INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA • land boys and foreign tourists) along more AmericanIndianreligions emphasizedthe Mediterranean or pederastic lines will freedom of individuals to follow theirown develop. inclinations, as evidence of guidance from Apart from caste and family obli theirpersonalspiritguardian, and to share gations, however, Indian society is re generously what they had with others. markablytolerant of individualeccentrici Children's sexual play was more ties, and it is quite possible that when the likely to be regarded by adults as an amus curtainfinally liftsonIndian sexualityone ing activity rather than as a cause for may find the patterns ofhomosexualityin alarm. This casual attitude of child-rear India distinctively Indian. ingcontinued to influence people as they grew up, and even after their marriage. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Ejaz Ahmad, ulw Yet, while sex was certainly much more Relating to Sexual Offenses, 2nd ed., Allahabad: Ashoka Law House, 1975; J. accepted than in the Judeo-Christian tra P. Bhatnagar, Sexual Offenses, Al dition, it was not the major emphasis of lahabad: Ashoka Law House, 1987; Indian society. The focus was instead on Shakuntala Devi, The World ofHomo two forms of social relations: family sexuals, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing (making ties to other genders) and friend House, 1977; Serena Nanda, "The Hijras of India: Cultural and Individual ship (making ties within the samegender). Dimensions of an Institutionalized Third Since extremely close friendships were Gender Role," in Evelyn Blackwood, ed, emphasized between two "blood broth Anthl'Opology and Homosexual Behav ers" or two women friends, this allowed a ior, New York: Haworth Press, 1986, pp. context in which private homosexual 35-54; Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Women, Androgynes, and Other behavior could occur without attracting Mythical Beasts, Chicago: University of attention. Simply because this role of sex Chicago Press, 1980; Benjamin Walker, in promoting bonds of friendship was so The Hindu World, London: George Allen accepted, thereis relatively little informa &. Unwin, 1968. tion about this kind of casual same-sex Lingiinanda activity. It demonstrates that the role of sex in promotingclose interpersonaltiesis INDIANS OF NORTH just as important for a societyas therole of AMERICA sex as a means of reproduction. While Like many societies around the Christian ideology emphasizes that the world that accepted homosexual behavior purpose of sex is only for reproduction, as a common and normal activity, North that is clearly not the view of many other American Indian aboriginal cultures often religions. incorporated same-sex activity into their Institutional Forms. Beyond its way of life. role in same-sex friendships, homosexual Underlying Cultural Attitudes. behavior among many aboriginal tribes This acceptance was owing to several fac was also recognized in the form of same tors, especially the fact that sex was not sex marriages. However, theusual pattern seen as sinfulin theirreligions. Withsome amongNorth American Indians (as wellas exceptions, sex was not restricted to its in many areas of the Caribbean, Central reproductive role, but was seen as a major and South America) focused not on two blessing from the spirit world, a gift to masculine men getting married, or two human beings to be enjoyed freely from feminine women, but to have a typical childhood to old age. Among the matrilin man or woman marry an androgynous eal tribes, womenwere particularly free in person who takes on a different gender their behavior, since their child's family role. Traditionally in many tribes, the status depended on the mother's relatives feminine male had a special role as a ber ratherthanonthefather.Ingeneral, North dache and the masculine female took on 593 .;:;,.:;:::;: • INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA an Amazon role. more important than their sex. These androgynous roles were This fluidity also meant that a different anddistinctfrom theregularroles person who had married a berdache or an ofmenandwomen. Somescholarssuggest Amazon was not stigmatized as different, thatthis patternis"gendermixing," while and could later easily marry heterosexu others see such roles as forming their own ally. In fact, many tribes that accepted unique "alternative genders," but almost same-sex marriages did considerable kid· all specialists currently doing research ding to the husband of the berdache, and reject the older notion that berdaches and the wife of the Amazon, which likely had Amazonswerehermaphrodites, transsexu the function of helping to break up these als, transvestites, or"gender-crossen,II for marriages after a time, so that the person the simple reason that Indian cultures would be heterosexually married at some allowed more than two gender options. point in his or her life. With the exception Though the early sources are incomplete of the berdaches and Amazons, who were and unclear, probably most cultures that relatively few in number in a tribe, social recognized such alternative genders as pressure emphasized for most people that sumed that such a person would have sex they should beget children. After they had with a person of the same biological sex. done so, to help insure the continued Whilethereare isolated examplesofhetero· population of the society, the sex of the sexual marriage, the usual assumption is lover did not matter much. Indeed, even thatafemininemaleberdachewouldmarry the berdaches and Amazons contributed a man, while a masculine female Amazon toward population growth through their would marry a woman. The complemen. important role as adoptive parents for tary advantages of persons filling different orphaned