History of Sex

What does it mean to be Two-Spirit? The film The Miseducation of Cameron Post likens it to being a “Native American David Bowie,” but that’s a far cry. What does it really mean? And what is the Two-Spirit tradition of the Lakota, the winkte?

Episode theme music courtesy of the The Eagle and the Raven Band, featuring Ki’ Earth Spirit.

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Transcript

In the 2018 film The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Cameron encounters a Lakota character named Adam Red Eagle, played by Forrest Goodluck, who identifies as a winkte. Cameron’s never heard of such a thing.

[clip: Cameron: “Hey Adam, what’s winkte mean?”]

It’s a charged scene where it is pretty clear Cameron is treading on something important to Adam’s identity that might be difficult to talk about with those outside his culture. But Adam explains:

[clip: Adam: “It’s a Lakotan word for Two-Spirit. It’s like a third gender.”]

Cameron is still confused, so Adam breaks it down further with an explanation that is, shall we say, correct-ish:

[clip: Adam: “Okay, so um… I’m Two-Spirit, which means I was born with a man’s soul and a woman’s soul, and literally winkte means ‘killed by a woman’, so it’s as if the male part of me is being killed by the female part. That make sense?”]

Cameron is still confused until a friend adds:

[clip: Jane: “He’s basically the Native American David Bowie.”]

This elicits a chuckle from Adam, who adds:

[clip: Adam: “I’ll take it.”]

And that, so far as I know, is the only on-screen depiction of a Lakota winkte in any film ever.

Now, as I said, the film only gets it correct-ish, and we’ll get to that in just a moment. But first, I want to emphasize what the film gets right.

First, it’s true that “Two-Spirit” is a way of describing Native American third gender traditions, and that the Lakota third-gender tradition is called winkte.

Second, it’s appropriate to show Adam identifying in terms of the local tradition first, and the Two Spirit notion only second. “Two-Spirit” is actually a modern term coined in 1990 to encompass a broad range of different local traditions unique to different tribal cultures, and it’s usually preferred to think in terms of the local tradition first and foremost.

Third, Adam doesn’t explain it as a synonym for “gay” or “trans.” Although these traditions can and often do involve same-sex relations, and almost always express a gender at odds with that assigned at birth, traditionally they are not analogous to any modern Western majority-culture category. Such categories do no justice to the unique way in which these traditions functioned, nor to the differences between tribes. Of course, there is variety in how these terms are interpreted today, and some do use them to mean a Native American who is queer in some sense, but traditionally they are not the same.

Finally, the film gets right that misunderstanding – that is, the common misunderstanding that Two-Spirit is just a synonym for “queer Indian” – and plays with it. This film scene takes place at a religious school where both Adam and Cameron are taught to “pray the gay away” as it were, assuming Adam is gay or trans when that’s not really accurate. The school misunderstands Adam’s identity in a manner that echoes Western misunderstandings of Native genders throughout history, and I think that was an intentional choice on the part of the filmmakers. It’s not explained in the film and might be lost on most viewers, but those in the know might pick up on it and appreciate the irony. So, that’s a final thing the film gets right: Two-Spirit is not traditionally a synonym for queer.

Now, at the same time, as I said, there’s plenty the film only gets correct-ish. The whole male and female souls fighting thing seems to imply some kind of uniform theology underlying the Two Spirits concept when there is no such shared theology, the meaning of winkte as “killed by a woman” is only one of several possible interpretations of the word, and lastly the joke about being the “Native American David Bowie” suggests eccentricity whereas Two-Spirit traditions were actually quite traditional, respected, and mainstream within their cultures.

So, yeah, it’s not quite right, but it’s not terrible either. More than anything, it leaves the viewer with more questions. What is this Two Spirit thing? What does it really mean to be a winkte? What was it like for them on the Great Plains in the 19th century, and what is it like for them today?

That’s what we’re talking about in today’s episode. I’m B. T. Newberg, and this is The History of Sex.

[music]

I’d like to thank our Patreon patrons Bee Greenfield and Robert for making this episode possible.

I also want to thank Blanca Iris Acuña for once again contributing the theme song for today’s episode. She has been wonderfully supportive and I am grateful to be able to showcase her lovely talents. Today’s music is “Father Time” by The Eagle and the Raven Band, featuring Ki’ Earth Spirit.

Folks, this episode is a bit bittersweet because, as announced last month, this episode is not just the last in this series, but also the last regular release of this show. We may still put out the occasional episode on an irregular basis, so stay subscribed. In fact, we just received a request from an author for an interview and I might take her up on that, but this is going to the be the end of pumping out episodes on a regular schedule.

