attuned to such animal behaviors (Groark, K. P. [1996] “Ritual and Therapeutic Use of ‘Hallucinogenic’ Harvester Ants [Pogonomyrmex] in Native South-Central California,” Journal of Ethnobiology 16:1–29; Zigmond, M. [1977] “The Supernatural World of the Kawaiisu,” pp. 60–61, 74, in T. C. Blackburn, ed., Flowers of the Wind: Papers on Ritual, Myth, and Symbolism in California and the Southwest, pp. 59–95 [Socorro, N.Mex.: Ballena Press]). Once again, it is not unreasonable to suppose that indigenous knowledge or observations of homosexuality (or other sexual variance) in red ants might have been an additional factor in their elevation to religious prominence. Certainly these examples are highly speculative, but they suggest some fascinating connections between animal biology, shamanic practices, and two- spiritedness that deserve further investigation.
66
Roe 1970:63–64 (American Bison); Powers, Oglala Religion, p. 58; Wissler, “Societies and Ceremonial Associations in the Oglala Division of the Teton Dakota,” p. 92; Dorsey, J. O. (1890) “A Study of Siouan Cults,” p. 379, Bureau of American Ethnology Annual Report 11:361– 544.
67
Haile et al., Love-Magic and Butterfly People, p. 163. The term nadleeh is also applied to intersexual goats, horses, cattle, and (presumably) other wild game animals. There is also evidence in the Tsistsistas language of possible recognition of transgender in animals: the proper name Semoz is translated as “effeminate bull” (Petter, R. C. [1915] English-Cheyenne Dictionary, p. 196 [Kettle Falls, Wash.: Valdo Petter]). This is not, however, related to the Tsistsistas term for human two-spiritness, hemaneh, although it is possible that this is the name of a two-spirited person.
68
Reid, B. (1979) “History of Domestication of the Cassowary in Mendi Valley, Southern Highlands Papua New Guinea,” Ethnomedizin/Ethnomedicine 5:407–32; Reid, B. (1981/82) “The Cassowary and the Highlanders: Present Day Contribution and Value to Village Life of a Traditionally Important Wildlife Resource in Papua New Guinea,” Ethnomedizin/Ethnomedicine 7:149–240.
69
Gardner, “A Note on the Androgynous Qualities of the Cassowary,” p. 143. The Sambia and Arapesh, however, are apparently not aware of the bird’s penis (Herdt, Guardians of the Flutes, p. 145; Tuzin, The Cassowary’s Revenge, pp. 80–82). There is no mention of the male cassowary’s phallus in the standard Western scientific reference for sexual behavior in this species (Crome 1976), nor mention of the female’s phallus/clitoris in the species profiles found in comprehensive ornithological handbooks such as Folch, A. (1992) “Ca-suariidae (Cassowaries),” in J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, and J. Sargatal, eds., Handbook of the Birds of the World, vol. 1: Ostrich to Ducks, pp. 90–97 (Barcelona: Lynx Edicions); Marchant, S., and P. J. Higgins, eds., (1990) Handbook of Australian, New Zealand, and Antarctic Birds, vol. 1, pp. 60–67 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press).
70
Koch, Year of the Polar Bear, p. 32; Harington, C. R. (1962) “A Bear Fable?” The Beaver: A Magazine of the North 293:4–7; Perry, World of the Polar Bear, p. 91; Miller, “People, Berdaches, and Left-Handed Bears,” p. 286.
71
Roe 1970 (especially appendix D: “Albinism in Buffalo,” pp. 715–28); McHugh 1972: 123–29; Banfield, A. W. E (1974) The Mammals of Canada, p. 405 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press); Berger, J., and M. C. Pearl (1994) Bison: Mating and Conservation in Small Populations, p. 34 (New York: Columbia University Press); Pickering, R. B. (1997) Seeing the White Buffalo (Denver: Denver Museum of Natural History Press; Boulder: Johnson Books).
