Table Of Contenttitle: The Zuni Man-woman
author: Roscoe, Will.
publisher: University of New Mexico
isbn10 | asin: 0826312535
print isbn13: 9780826312532
ebook isbn13: 9780585282640
language: English
Zuni Indians--Social life and customs, Zuni
subject
Indians--Sexual behavior, Sex role.
publication date: 1991
lcc: E99.Z9R78 1991eb
ddc: 306.73/089974
Zuni Indians--Social life and customs, Zuni
subject:
Indians--Sexual behavior, Sex role.
Page iii
The Zuni Man-Woman
Will Roscoe
Page iv
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Roscoe, Will.
The Zuni man-woman/Will Roscoe.1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8263-1253-5
1. Zuni Indians-Social life and customs. 2. Zuni Indians-Sexual
behaviour. 3. Sex role. 1. Title
E99.Z9R78 1991
306.73'089974dc20
Design by Susan Gutnik.
© 1991 Will Roscoe.
All rights reserved.
Second paperbound printing, 1996
Page v
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgements xix
Prologue 1
A Death that caused Universal Regret
Chapter One 7
The Middle Place
Chapter Two 29
We'wha, the Celebrated Lhamana
Chapter Three 53
Among the Most Enlightened Society
Chapter Four 98
The Country was full of Soldiers
Chapter Five 123
The Rites of Gender
Chapter Six 147
Two-fold One-kind
Chapter Seven 170
They Left this Great Sin
Chapter Eight 195
The Berdache Tradition
Appendix One 215
Pronunciation Guide
Appendix Two 217
The Beginning
Page vi
Notes 223
Bibliography 267
Index 291
Tables
Table 1. Correspondences of the Zuni Origin Myth 150
Table 2. Kan'a:kwe Synonymy 155
Page vii
Preface
The Genesis of The Zuni Man-Woman dates back to 1982, when I
spent several months in the home of my friend and colleague Harry
Hay.
1 Hay gave me access to notes and source materials from his extensive
historical and cross-cultural research on homosexuality and alternative
gender roles, conducted in the 1950s and early 1960s. As I discovered,
Hay had come to view the American Indian berdache role as an
example of a socially approved channel for the expression of a pattern
of sex and gender variance that allowed individuals to make unique
social, religious, and artistic contributions to their communities. In the
1960s, however, he interrupted this research to shift his energies to
political organizing on behalf of American Indian causes. As a result,
most of his insights and discoveries concerning this subject remain
unpublished.
With Hay's encouragement, I decided to begin my own study of
alternative gender roles. My approach from the outset was less
theoretical than his and more in the vein of contemporary
ethnohistory, which combines the methods of history and
anthropology. I hoped to find specific cultural contexts with enough
documentation to reconstruct not only the social and conceptual
dimensions of alternative gender roles, but the lives of the individuals
who occupied them as well. When I joined Hay and a small group of
friends in New Mexico in 1983, however, I had not yet decided on a
Page viii
specific tribe to study. But after witnessing dances at four Pueblo
villages, visiting the homes of Hay's friends at San Juan and San
Ildefonso, clambering about ancient mesa-top ruins, and acquiring an
appreciation for Pueblo art and architecture, I had little doubt
regarding the direction my research would take. In this landwhere the
high point of the day for Indian, Hispanic, and Anglo residents alike
consists of pulling up a chair to watch afternoon thunderclouds streak
the horizons or the setting sun dissolve in spectacular opulenceI
experienced the same awe of natural surroundings I had known while
growing up in western Montana. I also found another, equally
important source of inspiration in New Mexico's rich cultural
diversity, the kind of diversity that had led me to resettle some years
ago in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The wealth of published documentation on Zuni culture and history
led me to focus my studies on that tribe. Even so, I had little inkling of
the abundance of unpublished and oral sources that would enable me
to tell the life story of a particular male berdache, We'wha, in
remarkable detail. Nor did I foresee the extensive visual resources that
would allow me to compile a slide-lecture program, "The Zuni Man-
Woman," which I have since presented throughout the United States
and Canada. Initially, I imagined the outcome of my research would
be an article, but I soon found myself stymied by the very abundance
of the resources that had led me to single out Zuni. I began pursuing
separate questions in far-flung aspects of Zuni cultureanalyzing
locational references in myths and ceremonies; studying gender
symbolism on kachinas; reconstructing the sexual politics of Zuni
prehistory; compiling biographical background on key figures in Zuni
history; studying the Zuni language. Gradually, as I became better
acquainted with the philosophy underlying the diversity of Zuni
cultural expressions, new sources began falling into familiar patterns.
I also took advantage of the wealth of sources to cross-check
statements by one observer with those of others. By following this
procedure I was able to avoid excessive reliance on either of the two
early anthropologists, Frank Hamilton Cushing and Matilda Coxe
Stevenson, whose work still dominates the field of Zuni studies.
In the spring of 1984, efforts to locate the source of a photograph of
We'wha led me to the collections of the Southwest Museum and
Description:The Zuni Man-Woman focuses on the life of We'wha (1849-96), the Zuni who was perhaps the most famous berdache (an individual who combined the work and traits of both men and women) in American Indian history. Through We'wha's exceptional life, Will Roscoe creates a vivid picture of an alternative ge