It has been a fantastic run, but things change. I’ve got a new job, I’m taking on more work, and other life things are taking precedence. Most of all, though, I’m just ready for something new. I did more than 100 episodes of Dead Ideas, and this will be episode 71 of The History of Sex. I learned a whole lot, and it was a blast, but my creative energies are restless. And I’m sick of deadlines. I’m soooo sick of deadlines. So, no more regular episode releases.

I will be pumping out something creative again in the future, but probably not a podcast. I want a new challenge, and I don’t know yet what that will be. You can follow me on social media if you want to be there when I do.

Oh, and the portraits will continue, by the way. If you’re a patron or thinking of becoming one, the Patreon will remain open for you to get a portrait – which I love drawing for you folks – and you can also listen to the backlog of episodes ad-free as a patron.

So, with that bittersweet message out of the way, let’s make this a show to remember.

Folks, this is the fourth and final episode in our series Sex on the Great Plains, exploring sex and gender among the Lakota. The series has been focused on the 19th century, but today will be centered mostly on the 20th century and later, mainly because we have very few sources for winkte in the 19th century and therefore must rely on later accounts. In a way, though, it’s a good reminder that Native cultures are modern cultures that change, adapt, and meet the challenges of the present just like any other, even if they also reach back to traditional roots in the past.

Today, we’re exploring the Lakota third gender tradition of the winkte. As you might imagine, this is a fairly sensitive topic. Many Lakota are understandably reticent to talk about it, given the history of settler culture misunderstanding Native gender and weaponizing it against them, as well as the ongoing stigma against gender variance today. Nevertheless, it is an important topic, and an exploration of traditional Lakota sex and gender would not be complete without it. We’ll hew closely to actual first-hand accounts, letting Lakota speak for themselves wherever possible, while recognizing that these accounts may be incomplete, and that views vary even within the tribe.

Also, we should talk about pronouns. In English, we have to choose gendered pronouns to refer to a person, and that is of course a hot topic today. In the Lakota language, however, that is not the case. As explained by Rev. Isaiah Brokenleg, who is himself a Lakota winkte:

“In Lakota, there are no pronouns. We don’t have she and he. In Lakota, men will speak differently than women. We know their gender based on how they are talking and what words they are using. Suppose a male-bodied individual speaks with the words of a woman or a female-bodied person speaks with the words of a man. In that case, they are winkte — their gender being neither female nor male.” (Kulkarni)

So, although the need to choose pronouns is not native to the Lakota language, the manner of speaking is, and that manner leans toward the gender opposite of one’s assigned sex. Thus, that’s what I’ll generally prefer in today’s episode, though quoted texts may differ. I want to make clear, however, that this is a choice and shouldn’t be taken as an established Lakota custom.

Oh, and by the way, Brokenleg refers to winkte who are assigned sex as female, but traditionally we only have accounts of those assigned male. We will have a look at some possible correlates for assigned-sex female Lakota, but most of today’s discussion will regard winkte, who are traditionally assigned sex as male but come to express a third gender.

Okay, let’s get into it. What is this Two-Spirit tradition that The Miseducation of Cameron Post calls “the Native American David Bowie?”

[music]

Two-Spirit

Adam Red Eagle explains to Cameron that a winkte is a kind of Two-Spirit person. Now, if listeners have heard of anything today, it’s probably this “Two-Spirit” concept, so let’s start there. What does it mean to be Two-Spirit?

The term “Two-Spirit” is a modern invention, created in 1990 at a conference in Winnipeg to replace the old anthropological term “berdache”, which was, well… let’s just say Western perceptions grossly misunderstood Native cultures (big surprise). The old term had connotations of “boy prostitute” which were offensive and not remotely accurate. Thus, the new term “Two Spirits” was created to replace it.

Now, why didn’t they just choose “gay”, “queer”, “LGBTQ+”, or something like that? Well, such concepts don’t begin to capture the complexity. For example, Western queer categories have no ceremonial components, nor any necessary social roles or community functions. What’s more, queer categories are usually considered to derive from a strong genetic component – you’re “born this way,” so to speak. In contrast, Two-Spirit folk might show signs at an early age, but the real confirmation of it tends to come in the form of visions. There’s a strong spiritual component. Thus, Western queer concepts just don’t fit the bill, and the term “Two Spirit” was created to stand apart from them.

But “Two-Spirit” was never meant to replace local traditions, with all their variety and nuance. So, now let’s turn to the tradition specific to the Lakota, the winkte.

