both men and women disguising themselves as the opposite sex or two men dressing as bride and groom and pretending to get married. Men also sometimes wear articles of women’s clothing for luck when hunting land mammals.
The Tuunraat or spirit helpers visited by shamans—including the powerful guardians of game animals—are often considered to be hermaphrodite beings. During the Masquerade festival they are impersonated by men wearing masks that meld elements of male-female and animal-human. One such mask, for example, combines a downturned mouth—a standard female symbol in Yup‘ik art—with labrets at both corners of the mouth (ornaments worn in lower lip piercings by men), symbolic of a male Walrus’s tusks. A stylized sea- mammal tail for a nose and other animal imagery also adorn the mask. Masks of androgynous spirits such as Qaariitaaq—represented as a sort of “bearded woman”—are used in the Bladder Festival as well. Animal dances, in which people impersonate various creatures using realistic movements, sounds, and costumes, are also a central aspect of the Yup’ik ceremonial cycle. Most notable of these are a dance in which a man portrays a mother eider duck, wearing a birdlike hunting helmet decorated with female phallic symbols (two young boys play “her” ducklings), and another in which two men impersonating a loon and a murre also wear these gender-mixing helmets as they dance side by side. As in Siberian Bear ceremonialism, all of these activities are part of an overall pattern of reversals and traversals characteristic of Yup‘ik fertility ceremonies. Ordinary activities are turned upside down and the boundaries between “opposite” worlds are rendered fluid (e.g., participants walk backwards, invert traditional hospitality rituals, go nude or wear clothing inside out, etc.). In Yup’ik cosmology these sacred inversions are believed to remake, renew, and regenerate the natural world, ultimately insuring a harmonious relationship between humans and animals.
Although Siberian/Arctic peoples do not appear to accord special meaning to intersexuality among domesticated animals (as in some Native American and New Guinean cultures), nonbreeding animals do feature prominently in some Siberian animal husbandry practices. The Chukchi, for example, believe that castrated and nonreproductive animals insure the success of their domesticated Reindeer herds. The largest bucks are always gelded and, along with several “barren” does, allowed to fatten rather than being slaughtered. Castration is often accomplished by the herdsman biting directly through the animal’s spermatic ducts or tubules. These “eunuchoid” Reindeer (both male and female) are highly prized, as they are considered essential for the prosperity of the entire herd. Likewise, the Sakha (Yakut) people always donate one mare from their large herds of domesticated Horses to a shaman. This animal is not permitted to breed during its life, and it becomes an embodiment of the cosmic life force and a symbol of fertility for the tribe as a whole.43
Despite wide differences in cultural contexts and details, there are a number of remarkable correspondences and continuities between native North America, Melanesia, and Siberia in their perception of alternative systems of gender and sexuality in animals. In numerous indigenous cultures widely separated in space and time, we find recurring variations on five central themes: Animals are totemically or symbolically associated with homosexuality and transgender, often in a shamanic context. Powerful gender-mixing creatures such as the Bear, cassowary, and Caribou/Reindeer occupy a central position in tribal cosmologies and worldviews. Ritual enactments of animal homosexuality and transgender are commonplace and are often directly associated with notions of fertility, growth, or life essence; this is sometimes concretized in the image of a “male mother” figure and may also be part of a larger pattern of sacred reversals or inversions. Among domesticated creatures, hermaphrodite and nonbreeding animals are cultivated and highly valued. And finally, both animals and people that combine aspects of maleness and femaleness or exhibit sexual variation are consistently honored and ceremonialized, and an essential continuity is recognized between homosexuality /transgender in both human and nonhuman creatures. While fascinating in their own right, these cross-cultural parallels are perhaps even more significant in terms of their implications for contemporary scientific thought.
Chimeras, Freemartins, and Gynandromorphs: The Scientific Reality of Indigenous “Myths”
How accurate are indigenous views about animal homosexuality and transgender? In other words, do the species associated with homosexuality and transgender in these cultures actually exhibit same-sex behavior or intersexuality? If taken literally, the connection is certainly less than systematic: many animals linked in aboriginal cultures with alternate sexualities are not in fact homosexual, bisexual, or transgendered, while many animals in which sexual and gender variance have been scientifically documented do not have symbolic associations with homosexuality /transgender in these cultures. Moreover, many of the more “fanciful” indigenous beliefs about animals are obviously false (at least in their specifics).
Nevertheless, some striking parallels involving particular species suggest a connection that may be more than fortuitous. For example, homosexuality—including full anal penetration between bulls—is common among American Bison, same-sex courtship and pair-bonding occur in Black-billed Magpies, male and female ho-mosexualities are found in Caribou, and same-sex mounting and coparenting also occur among Bears. These species are all directly identified with homosexuality and/or transgender in some Native American tribes. Moreover, in many cases where the exact species that figures in indigenous conceptions of homosexuality is not accurate, a closely related animal (often in another geographic area) does exhibit the behavior. For example, homosexual activity has not been recorded among New Guinean wallabies, yet it does occur in Australian Wallabies. Likewise, although homosexuality is not yet reported for the cassowary, it has been observed in Emus and Ostriches (related species of flightless birds). Other examples are summarized in the table below.
