Ancestors of two-spirits: Historical depictions of Native North American gender-crossing women through critical discourse analysis

ABSTRACT

Letters written by Christian men of European origin during the sixteenth–nineteenth centuries contain brief descriptions of gender-crossing individuals among indigenous Americans. Although now considered ethnocentrically biased because of the etic positioning of their authors, these historical sources are invaluable because they offer a glimpse of the ancestors of modern-day two-spirits. An application of critical discourse analysis to three depictions of gender-crossing females from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries demonstrates that such women were favorably portrayed. These results differ dramatically from those obtained from my similar analysis of depictions of gender-crossing males. It also became evident that the three descriptions of gender-crossing women were not based on actual observations, but only on hearsay, which makes their use as primary sources questionable.

KEYWORDS:

• Two-spirit women
• gender crossing
• gender mixing
• Native North America
• critical discourse analysis
• historical sources

Notes on contributor

Anita Hemmilä has a M.A. degree (2005) from the Department of Languages, University of Jyväskylä, Finland, where she is currently a Ph.D. candidate. Her M.A. work and dissertation take a discourse analytic approach to the Native North American gender-crossing phenomenon known today as two-spirit. Hemmilä has presented on various aspects of her research in several international conferences. Previously, she worked as a language teacher, artist, and teacher of visual arts.

Notes

1. Wikipedia has a biographical sketch of Mary Quille/Marie Quilax): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuilix (accessed January 6, 2015).

2. The English translation of Bossu's description of the Choctaw cross-dressers (Bossu 1962: 169) is as follows: “The people of this nation are generally of a brutal and coarse nature. You can talk to them as much as you want about the mysteries of our religion; they always reply that all of that is beyond their comprehension. They are morally quite perverted, and most of them are addicted to sodomy. These corrupt men, who have long hair and wear short skirts like women, are held in great contempt.”