The Winkte

As we’ve heard in previous episodes, Lakota culture traditionally gravitates between the poles of masculine and feminine. Tasks break down along these gendered lines, with men largely hunting bison and women mostly processing bison into food, clothing, tools, and so on. As anthropologist Raymond DeMallie says, “male and female was the single most important attribute for defining an individual in Lakota culture” (DeMallie, p. 238). However, it may not be as binary as that would seem to imply.

As one 60 year-old traditionalist Lakota puts it, “Winkte means ‘different.’ It is neither man nor woman, but is a third group different from men and woman. That is why winktes are regarded as sacred. Only Wakan Tanka, the great spirit, can explain it, so we accept it. Winktes are gifted persons.” (Williams, p. 193)

So, despite the heavy emphasis on male and female in Lakota culture, there was something apart from or beyond it. The winkte expressed a third gender category by combining masculine and feminine traits. Sociologist Margaret Robinson reports, citing several earlier scholars:

“In an article from 1986, one Lakȟóta man (identified as a 60-year-old traditionalist) reported, ‘it’s easy to pick out a winkte. They don’t marry women, but they act and talk like a woman. But they’re ‘half and half,’ and will dress mostly like men’ (Williams, 1986, p. 193). The Lakȟóta people interviewed by Williams (1986) describe the wíŋtke as engaging in women’s quill and beadwork and performing traditional dances in the women’s style. Medicine (2002) notes that wíŋtke engaged in women’s crafts, raised children, engaged in warfare as men did, and had sexual relationships with men.” (Robinson, p. 1678-1679)

So, right there, you can already see a dense mixing of male-coded and female-coded traits. On the masculine side, they may dress mostly as men (according to this source; I’ve read other sources that disagree). They also take part in warfare, which is a masculine activity in Lakota culture. On the feminine side, they may wear articles of women’s clothing, adopt the speech and mannerisms of women, raise children, dance like women, and perform feminine production-type tasks like quill and beadwork. The latter, the quill and beadwork, was particularly strongly associated with winkte.

In addition to this mixing of masculine and feminine traits, Robinson mentions sexual relationships with men. Notice it’s just one feature among many, though – just kinda thrown in there at the end. It’s not the primary defining feature, but just one possible trait among many. This underscores how being a winkte is not a sexual orientation. Rather, it’s a combination of masculine and feminine traits to the extent that it becomes a different gender category, a unique third gender.

And such third-gender folk were not eccentrics like David Bowie. They may not have been common, but they were mainstream, and traditionally respected. A Lakota medicine man by the name of Lame Deer said of a winkte, “To us, a man is what nature, or his dreams, make him. We accept him for what he wants to be. That’s up to him… There are good men among the winktes and they have been given certain powers” (Fire and Erdoes, 1972, p. 149, quoted in Williams, p. 192).

Now, that statement was given in 1971, which is quite late, and long after the Lakota Nation roamed the Great Plains hunting buffalo. This makes me wonder: what were winkte like back in those days, in the 19th century  and earlier, before colonization?

Winkte in the 19th Century

Unfortunately, we don’t really know what winkte were like in the 19th century. Very little comes down to us from that era that is published and publicly accessible. As for visual representations, none are known save for glyph-like symbols on some Lakota winter counts. Remember that winter counts are mnemonic devices where Lakota history-tellers record each year by a symbol recalling its most significant event. In a few cases, they used winkte figures, which were represented in full dresses with phalluses protruding. This is most likely not meant as a literal depiction, but rather as an abstract symbol. It’s interesting in that it emphasizes that combination of masculine and feminine traits, but it doesn’t really help us understand what winkte were like in those days.

The only other depiction from the 19th century that I could find comes to us in the form of a story involving an unnamed winkte seer prophesying before an 1866 battle against the US Army. This story was published in 1915 by anthropologist George Bird Grinnel based on accounts told to him by several Cheyenne who were present at the battle, including a man named White Elk.

Interestingly, the story mis-identifies the winkte as a hee’maneh, which is the Cheyenne Two-Spirit tradition and quite different. In contrast to the winkte, the Cheyenne hee’maneh traditionally wears the dress of the elderly rather than a mix of male and female clothing, and abstains from sexual intercourse. Yet, the hee’maneh and the winkte get conflated in this story because Grinnel heard it from Cheyenne and confused the two. Nevertheless, the person is clearly Lakota and clearly a winkte. So, I am going to replace the word “hee’maneh” in the story with “winkte,” just so it’s not so confusing for you.