Some Correspondences between Indigenous Beliefs and Western Scientific Observations of Animal Homosexuality/Transgender (TG) Animal traditionally associated with homosexuality/TG Homosexuality/TG reported in scientific literature Homosexuality/TG observed in related species NORTH AMERICA Black-tailed Deer (Lakota, Zuni) yes (Mule Deer) yes (White- tailed Deer) Elk (Oto) yes (Wapiti) yes (Red Deer, Moose) Buffalo (Lakota, Ponca, Mandan, etc.) yes (American Bison) yes (other Buffalo species) Bighorn Sheep (Hopi) yes (Bighorn Sheep) yes (other Mountain Sheep) mountain lion (Okanagon, etc.) no yes (African/Asiatic Lion) fox, coyote (Arapaho, Okanagon, etc.) yes (Red Fox) yes (Bush Dog) Gray Wolf, red wolf (Tsistsistas) yes (Gray Wolf) yes (other Canids) NORTH AMERICA (cont.) Bears (Nuu-chah-nulth, Keres, etc.) yes (Grizzly, Black Bear) yes (other carnivores) jackrabbit, cottontail species (Zuni) no yes (Eastern Cottontail) bat species (Zuni) no yes (Little Brown Bat, other Bats) golden eagle, Harris’s hawk (Tsistsistas) no yes (Kestrel, Steller’s Sea Eagle) owl species (Omaha, Mandan) yes (Barn Owl) yes (Powerful Owl) oriole, tanager species (Tsistsistas) no yes (Yellow-rumped Cacique) Magpie (Hidatsa) yes (Black-billed Magpie) yes (other Crows) blue jay (Winnebago) no yes (Mexican Jay) crow (Kamia) no yes (Raven, Jackdaw) turtle species (Fox) yes (Wood Turtle) yes (Desert Tortoise) salmon species (Nuxalk) no yes (European Salmon species) butterfly/moth species (Navajo) yes (Monarch, others) yes (other butterfly species) dragonfly species (Tsistsistas) yes (Dragonflies) yes (Damselflies) NEW GUINEA wild boar, Pig (Bimin- Kuskusmin, Sabarl, etc.) yes (domestic Pig) yes (Warthog, Peccaries) New Guinean wallabies (Marind-anim) no yes (Australian Wallabies) arboreal marsupials (Sambia, Bimin-Kuskusmin) yes (Tree Kangaroos) yes (other marsupials) fruit bat species (Bimin- Kuskusmin) no yes (other Fruit Bats) echidna (Bimin-Kuskusmin) no no jabiru stork (Marind-anim) no yes (White Stork) Raggiana’s Bird of Paradise (Sambia) yes (Raggiana’s) yes (see below) other birds of paradise (Ai‘i, Sambia, etc.) no yes (Victoria’s Riflebird) bowerbird species (Sambia, Bimin-Kuskusmin) no yes (Regent Bowerbird) cassowary (Sambia, Bimin- Kuskusmin, etc.) no yes (Emu, Ostrich, Rhea) black-capped & purple- bellied lories (Sambia) no yes (several Lorikeet species) other New Guinean parrots (Sambia) no yes (Galah) NEW GUINEA (cont.) nightjar species (Bimin- Kuskusmin) no no python species (Bimin- Kuskusmin) no yes (other snake species) monitor lizard (Bimin- Kuskusmin) no yes (other lizard species) shark species (Nduindui, Vao) no no sago grub (Bedamini, Sambia, Bimin-Kuskusmin) no yes (Southern One-Year Canegrub) centipede species (Bimin- Kuskusmin) no yes (Spiders, other arthropods) SIBERIA/ARCTIC white whale (Koryak, Inuit) yes (Beluga) yes (other Whales & Dolphins) bearded, ringed, & Spotted Seals (Yup’ik, Inuit) yes (Spotted Seals) yes (Harbor Seal, other Seals) Walrus (Chukchi, Yup‘ik, Inuit) yes (Walrus) yes (other pinnipeds) Caribou/Reindeer (Inuit, Yukaghir, Chukchi, etc.) yes (Caribou) yes (other Deer) Horse (Sakha) yes (Takhi, domestic Horse) yes (other Equids) Wolf (Sakha) yes (Wolf) yes (other Canids) Bears (Ob-Ugrian, Nivkh, Chukchi, Inuit, etc.) yes (Grizzly, Black, Polar Bears) yes (other carnivores) eider duck (Yup’ik) no yes (Lesser Scaup, other Ducks) loon (Sakha, Yup’ik) no yes (Grebes) murre species (Yup’ik) yes (Common Murre) yes (other diving birds) Ruff (Chukchi) yes (Ruff) yes (other sandpipers) Raven (Sakha, Koryak) yes (Raven) yes (other Crows) pike species (Sakha) no yes (Salmon species)
