Indian culture. Even worse: it becomes clear that the stakes for the ideal he is describing are not really about native cultures at all, but rather about gay male identity in the contemporary United States. It is exactly the pitfall that Harriet Whitehead warns about in her article on the same topic when she writes about western academics who describe gender or sexuality systems of other cultures as "familiar items from our own sexual behavioral repertoire dressed up in foreign garb."

Williams believes that Two Spirit identities are a third gender category in society (nothing to do with gender-crossing or changing gender), and that the primary traits of Two Spirit people are first of all their spiritual role, and second of all their homosexuality (particularly in assuming the receptive role during sex). The most universal traits of Two Spirit roles are doing women's work (or vice versa in the much less common case of girls who adopted a masculine role) and wearing women's clothing, but Williams on little basis dismisses the centrality of these in favor of his preferred criteria. (Whether it is even useful at all to look for general explanations of these phenomena, which widely vary across dozens or hundreds of cultures, spanning a continent and several centuries, is also never really justified sufficiently.)

Williams acknowledges that tribal attitudes to Two Spirit people fell across a wide spectrum from disapproval to great prestige, but here the cherrypicking begins to cloud the picture. Williams focuses extensively on Two Spirit roles in Lakota and Navajo cultures, where these roles had some of the highest prestige of any society. All evidence that could point towards Two Spirit identities involving gender-crossing rather than being a third gender category is either ignored or downplayed. Writing about the preference of some other researchers for a gender-crossing model, Williams writes:

"It is easy to see what scholars have moved in this direction. Many words that define [Two Spirit] mention women; for example, the Hidatsa word _miati_ translates as 'to feel an involuntary inclination to act like a woman.' ... However, while [Two Spirit people] certainly do women's work and are nonmasculine in character, their social role is not the same as that of women's. In terms of their physical body, lack of involvement with nursing infants, [etc.] these male need to be seen as something other than the institutitional equivalents of females."

After a few more paragraphs of equally weak argumentation (and just long enough to quote Janice Raymond and to refer to transgender surgery as "mutilation"), Williams leaves the topic behind as settled.

This is distasteful enough, but Williams rounds out the picture towards the end of the book with a brief typological survey which is effusive in its approval of the institutionalized man-boy sexual pairings of the ancient Greek type that have been reported by contemporary anthropologists (even though a cross-generational aspect is almost completely lacking in reports of traditional Two Spirit practices). A look at William's Wikipedia page is sufficient to suggest the real motivations behind Williams' analysis.

All of that adds up to mean that this book is dense in resources and pointers for other lines of study, which the reader has to extract sideways and without getting misled by Williams' own analysis and summaries which are often aimed at somewhere quite different than what appears to be their target.

For non-specialists who are interested in this subject, it's impossible not to recommend some familiarity with this book, but it would be advisable to start out first by reading Harriet Whitehead's essay "The Bow and the Burden Strap". Although that text is quite short and even further out of date than Williams' book, it remains a landmark in this field for its clear methodology and for its integration of anthropological, psychological and economic analyses. Whitehead's analysis is much more effective at explaining why "male" Two Spirit people are more common than "female"; why cross-gender productive work and dress are the most common shared factors across societies; and why "same-sex" pairings with Two Spirit people didn't disrupt the gender identity of their partners. Interested readers would do well to start with her essay and then consult Williams' book for further references where needed; hopefully before too much longer a book will come along that would supplant them both and bring comprehensive information on this topic up to date for the lay reader.

[Alie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was very interesting to see that what our Western societies claim to be a scientific fact (that there are only 2 genders and that gender is linked to your genitaelia) is actually not true or accepted as such in other cultures.
I'm glad to have learnt a little about American Indian societies.
However, I feel very disturbed by the way the author seem to think about adult men having sex with boys. In the first parts of the book, it seems as though he wants to keep a certain neutrality towards a culture that isn't his.
But in the very last part, when he talks about the different cultures which have adult men do that, he also speaks of European societies and uses the term « intergenerational male love ». And I'm really not okay with this : it's not love, it's children being sexually abused by adults. That's why I cannot give more than 2 stars.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been quite a long time since I have read this book, but it was very helpful to me in the 90s to help me figure out a lot of things about myself.