This winkte prophesies the outcome of a battle known to Lakota as the Battle of the Hundred-in-the-Hands, though settler history records it as the Fetterman Fight of 1866. This was the key battle in which Red Cloud led the Lakota and their allies to victory against the United States.

By the way, in the story they refer to them as the “Sioux.” I’ve generally preferred to go with “Lakota”, but Sioux is also acceptable to many Lakota today.

Red Cloud’s War was sparked when the US Army illegally built forts in territory recently conquered by the Lakota, who had already witnessed the horrifying defeat of their cousins, the Dakota, in the US-Dakota War four years earlier. They knew what fate lied in store if they did not confront this growing threat. The illegal forts were the last straw, and so war erupted at a place called Fort Phil Kearny.

Now, I could just summarize the story for you, but is that what you’ve come to expect from this show? No, of course not. Especially not for our final regular episode. And so, we’ve got a special treat for you: an audiodrama presentation of the only known published story of a winkte prior to the reservation period.

In this story, the winkte seer attempts to persuade the neighboring Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes to join the Lakota against the US Army.

Audiodrama: The Battle of the Hundred-in-the-Hands

[sounds of the prairie, drums, singing, and galloping horses]

A Cheyenne chief called out to his people, saying: “Men, do not fall in line with the Sioux. We are not carrying on this war party.” The Arapahoes did not form abreast like the Sioux, but stood to one side.

Soon a person, half man and half woman – winkte – with a black cloth over his head, riding a sorrel horse, pushed out from among the Sioux and passed over a hill, zigzagging one way and another as he went. [galloping sound] He had a whistle, and as he rode off he kept sounding it. [whistle sound] While he was riding over the hill some of the Cheyennes were told by the Sioux that he was looking for the enemy – soldiers.

Presently he rode back, [galloping sound] and came to where the chiefs were gathered and said: “I have ten men, five in each hand; do you want them?”

The Sioux chiefs said to him: “No, we do not wish them. Look at all these people here. Do you think ten men are enough to go around?”

The winkte turned his horse and rode away again [galloping sound], riding in the same way as before. Soon he came back, riding a little faster than before and swaying from one side to the other on his horse. Now he said: “I have ten men in each hand, twenty in all. Do you wish them?”

The same man replied: saying, “No, I do not wish them; there are too many people here and too few enemies.”

Without a word the half-man-half-woman turned his horse and rode off. [galloping sound] The third time he returned he said: “I have twenty in one hand and thirty in the other. The thirty are in the hand on the side toward which I am leaning.”

“No,” said the Sioux, “there are too many people here. It is not worth while to go on for so small a number.” The winkte rode away. [galloping sound]

On the fourth return he rode up fast and as his horse stopped he fell off and both hands struck the ground. [pounding sound] “Answer me quickly,” he said, “I have a hundred or more,” and when the Sioux and Cheyennes heard this they all yelled.

This was what they wanted. While he was on the ground some men struck the ground near his hands, counting the coup. [sounds of great pounding and shouting] (Grinnel, p. 228-229)

After that, the Cheyenne and Arapaho joined the Lakota against the US Army, and they launched their plan.

A small detachment of ten warriors was sent to harass the fort. There, the warriors goaded the soldiers. The commander of the soldiers, William Fetterman, was under strict orders not to leave the fort, but refused to be insulted by a paltry ten Natives. Taking enough men to outnumber the enemy by more than 8 to 1, he pursued the warriors, who fled across the plains.

They led them across the prairie, over the hills, feigning fear as the soldiers grew more confident yard by yard. Fetterman could almost taste victory.

But then, suddenly, something odd happened. The ten fleeing warriors turned and faced their pursuers, no longer afraid. Fetterman stopped short. Something felt very wrong.

Instead of ten warriors, they found themselves facing the entire combined forces of the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho – over a thousand warriors in all. Fetterman’s 8 to 1 odds had become more than 10 to 1 against him.

The soldiers’ hearts leapt into their throats as they realized that day was their last.

It was a slaughter. All 81 US soldiers were slain that day. The death count even exceeded the infamous Battle of Little Big Horn, where Custer lost his head. It was the worst disaster ever to befall the US Army on the Great Plains.

After the Battle of the Hundred-in-the-Hands, the US nerve broke. The war dragged on for another two years, but by 1868, the US was forced to admit humiliating defeat. According to historian Dee Brown: “For the first time in its history, the United States government had negotiated a peace which conceded everything demanded by the enemy and which extracted nothing in return” (p. 225).

