4 and half pages History final paper

Jennifer Gosa

History 406

Professor Nobiletti

Wed. at 4:00

November 22, 2004

The Zuni Lhamana: Beyond a Dualistic Framework of Gender

The Zuni are one of the most studied Native American tribes in the United States. There is an old joke that a typical Zuni family consisted of a father, a mother, the children, and an anthropologist! This vast legacy of anthropological data has left a very clear picture of Zuni society, customs, religion, and of course, sexuality. The Zuni, as were many other Native American tribes, was a sex positive society, with no shame about their bodies and almost no sex taboos, save incest. In comparison with western views, the Zuni were tolerant and understanding about sexuality and gender roles. This tolerance allowed the formation of a third gender, in which anatomical males who preferred the female gender role would simply begin dressing as a woman, doing a woman’s jobs, and having sex with men. Whereas western society would classify this person as a transvestite and/or a homosexual and typically marginalize him, the Zuni society had a socially established role for him.

Anthropologists have called this group of people, berdache, third gender , women-men , and two-spirit , among other names. All mean essentially the same thing so in this paper, the members of the Zuni third category of gender will be referred to using the Zuni word, lhamana. Lhamana specifically refers to men who take the female gender role, and not females who take the male gender role. This was a very rare occurrence and did not have the social acceptance or role as the lhamana, and will be left out of this paper. I will also leave out discussion of We’wha, the most famous lhamana, because new evidence has recently come to light that her predominant role in Zuni society was due more to an ambitious and domineering personality, and not because of her status as a lhamana. She was an exception to the rule and placing undue emphasis on her would taint the accuracy of this study of the third gender as a whole. The focus of this study is to explain what aspects of Zuni society promoted acceptance of gender variation and the establishment of alternative gender roles, focusing primarily on creation myths, economic roles, sexual and family life, and religion.

The origins of acceptance of the lhamana are found in the Zuni creation myths. On the ancient Zuni journey to find their home, a brother and a sister were chosen to lead the people. At night, the brother forced his sleeping sister to have sex with her, impregnating her. The next morning she gave birth to ten children. The last nine were infertile. The first one was a combination of male and female parts. As the legend says, “from the mingling of too much seed in one kind, comes the two-fold one-kind. This god’s name was Kolhamana. The Zuni continue to try to find their home, until they meet a hostile group of gods, led by Cha’kwen ‘Oka (or the Warrior Woman).

Cha’kwen ‘Oka captures Kolhamana and two other gods. Kolhamana is angry and violent, two of the worst character traits in a Zuni society that valued calmness above all else. In retaliation Cha’kwen ‘Oka dresses him up in women’s clothes to calm him down and bring him back to his normal self. This explains the cross-dressing aspect of the lhamana. From the very beginning, lhamana had a social and spiritual role to play in Zuni society. Perhaps the true effect of this creation story cannot truly be appreciated without comparing it to the western creation myth of Adam and Eve which fostered the ideas of two genders and sexes, sinful women, patriarchy, and heterosexual unions. In contrast, the Zuni myths led to gender tolerance and variation, gender equality and a matriarchal society.

Because of these myths, the Zuni concept of gender developed on a radically different track from that of the western world. Gender was never seen as inborn or even really connected with the physical body. As Will Roscoe says, “Gender was established by specific ritual experiences and encounters with gender specific symbols….One’s identity as a Zuni could never be reduced to a fixed gender.” Typically, future lhamana were picked out at an early age by their families because of their preference for female tasks, such as pottery and weaving. The young boys were allowed to do as they pleased, and often began wearing variants of girls clothing as early as five or six. For example, a young boy might have worn a shirt and pants, but the shirt might have been long enough to be called a dress. Since his future gender role was still uncertain, blended gender characteristics showed this. If at any point, up until puberty, the boy changed his mind, he was allowed to drop the female gender role and retake his male gender role. However, at puberty, the boy had to make a final decision to “become” female or remain male. If he chose to become female, he was required to put on women’s clothes. That was the symbol that he was a lhamana in the economic, religious, and sexual life of the tribe.

Many families actively welcomed lhamana’s and celebrated their child’s decision to appropriate the female gender role. This was especially true among the female members of the family, as the lhamana would be an extra, unexpected set of hands. Lhamana were valued in the household because of their ability and willingness to work extremely hard. Their male strength enabled them to carry the most, plant the most, and in some cases, do the women’s work better than the women. They were especially renowned for their skills as potters and weavers. However, the one woman’s job that the lhamana did not help with was child-rearing, for obvious reasons. This added to their economic value, as they never had to take time off for menstruation, pregnancy, or care of young children. For example, anthropologist Mathilda Coxe Stevenson noted in the 1890’s that a lhamana and his male partner were the richest couple in the pueblo, and the hardest working.

The sexuality of the lhamanas took on as many forms as their heterosexual counterparts. In general, lhamana had sexual relations only with a member of the same biological sex, but never with another lhamana. Lhamana’s nearly always took the passive (womanly) role in sex. However, the men that had sex with lhamana’s were not viewed as homosexuals, as many had wives and children as well. The tribe did view homosexual sex as different than heterosexual sex, but only because there was no possibility for procreation, and not because both participants were biologically male. In fact, many men enjoyed sex with lhamana’s for just that reason, and would partake when their wives were pregnant or menstruating. It is interesting to note that while most lhamanas were viewed as homosexuals, this was not so of all men who slept with lhamanas. There was a cultural acceptance of what the west would call bisexuality, but that they perhaps though of as, “if it feels good, do it.”