children. genders, meant that two hunters would In many tribes' conceptions of not get married, nor would two plant spirituality, the person who was different gathering/farming women. In aboriginal was seen as having been created that economies, a husband-wife team needed way by the spirit world. Berdaches and to do different labor roles to provide the Amazons were respected, even though household with a balanced subsistence. they were recognized as different from Accordingly, the husband of a the average tribal member. They were berdache was not defined as a berdache, considered to be exceptional rather than merely because he had sex with a male. abnormal. The community defined him on the basis The Encounter with Europeans. of his gender role as a "man," being a This view changed drastically, however, hunter and/or warrior, rather than on his afterthe arrival ofthe Europeans. Bringing sexual behavior. Likewise, the wife of an with them their homophobic Christian Amazon was not defined as a lesbian, but religion, Spanish conquerors in Florida, continued to be defined as a woman be California, and the Southwest, as well as cause she continued to do women's labor inLatinAmerica, emphasizedtheIndians' roles of plant-gathering, farming, cooking, acceptance of "sodomy" as a major justifi· and craftwork. This gender-defined role cation for European conquest and plunder did not categorize people as "heterosex of the New World. Likewise, the English ual" versus "homosexual," but left a cer settlers brought a similar condemnation, tainfluidity for individuals to follow their and the United States and Canadian gov· sexual tastes as they were attracted to ernments followed a policy of suppressing specific individuals of whichever sex. In Indian peoples' sexuality as well as their tribes that accepted marriage for the ber native religions. The berdache and Ama dache or the Amazon, the clan member zon traditions went underground, and sex ship of one's intended spouse was much became a secret matter as it was perse-
594 ;:;$'«1;',; INDO-EUROPEAN PEDERASTY + cuted by reservation officials and Chris ten designated as Aryans in opposition to tian missionaries. theSemites andHamites of the NearEast. In the twentieth century, while Further study of the original common European condemnation of homosexual vocabulary of Indo-European pointed to a ity has had an influence on many modern cultural and institutional legacy of the Indians, those who have retained their preliterate past which some investigators traditions continue to respect berdaches sought to reconstruct in meticulous and Amazons even today. This attitude (though often speculative) detail. had a significant impact on the white Sergent's Thesis. Recently Ber founders of the homophile and gay libera· nard Sergent Ms claimed that Indo-Euro tion movements in the United States and peanwarriors practicedinitiatorypederasty Canada. With a recent renaissance in In until after their dispersion in the second dian culture, younger gay and lesbian millennium B.C. Before a youth proved his Indians have in turn been influenced by manhood by a feat of valor, he was fem thegay community to stand up openly and inized and reduced to the passive sexual take pride in their accepting Indian tradi role. Sergent thus went beyond the nine tions. Like traditionalistIndians, they feel teenth-century German scholars who an appreciation for the strength and the ascribed pederasty to the Dorian tribes magic ofhuman diversity, and theyaccept men invading Greece ca. 1200 B.C., after people as they are rather than expect ev the Achaeans and other Greeks who had eryone to conform. This respect for the no such institution had arrived there from different gifts that gay people can provide their Urheimat (primitive homeland) on as a benefit for society, and a respect for the Eurasian steppes (or wherever else a women and for androgynous men, is hav particular hypothesis located itl. ing an impact on Western culture as a Nothin& however, proves that whole. pederastywasinstitutionalizedamongthe kshatriyas (warrior caste) of India, the BIBLIOGRAPHY. Will Roscoe, "Bibliog ancient Persians, or the grave patres of raphy of Berdache and Alternative Gender Roles Among North American early Rome. Just as the theory of "Dorian Indians," lOUJ:lltll ofHomosexuality, invasions" and of their transformation of 14:3/4 (1987),81-171; Walter L. the material culture of Greece by intro Williams, The Spirit and the Flesh: ducingironandotherinnovationshasbeen Sexual Diversity in American Indian discredited by twentieth-century archeol Culture, Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. Walter L. Williams ogy and linguistics, the whole concept of the dispersion of an Indo-European speech community by nomadic conquerors dur INDO-EuROPEAN ing the second millennium B.C. has also PEDERASTY been called into question. Colin Renfrew Indo-European is the name given argues that the Indo-Europeans dispersed to a family of languages extending from as early as 6000 B.C. as peaceful farmers. OldIrish and OldNorseon the northwest The institutionalization of pederasty in ern periphery of Europe to OldPersian and Greece belongs to historic time, not to Sanskrit inthe Middle East, togetherwith prehistory. the modern descendants of these tongues. The Greeks. Although Erich Be Thediscovery bywesternEuropean schol the argued in a celebrated 1907 articlethat ars that this set of languages was interre the Greeks believed that they transferred lated in the same way as the members of theirmanliness to theirboys throughtheir the Semiticfamily led to the hypothesis of semen, manywould stillliketo claim that a primordialanthropological(ethnic) unity the original "Dorian" pederasty was of the speakers of the proto-language, of- "pure," i.e., devoid of overtsexuality. Like 595 ::;:;:.:::;:::