Red Cloud had won the war. Although the victory was short-lived, and the Lakota were eventually forced onto reservations, it showed the world that Native peoples could defeat the United States.

And it all hinged upon the prophecy of one unnamed winkte seer who convinced the Cheyenne and Arapaho to join the Lakota in what came to be known as the Battle of the Hundred-in-the-Hands.

[End Audiodrama]

So, that is the only known published story of a winkte from the 19th century, at least as far as I could find.

What do we learn from this story? Well, first, we see here confirmed that winkte mixed masculine and feminine traits: “half man and half woman” is how Grinnel records it. Second, we see that despite their feminine aspects, winkte did in fact engage in the masculine art of warfare. Third, we see that winkte were respected. The task entrusted to this seer was no small feat. The Cheyenne and Arapaho, so the story goes, were resolute against fighting, but rather than a chief giving a speech, or warriors making an intimidating display of prowess, they called upon a winkte to act almost like a diplomat between tribes. That would never have been done if they weren’t respected, not only among the Lakota but among the other tribes as well. Finally, we see that winkte had power – spiritual power, which in this case manifested as the ability to foretell the future.

Traditionally, winkte had many other ceremonial and social roles as well. What were those roles? Likely they were many-fold. Unfortunately, there is precious little else to draw upon in the historical record, and so now we must turn to more recent accounts from the reservation period. These testimonials represent a much-changed culture, having survived colonization and harrowing persecution to emerge with varying opinions and views. Nevertheless, these remain our best sources for a deeper understanding what it’s really like to be a winkte.

The Winkte in the Reservation Period

One of the best such sources is a series of interviews conducted in 1982 by anthropologist Walter Williams. Williams interviewed several Lakota traditionalists on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge reservations in South Dakota, including some who identified as winkte themselves. Their names are concealed in the study, but they represent some of our best accounts of what winkte were and are like in traditionalist Lakota culture.

For example, Williams describes one interviewee as “a forty-nine year-old male who identifies as winkte. He dresses in pants, but they are women’s style. His entire dress and manner suggest androgyny, with a mixture of both male and female aspects. He has always filled a winkte role and been accepted as such by his family and the reservation at large. He takes a leading role in the tribal ceremonies” (Williams, p. 197).

This winkte interviewee describes his own tradition, emphasizing the ceremonial and social roles:

“Winkte are wakan, which means that they have power as special people. Medicine men go to winkte for spiritual advice. Winktes can also be medicine men, but they’re usually not because they already have the power. An example of this power is the sacred naming ceremony. It takes a winkte a full year to prepare for this. He starts with a fast and a vision quest, with sacrifices, to be fully sincere. He works with the family for the whole year, making preparations to [sic] the family and the child, and closely guiding the child for the year. A winkte can take on no more than about four children a year. Later, it is the winkte’s responsibility to look after that child. The winkte makes a medicine bag for the child, with a piece of the winkte’s skin and hair, and also a holy stone, which the child will carry for protection during the rest of his life. Traditionally it was the first born and the last born that got a winkte name, but nowadays it is very rare.” (Williams, p. 197-198)

These auspicious names were often bawdy and humorous, but of such spiritual power that they ought not be spoken out loud for fear of losing their power. Sitting Bull, Black Elk, and Crazy Horse are all said to have received such names (Lang, p. 180-181).

Other ceremonial roles of winkte included felling the tree for the center post of the Sun Dance, one of the holiest ceremonies of the Lakota. The winkte recited a prayer when it was put in place, and stamped down the earth around it (Lang, p. 179).

In accordance with such spiritual power, winkte were regarded with respect. Winkte could marry men and were considered prestigious spouses. What was normative in Lakota culture was a masculine and feminine pairing, and winkte typically filled the feminine role in the pair. This did not detract from the masculinity of the husband (Rifkin).

According to another of Williams’ interviewees, a 32 year-old winkte who dresses in men’s clothes but sports a woman’s hairstyle and bears a feminine manner: “Formerly, higher class winktes had up to twelve husbands. Chief Crazy Horse had one or two winktes for wives, as well as his female wives, but this has been kept quiet because Indians don’t want whites to criticize” (p. 196).

Clearly, this shows a high level of respect. At the same time, as in most cultures, respect could be uneven or contradictory. For example, although winktes were highly regarded, fathers might at the same time warn their sons against becoming one. DeMallie writes:

“During childhood, boys were frequently lectured on the importance of acting like men. Parents worried if their sons showed an inclination for girlish games and mannerisms, such boys were liable to grow up to be winkte, … men who dressed and behaved as if they were women. … These individuals were considered to be very unfortunate; the greatest tragedy that could befall a Lakota male was to become a winkte.” (DeMallie, p. 243).

