Native American S*xuality

 

Native American S*xuality

The histories of sexuality and gender expression were diverse among the vast Diaspora Indigenous Tribes. A cross-gender role, Verdatch existed in precolonial times among the Casca of the Yukon Territory, the Klamath of southern Oregon, the Mojave, Cocopa, and Maricopa of the Colorado River.

The Verdache people participated in traditional roles of the opposite sex, such as manners and labor. Mojave heterosexual women performed ceremonies to fully verdash women as men, giving them the right to marry. The term Verdache is considered obsolete in modern times and is commonly replaced by the term "Two Spirits", emphasizing how the Native Americans themselves viewed these individuals.

For most Native Americans, the person's spirit was more important than their physical body, and for them, a person who deviated from their original gender acquired a third gender separate from the male or female gender. Two aboriginal spirits were often part of a same-sex relationship to fulfill the necessary duties of the expected family unit in aboriginal society.

However, two spirits of the same sex did not marry each other. Because the role Native Americans played in marriage was more important than sexuality, and sexuality was less embedded in identity than it is today. Heterosexual identity began in the late 19th century due to pressure and dominance by white settlers and the imposition of sexual values ​​and ideologies on Native American tribes who claimed that the female sex was inferior and homosexuality was unnatural. disappeared in Marriage also varied among many tribes.

For example, the Navajo practiced polygamy, with the custom that wives must be related or belong to the same clan. The practice was outlawed by the Navajo Tribal Council in July 1945 due to pressure from the United States government, which sought to end the practice by enacting laws against polygamy on its own.