72
The poorwill—along with a number of other birds such as the related common nighthawk and other goat- suckers, as well as some hummingbirds—also sometimes enters daily or nocturnal periods of torpor that typically last less than 24 hours. The poorwill, however, is the only species that exhibits extended periods of torpor. See Jaeger, E. C. (1949) “Further Observations on the Hibernation of the Poor-will,” Condor 51:105–9; Jaeger, E. C. (1948) “Does the Poor-will ‘Hibernate’?” Condor 50:45–46; Brigham, R. M. (1992) “Daily Torpor in a Free-Ranging Goatsucker, the Common Poorwill (Phalaenoptilus nuttallii),” Physiological Zoology 65:457–72; Kissner, K. J., and R. M. Brigham (1993) “Evidence for the Use of Torpor by Incubating and Brooding Common Poorwills Phalaenoptilus nuttallii,” Ornis Scandinivica 24:333–34; Csada, R. D., and R. M. Brigham (1994) “Reproduction Constrains the Use of Daily Torpor by Free-ranging Common Poorwills (Phalaenoptilus nuttallii),” Journal of Zoology, London 234:209 -16; Brigham, R. M., K. H. Morgan, and P. C. James (1995) “Evidence That Free-Ranging Common Nighthawks May Enter Torpor,” Northwestern Naturalist 76:149-50.
73
Russell, F. (1975) The Pima Indians, p. x (Tucson: University of Arizona Press); Grant, V., and K. A. Grant (1983) “Behavior of Hawkmoths on Flowers of Datura meteloides,” Botanical Gazette 144:280-84; Nabham, G. P., and S. St. Antoine (1993) “The Loss of Floral and Faunal Story: The Extinction of Experience,” in S. R. Kellert and E. O. Wilson, eds., The Biophilia Hypothesis, pp. 229-50 (Washington, D.C.: Island Press).
74
Bulmer, R. (1968) “Worms That Croak and Other Mysteries of Karam [sic] Natural History,” Mankind 6:621-39. Among the worm species identified as particularly “vocal” is Pheretima musica of Indonesia. Bulmer points out, however, that frogs rather than earthworms are the more likely source of the actual sounds associated by the Kalam with worms.
75
Bauer, A. M., and A. P. Russell (1987) “Hoplodactylus delcourti (Reptilia: Gekkonidae) and the Kawekaweau of Maori Folklore,” Journal of Ethnobiology 7:83-91.
76
The plant, identified as Ligusticum porteri, is widely used as an indigenous herbal medicine throughout the southwestern United States and Mexcio, where it is known by various names including osha, chuchupa(s)te, and smelly root. Sigstedt, S. (1990) “Bear Medicine: ‘Self-Medication’ by Animals,” Journal of Ethnobiology 10:257; Clayton, D. H., and N. D. Wolfe (1993) “The Adaptive Significance of Self-Medication,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 8:60-63; Rodriguez, E., and R. Wrangham (1993) “Zoopharmacognosy: The Use of Medicinal Plants by Animals,” in K. R. Downum, J. T. Romeo, and H. A. Stafford, eds, Phytochemical Potential of Tropical Plants, pp. 89-105, Recent Advances in Phytochemistry vol. 27 (New York: Plenum Press); Beck, J. J., and F. R. Stermitz (1995) “Addition of Methyl Thioglycolate and Benzylamine to (Z)-Ligustilide, a Bioactive Unsaturated Lactone Constituent of Several Herbal Medicines,” Journal of Natural Products 58:1047-55; Linares, E., and R. A. Bye Jr. (1987) “A Study of Four Medicinal Plant Complexes of Mexico and Adjacent United States,” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 19:153-83.
77
Arima, E. Y. (1983) The West Coast People: The Nootka of Vancouver Island and Cape Flattery, British Columbia Provincial Museum Special Publication no. 6, pp. 2, 102 (Victoria: British Columbia Provincial Museum). This culture (like most other indigenous cultures) was “interrupted” relatively recently, of course, by the disease, genocide, and cultural suppression brought on by European immigrants—forces that have nevertheless failed to obliterate these people or their traditions.
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As some researchers have pointed out, this is largely because most Western scientists consider traditional aboriginal knowledge to be “unscientific” and difficult to separate from its cultural context (which often includes “fantastic” or “mythological” elements that are seemingly at odds with orthodox Western scientific principles). For