Lhamanas formed emotional relationships with men as well. Some would “date” many men at a time while others formed lifelong partnerships. Some even got officially married and separated as well. Those that did not marry lived in their parents or sisters houses. They were never outcasts, and were often very popular sexual and emotional partners within the tribe. In writing about a young lhamana who was very popular with the boys, anthropologist Omer Stewart wrote in 1939, “The Indian governor of Zuni and other members of the community seemed to accept the berdache without criticism, although there was some joking and laughing about his ability to attract the young men to his home.”

Lhamana’s also had a very special role to play in the religious life of the Zuni. They were seen as mediators between the male and female worlds, as well as between the physical and the spiritual worlds. This was shown during the ceremony that celebrated the creation myth. A lhamana always played the role of Kolhamana, which was a revered part of the festival and the myth itself. The myths created a third gender and the celebration of those myths continued to reinforce the existence of the third gender among the Zuni.

The economic, sexual, and religious roles that the lhamana filled were all clear cut and well defined. The question remains of whether they were seen as women or as men by their tribe. Will Roscoe answers this question when he says “neither.” The lhamana were really a third option among the Zuni, a concept so far beyond the binary system that westerners are comfortable with that many cannot understand how this could be. To the Zuni, there was a fully developed third gender status and role that could and was played. This role involved a meshing of the traditional male and female sectors, and not a complete domination of one over the other. In fact, the only constant gender trait that the lhamana had to show was their dress; after puberty, they had to remain dressed as women. Other than that, everything else was changeable and blendable. In an 1881 census, a famous lhamana’s self given occupation was listed as “farmer, weaver, potter, and housekeeper. The first two are male occupations and the second two are female occupations. Some male lhamanas adopted female names while others kept their male names. Some were referred to as sons and brothers, while others were referred to as sisters and daughters. After death, lhamana were buried in women’s clothes, but with men’s pants on. They were buried on the men’s side of the graveyard as well. To the Zuni, a lhamana never changed their sex; they changed only their gender role. In answer to an anthropologists question about whether a lhamana was a man or a woman, a young Zuni replied, “she is a man.” While this designation was entirely perplexing to the anthropologist, it was completely unproblematic for the Zuni tribe.

Unfortunately, along with many other aspects of the Native American lifestyle, their enlightened views on sexuality were forcibly transformed into ones that better conformed to the white man’s standards. Spanish settlers blanketly referred to lhamana’s as sodomites and continually tried to end the practice, as did any other westerner who discovered them. Gradually, the lhamana went underground so to speak. In the 1920’s the education of Zuni children became the responsibility of the state which taught them western morality. Future lhamana were forced to wear boy’s clothes and do boy’s jobs. Zuni men came back from World War II with a westerner’s negative view of homosexuality. The process of cross-dressing which had been the definitive mark of a lhamana faded out of practice beginning with the generation after World War II. Without the dress, the lhamana lost the most visible sign of his third gender status. The line between lhamana and homosexual blurred and then disappeared. Today, many Zuni know what homosexuality is, but are not familiar with the lhamana concept. The Zuni’s increasing contact with the white world ended the centuries old social role of the third gender. The binary system won.

However, the lhamana teach several very important lessons. Gender really is a socially constructed concept, and not biologically hard wired. When a third option was available, many men took the opportunity to blend their biological role with a more satisfying female social role. A dualistic framework is not the only one available. Without a concept of gender blending, the only options available are completely one or completely the other. This framework leaves out many people. It is sad that in western society, the notion that there are only two genders is so implanted that those who feel like their bodies are the wrong sex will go through elaborate, costly and dangerous surgeries simply to be able to enact the gender role their brains tell them is right. In Zuni society, nobody was barred from achieving their full potential because of gender role choice. Nobody was marginalized and everybody had a place that they and those around them believed to be right. Western society could learn a lot from the Zuni and their flexible sexual framework.

� Nikolaus Merrell, review of The Zuni Man-Woman, by Will Roscoe, Lambda Book Report 2.11 (August 1991): 24.

� Will Roscoe, Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America (New York:

St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 2.

� Sabine Lang, Men as Women, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native North American Cultures (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1998), 3.

� Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Lang. Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality, (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 2

� Lang, Men as Women, Women as Men, 219.

� Will Roscoe, The Zuni Man-Woman, (Albuquerque NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1991), 151.

� Ibid., 144.

� Walter C. Williams, The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986), 114.

� Roscoe, Changing Ones, 9.

� Williams, The Spirit and the Flesh, 100.

� Arnold R. Pilling, “Cross-Dressing and Shamanism among selected Western North American Tribes,” in Two Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality, ed. Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Lang (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 70.

� Roscoe, The Zuni Man-Woman, 145.

� Roscoe, The Zuni Man-Woman, 126.

� Roscoe, The Zuni Man-Woman, 121.

� Roscoe, Changing Ones, 111.

� Williams, The Spirit and the Flesh, 201.

� Lang, Men as Women, Women as Men, 8.

Bibliography

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Lang, Sabine. Men as Women, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native North American

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Merrell, Nikolaus. Review of the Zuni Man-Woman, by Will Roscoe. Lambda Book Report 2.11

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Pilling, Arnold R. “Cross-Dressing and Shamanism among selected Western North American

Tribes.” In Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality,

ed. Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Lang, 69-99. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997.

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________The Zuni Man-Woman. Albuquerque, N.M.: University of New Mexico Press, 1991.

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