When you read this book you need to go into it with the understanding that it has not been recently revised, and the use of pronouns is not to the same standard that more recent books about Two Spirit and Trans people are written. It is a reflection of its time, I believe it was originally released in 1986, and then revised in 1992.

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A life-changing book for even the most cursory scholar of Native American or LGBT history. And for all its unprecedented achievements, this book only scratches the surface of a rich and diverse spiritual tradition.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

i read this for a class where we jumped around a lot, so it's kind of difficult to rate as a whole

[Daryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

With this book, Williams presented the reader with an interesting argument of the role of the berdache or two spirits in American Indian culture. It is telling that the American Indians, along with other groups around the world, accepted this third gender into society believing they added value and purpose to the entire group, looking at them as being created as a higher power had intended for them to be. It is not until the Europeans show up, from Spain and later the British, that enforced Christianity and demoralized and persecuted the berdache and the diverse sexuality of the indigenous peoples that to them only seemed natural that things changed. Of course the Spanish, British and other European invaders negatively impacted the Amerindian people in so many ways that included snuffing out culture, language and sadly in some instances, entire groups, through persecution, murder and disease. Europeans took much from these people, not only land and natural resources, but the way they have lived happily before Columbus or anyone else had ventured upon their shores. They stole their culture and traditions in an effort to convert, by force, the Native Americans to a European lifestyle and religious devotion to Christianity.

The author addresses how the berdaches or men who lived as women and were called varying names depending on the tribe, were respected members of the groups they belonged to, often high ranking and prosperous. They were seen as healers, often Shaman, and took care of orphaned children, the best basket weavers and cooks, tending to the food for wakes and often important at spiritual celebrations. Families were often proud to have a berdache in the family as this would most likely mean they were important in the community and would be well taken care of. The sexual fluidity among these members of numerous tribes was never seen as harmful or shameful and was an expected, natural part of human existence. This attitude declined as European Christianity was forced upon these Amerindian groups and disdain for berdaches and gay people became a part of a new generations ingrained beliefs as they were removed from the traditions of their group and taught and force fed the culture of white people. The American Indians held on to their traditions, even if in private, and as gay culture and the gay rights movement sparked at Stonewall in 1969 and continued to evolve until current day, the berdache has evolved, attached in the modern era to both Native American tradition and urban gay culture.

I wondered, until reading the chapter on Amazons, or the female equivalent of the berdache, as to why women of a fourth gender was left out. As the author points out, due to a justified mistrust of heterosexual whites in these Native American communities, amazons or a modern gay Indian woman may be more likely to speak and be more forthcoming with a lesbian researcher. This explains the limited attention to amazons in the book. As a white male, an amazon as he called them, were unlikely to share valid information with him or any other white male.

I found the book to be highly informative and reading it taught me a great deal about a group of people among Native Americans that I never knew existed. The sexual diversity among a group that was often called "savages" or "barbarians" was actually far superior and much more accepting than the judgmental invaders who tried to abolish their traditions and impose a new way of life. It is an interesting area of study that would benefit from more research and I hope that other anthropologists continue research in an area of sexual diversity that deserves to be explored and discussed.

[Aspasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this for my Cultural Anthropology class and use it as a source on my Sex and Gender paper. Williams writes about the berdache- a largely unknown part of Native American culture to non-Native Americans. The berdache was a biologically born male that would take on a third alternative gender. This third gender was viewed as sacred and as a mediator between men and women. The version of the book I read was last updated in 1992 and I hope that Williams releases a new edition with updated research.

[Nini · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really mind opening and convincing book. It's really opened my mind completely to humanities sexual history.. I'm very curious and encouraged to read many more of the books suggested in this one.

[bee · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's alright if you want to learn a bit about sexuality in American Indian cultures, but there are far better books out there regarding the subject. He also misuses pronouns quite a bit. Plus, he misidentifies gender and sexual identities quite a bit.

[Thom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing cultural & spiritual diveristy that allows for a "third sex."

[Grace · Rating 1 out of 5]

a landmark book but written from an incredibly oppressive white anthropological point of view - in 2017 theres no excuse for this to be your go-to book on two spirit people