Now, that is difficult to square with the social respect accorded to winkte. If winkte were so respected, why would parents worry about their sons becoming them? It could be that different Lakota had different views and DeMallie is only expressing one of them, but another possibility is the parents weren’t really afraid their sons would become winkte, but were simply using it as a sort of bogey to inculcate masculine virtues. It’s difficult to say.

What we can say, though, is that in the traditional view, you don’t become winkte by failing to “be a man.” Winkte are not failed men. On the contrary, you become winkte by a culturally-recognized set of experiences, usually involving visions, and here we see again the spiritual aspects. DeMallie adds that winkte:

“…were not necessarily held to be personally responsible for their status. These boys had dreams that caused them to become winkte. The nature of these dreams is poorly recorded….” (DeMallie, p. 243).

Some sources say the dream is of a wakan woman, others of a particular buffalo spirit, and still others of a male messenger that takes you into a tipi where one side has skin-dressing tools and other has bows and arrows (female- and male-coded items, respectively), and you must choose between them (DeMallie, p. 243). Regardless of the specific content of the dream, one thing is clear: status as winkte is conferred by spiritual agents.

In other words, in the traditional view, becoming winkte is not a personal choice. Nor is it an orientation or gender confirmation, nor a failure to be “man enough.” Rather, becoming winkte is a spiritual calling. You are touched by powers outside you, and that’s what makes you winkte.

Seen in this light, perhaps it makes a certain sort of sense why parents might respect winkte, yet not want their sons to become one: it may not have been what they envisioned for their sons, or even what their sons had envisioned for themselves. Yet, when the call comes, you answer. I can certainly imagine how that could be experienced as both a tragedy and a great honor at the same time.

Thus, this view may ultimately reinforce the respect traditionally accorded to those assigned sex as male but who were called to something different.

Meanwhile, there was no clear Two Spirits tradition among the Lakota for those assigned sex as female. Or was there?

Assigned-Female Winkte?

As we heard earlier from Isaiah Brokenleg, today winkte may come from those assigned male or female. However, traditionally, winkte came entirely from those assigned male.

Yet, there was one tradition that might be seen as possibly analogous: the Double Woman dreamer.

Lakota tradition teaches that the Winyan Nunpapika, or Double Woman, may appear in dreams as two women joined by a rope from which a baby dangles. DeMallie explains:

“It is clear that the female (life-giving) power of these women was symbolically dead. This is expressed by the baby seen dragging from the rope that joins the Double Woman together, symbolizing the loss of power to nurture life” (DeMallie, p. 247)

Women who dream of the Double Woman may be called to a different sort of life path:

“The Double Woman dreamer, to the extent that she might choose a lifestyle distinctly masculine (by not marrying, behaving aggressively, and soliciting promiscuous intercourse)” (De Mallie, p. 247).

In addition, it is said that a Double Woman dreamer might enact her vision publicly, walking through camp flashing mirrors, causing both men and women to fall prostrate and spit up black earth or plant material. While in such a trance, a Double Woman dreamer might obtain power to make shields and war medicines (Wissler, 1912, p. 94).

Here we can see the Double Woman dreamer shares with winkte the mixing of masculine and feminine traits. On the masculine side were aggressive and promiscuous behaviors, as well as a role touching upon warfare. Meanwhile, on the feminine side were the productive crafts. In addition to shield-making, the Double Woman dreamer was said to excel at quill and beadwork, a feminine trait shared with winkte.

Scholars disagree on how similar we should consider these two roles, however. DeMallie places the Double Woman dreamer “parallel” to the winkte, both being “intermediate categories between male and female” (p. 247). On the other hand, anthropologist Sabine Lang considers her solidly female, expressing not an intermediate category but an ambivalence within the feminine gender itself.

In any case, while the Double Woman dreamer may not have been considered a separate gender like the winkte, she clearly defied traditional feminine expectations. This makes her in some sense a possible counterpart to the winkte, even if not an equivalent. Like the winkte, she was possessed of spiritual powers, and traditionally commanded respect.

Respect for traditional ways has diminished over the decades, however. The winkte, in particular, has suffered a decline.

Are Winkte Respected Today?

