Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity

(Nootka), Kutenai, Keres, and Winnebago—the Bear is seen as a powerful cross-gendered figure. In these tribes, Bears are thought to combine elements of both masculinity and femininity, and they are also seen as mediators between the sexes and between humans and animals (much like the role of the human two-spirit, which is also recognized in all these tribes). Their strength, size, and ferocity are considered quintessentially male attributes, yet Bears are often perceived as female in these cultures and referred to with feminine pronouns and terms of address regardless of their biological sex. In addition, many of the prominent Bear stories and ceremonies concern female Bears, especially the omnipotent, life-giving Bear Mother figure (who often engages in mythic marriage, sexual intercourse, or transformation with humans).¹⁴ There is also a consistent association between Bears and menstruation. A number of Native American peoples have beliefs about the dangers of women going into the forest during their period, since it is thought that they will attract Bears who may try to mate with (or attack) them. Other tribes mythologically connect Bears to menstrual blood or consider Bears to be powerfully drawn to human females in other respects, especially at the onset of puberty.¹⁵

Most strikingly, Bears of both (biological) sexes are thought to be left-handed—a quality traditionally associated with the feminine in these cultures—and Bear rites often require ceremonial activities to be performed with the left hand. In fact, beliefs about the left-handedness of Bears pervade all aspects of ritual life in some tribes. In the Nuu-chah-nulth culture of Vancouver Island, for example, Bear hunters eat with their left hand (they are the only people allowed to do so) in order to identify with their prey, since Bears are believed to reach for bait with their left paw. In myths and tales such as that told by contemporary Nuu-chah-nulth artist and storyteller George Clutesi, Chims-meet the Bear hunts for salmon with his left paw while his mother picks berries with her left paw; Clutesi illustrates one of his tales with a drawing of a Bear using his left paw to swat salmon. Left-handedness is even encoded in the structure of the language: when speaking Nuu-chah-nulth, special affixes can be added to words to indicate that a left-handed person is talking or is being referred to. Of course, this “left-handed speech” is also typical of Bears when speaking in myths, stories, and jokes.¹⁶

Many First Nations sacred stories and myths, especially those involving a prankish trickster-transformer figure, reveal other associations between animals and homosexuality/transgender. A common theme is that of a male coyote marrying or having sex with a male mountain lion, fox, or other animal—or sometimes even with a man—often by changing sex, mixing gender characteristics, or pretending to be a member of the opposite sex. In the Okanagon story “Coyote, Fox, and Panther,” for instance, coyote tricks a panther (mountain lion) into marrying him by pretending to be female; the presence of human two-spirits in this culture is therefore considered to be decreed by coyote. Similar tales are found in many other cultures. In fact, an Arapaho story combines this theme with that of the supernatural two-spirit in the tale of Nih’a’ca (the first two-spirit), by having Nih’a’ca pretend to be a woman and marry a mountain lion (a symbol of masculinity). The trickster theme takes many other forms as well. The Fox Indians, for example, have a tale in which a male turtle is fooled into having sex with a human trickster figure, who fashions a vulva for himself out of an Elk’s spleen and disguises himself as a woman named Doe-Fawn. The Winnebago trickster man also uses the internal organs of an Elk to make female parts for himself, then becomes pregnant by having sex with a number of male animals, including a fox and a blue jay.¹⁷

Two-spirit is still a living tradition in many First Nations, and there is a continuing association of animals with homosexuality and transgender in the stories, life narratives, and poetry of contemporary Native Americans. Two- spirit Mohawk writer Beth Brant gives the trickster theme a gender spin in her tale “Coyote Learns a New Trick.” In this story, a female coyote tries to fool a female fox into sleeping with her by dressing up as a man; the joke is on coyote, however, because fox only pretends to be duped, and the two end up making love without any disguises. In “Coyote and Tehoma,” Daniel-Harry Steward of the Wintu nation offers a poetic account of love between a male coyote (accompanied by several animal spirit-guides) and Tehoma, the handsome male “god of the smoking mountain.” In this fable, the howling of wild coyotes is attributed to the heartbreak of their mythic coyote ancestor, who calls forlornly to his male lover after Tehoma has been changed into the stars. In “Song of Bear,” a contemporary version of a traditional Nuu-chah-nulth tale recorded by Anne Cameron, the human-animal marriage of the Bear Mother myth is given a lesbian retelling. A young woman goes into the forest (disregarding warnings about the attraction of Bears to menstruating women) and draws the attentions of a female Bear; they end up falling in love and living together “forever after” in the Bear’s den. Finally, for contemporary two-spirits Terry Tafoya (Taos/Warm Springs), Doyle Robertson (Dakota), and Beth Brant, creatures such as the dragonfly, hawk, eagle, heron, and salmon have powerful personal and symbolic resonance, while the searing poetry of two-spirit writer and activist Chrystos (Menominee) is also replete with bird and other animal imagery.¹⁸