By the time Williams conducted his interviews in the 1980s, it was already thought by many anthropologists that Two Spirit traditions had died out across the many tribes. Williams’ interviews proved that was not the case, yet it was true that they had suffered a severe loss of status. As colonization wormed its way into the culture across the 20th century, fewer and fewer respected the old ways.

One of Williams’ interviewees, this one a 25-year-old medicine man, reports: “Traditionally, winktes were both joked about and respected at the same time. But when people forgot the traditional ways and the traditional medicine, by going to missionaries and boarding schools, then they began to look down on winktes and lose respect. The missionaries and government officials said winktes were no good, and they tried to get winktes to change their ways. I heard sad stories of winktes committing suicide, hanging themselves rather than change. The 1920s and 1930s were the turning point in the winkte’s decline, and after that those who remained would put on men’s clothing” (Williams, p. 194).

It is notable in this story that the winktes who committed suicide chose to do so by hanging, which in Lakota culture is considered a feminine way to die. In other words, though persecuted, they chose to be true to themselves until the end.

Attitudes toward winkte within the tribe are perhaps more favorable today than in the 20s and 30s, but it is still very much a mixed bag. Another winkte interviewee reports being called a “disgrace to the Indian race” by a half-Native woman, to whom the winkte retorted, “A century ago, I would have been considered that much more special” (Williams, p. 198).

Thus, respect for winkte is an uneven matter today, but the prestige and spiritual power accorded to them traditionally is unquestioned. And this enables many of them, despite whatever misgivings may exist today, to live lives enmeshed in their communities.

A final quote from Williams’ study makes this point vividly. This comes from the first interviewee we heard from earlier, the 49-year-old winkte who spoke of the sacred naming ceremony. This winkte poignantly describes a special emphasis on community and family, even while also sharing personal struggles:

“I love children, and I used to worry that I would be alone without children. The Spirit said he would provide some. Later, some kids of drunks who did not care for them, were brought to me by neighbors. The kids began spending more and more time here, so finally the parents asked me to adopt them. In all, I have raised seven orphan children.

“I worked as a nurse, and a cook in an old age home. I cook for funerals and wakes too. People bring their children to me for special winkte names, and give me gifts. If I show my generosity, then others help me in return. Once I asked the spirit if my living with a man and loving him was bad. The spirit answered that it was not bad because I had a right to release my feelings and express love for another, that I was good because I was generous and provided a good home for my children. I want to be remembered most for the two values that my people hold dearest: generosity and spirituality. If you say anything about me, say those two things.” (Williams, p. 198-199).

That is how this winkte wanted to be remembered: for generosity and spirituality. And that also sums up the traditional role of winkte in general: respected for the gifts they use for the benefit of their tribe, gifts conferred upon them by vision as part of a spiritual vocation.

And you know, that really illustrates just how different a Two Spirit tradition can be from majority-culture concepts like gay, trans, gender fluid, or other queer categories. In stark contrast to the assumption of the school in The Miseducation of Cameron Post that taught Adam Red Eagle to “pray the gay away”, winkte really are quite different from any modern category of queerness. While some Lakota today do use “winkte” as a synonym for queer today, traditionally it is much more than that. It is about being part of a community and a spiritual world.

Also in contrast to The Miseducation of Cameron Post, it’s not about being eccentric, like a “Native American David Bowie.” It is about being different, but not like some alienated Ziggy Stardust. Rather, it’s about being different within a community that has a place for you. It’s not eccentric but mainstream, not alienated but integrated.

As Lakota winkte Reverend Isaiah Brokenleg says, “When you’re coming out as two-spirited, it’s much more of a coming in. We often come into the sense of belonging. We come into our understanding of the two-spirited identity and what our role and place is within our communities and family. It’s not a declaration. It’s a presentation to our communities that we are ready to serve. Within my culture, I can be Indian, gay and winkte. I don’t have to leave a part of myself behind” (Kulkarni).

[music]

Well, that’s all I’ve got for you today, folks. I hope you learned something; I certainly did.

That’s it for our series Sex on the Great Plains, and that’s it for our show, The History of Sex. It’s been a great run. And I really couldn’t have done it without all of you, the listeners, supporting me. Your write-in comments, your fun portrait ideas, and your gentle corrections when I’ve messed up have all helped make this show the quality work that it is. I feel good about how far we’ve come together.

And, you know, we may still release the occasional episode on an irregular basis, so stay subscribed.

Also, if you would like to get a portrait or enjoy the back-catalog of episodes ad-free, you can still sign up on Patreon where $5 a month gets you a portrait drawn in the time period and culture of your choosing. I’ll draw you mixing and matching your masculine and feminine traits, making war or making bead crafts as you darn well please, or whatever you want. I’ll make you look awesome, I promise. Just go to www.patreon.com/btnewberg. That’s patreon.com/btnewberg.