A tricksterlike figure plays a central role in another manifestation of animal homosexuality /transgender in indigenous cultures, the ritual enactment of same-sex activity during sacred ceremonies. Among the Mandan, a Siouan people of North Dakota, a spectacular religious festival known as the Okipa was held annually for at least five centuries (until the late 1800s) to ensure the success of the Buffalo hunt and to ritually dramatize their cosmology.¹⁹ Replete with sacred communal dancing, chanting, and prayers in an ancient liturgical dialect (used only during this festival), the four-day ceremony includes shamanic rites of self-mutilation (such as skewering and suspension of initiates), feats of astounding physical endurance, and graphic sexual imagery. Throughout the festival a special Bull Dance is performed by men representing Bison: cloaked in the entire skins and heads of the animals, they realistically portray the movements of Bison. Surrounding them are dancers dressed as various other animals as well as men impersonating holy women. The dance culminates on the final day with symbolic homosexual activity between the Bison bulls and a clownlike figure called Okeheede (known variously as the Foolish One, the Owl, or the Evil Spirit), who is painted entirely black and adorned with a Buffalo tail and Buffalo fur. Wielding an enormous wooden penis, Okeheede simulates anal intercourse with the male Bison by mounting them from behind “in the attitude of a buffalo bull in rutting season.” He erects and inserts his phallus under each dancer’s animal hide, even imitating the characteristic thrusting leap that Bison make when ejaculating. The Mandan believe that this ceremonial homosexuality directly ensures the return of the Buffalo in the coming season.²⁰

A Bison bull in Wyoming mounting another male. Many Native American peoples have traditional beliefs, ceremonies, and observations regarding sexual and gender variance in this (and other) species.

Ceremonial “performances” of sexual and gender variability occur in several other Native American sacred animal rites, such as the Massaum ceremony of the Tsistsistas (Cheyenne) people. Also known as the “Crazy” or “Contrary” Animal Dance (from the word massa’ne meaning foolish, crazy, or acting contrary to normal), this 2,000-year-old world-renewal festival was performed annually on the Northern Plains until the early 1900s. Timed with key celestial events in the midsummer sky (including the solstitial alignment of three stellar risings), the Massaum ceremonial cycle invokes and draws upon the powers of two-spirit and “contrary” shamans in order to reinvigorate the earth and all its inhabitants. The five-day ritual is thought to have been bequeathed to the Tsistsistas people by the prophet Motseyoef, an immortal androgynous shaman who presides over each reenactment of the rite in the form of a human representative. A prominent feature of the Massaum is a pair of sacred Bison horns, originally taken from a hermaphrodite Buffalo. Among the central participants are a set of sacred male and female canids, all impersonated by men dressed in animal skins and imitating the actions of the creatures: two wolves—a male red (or yellow) wolf and a female white (or Gray) Wolf—as well as a female kit (or blue) fox. As master hunters, game protectors, and messengers from the spirit world, these animals teach humans how to hunt with the proper reverence and skill. The Massaum culminates with a ritual hunt of epic proportions, in which nearly a sixth of the Tsistsistas population participates by impersonating all the various creatures of their world. Each species is “led” by someone who has dreamed of that animal acting in a peculiar way. On the final day, the androgynous contrary shamans begin their sacred clowning, doing things backward and generally acting in an eccentric manner. As part of their holy “craziness,” they symbolically hunt the animals, “shooting” them with special miniature bows and arrows held in a reversed position. Upon ritually killing each creature, they immediately bring it back to life, thereby assisting in the divine regeneration and fertilization of the earth. By uniting primordial opposites within themselves and in their actions, the two-spirit and contrary