And by the way, the Patreon proceeds collected during the Sex on the Great Plains series will be donated to One Spirit, a volunteer organization helping the Lakota meet their goal of achieving food sovereignty and self-sufficiency in their communities.

Special thank you once again to Blanca Iris Acuña of The Eagle and the Raven Band, featuring Ki’ Earth Spirit for contributing today’s theme music. You can check them out on Youtube for more.

Alright, everyone, that’s it. I hope you’ve enjoyed this show, and I hope you join me in my next creative endeavor, whatever that may be. Feel free to drop me a line anytime you like at [email protected].

For The History of Sex, this is B. T. Newberg, signing off.

[music]

References

Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Albers, Patricia. “Introduction: New Perspectives on Plains Indian Women.” In: Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Albers, Patricia. “Sioux Women in Transition: A Study of Their Changing Status in Domestic and Capitalist Sectors of Production.” In: Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Albers, Patricia. “The Role of Sioux Women in the Production of Ceremonial Objects: The Case of the Star Quilt.” In: Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Brown, Dee. The Fetterman Massacre. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1962.

Carpenter, Roger M. “Womanish Men and Manlike Women: The Native American Two-Spirit as Warrior.” In: Slater, Sandra and Yarbrough, Fay A. Gender and Sexuality in Indigenous North America, 1400-1850. University of South Carolina Press, 2011.

DeMallie, Raymond. “Male and Female in Traditional Lakota Culture.” In: Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Dollarhide, Kenneth. “Lakota Winkte.” Transgender Tapestry, 94, 2001, July 1.

Fire, J., and Erdoes, R. “Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions.” New York, Simon & Schuster, 1972.

Gibbon, Guy. The Sioux: The Dakota and Lakota Nations. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.

Gilley, Brian Joseph. Becoming Two-Spirit: Gay Identity and Social Acceptance in Indian Country. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006.

Grinnel, G.B. The Fighting Cheyennes. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915.

Grinnel, G.B., 1923, The Cheyenne Indians, New Haven: Yale University Press.

Hoebel, E.A., 1960, The Cheyennes, New York: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston

Hoffert, Sylvia D. “Gender and Vigilantism on the Minnesota Frontier: Jane Grey Swisshelm and the U.S.-Dakota Conflict of 1862.” Western Historical Quarterly, 29, 1998, Autumn: pp. 343-362.

Kehoe, Alice. “Appropriate Terms.” SAA Bulletin, Society for American Archaeology, 16(2), 2002.

Kulkarni, Kerry. “Two-Spirited People Have Special role in Lakota Culture, Watertown Vicar Explains.” Watertown Public Opinion, 2021, June 22. Retrieved Aug 23, 2022, from: https://www.thepublicopinion.com/story/lifestyle/2021/06/22/lakota-two-spirit-native-american-culture-and-gender-identity/7691928002/

Lang, Sabine. Men as Women, Women as Men. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2010.

Means, Jeffrey. “From Buffalo to Beeves The Transformation of the Oglala Lakota Economy 1868-1889.” Thesis. University of Montana. 2001.

Means, Jeffrey. “Indians Shall Do Things In Common: Oglala Lakota Identity and Cattle-raising on the Pine Ridge Reservation” Montana: The Magazine of Western History. 2011, Autumn: pp. 3-21.

Means, Jeffrey. “Oglala Paths Oglala Choices: A Turning Point in Oglala Lakota Culture The Sioux Bill of 1889.” In: A Parallel History: Stories from Indian America. Cajune, Julie, Ed. UCLA Press: 2014-2015, submitted.

Medicine, Beatrice. “Directions in Gender Research in American Indian Studies.” In: Lonner, W.J., Dinnel, D.L., Hayes, S.A., and Sattler, D.N., Eds. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture. Center for Cross-Cultural Research, Western Washington University, 2003, Mar 30.

Medicine, Beatrice. “Warrior Women – Sex Role Alternatives for Plains Indian Women.” In: Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Night Pipe, Michelle L. “Displays of Personal Adornment and Body Decoration by Nineteenth Century Lakota (Sioux) Tribes: A Costly Signaling Model.” Thesis. University of Nebraska, Lincoln. 2012.

Rifkin, Mark. When Did Indians Become Straight? Kinship, the History of Sexuality, and Native Sovereignty. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Robertson, Doyle V. “I Ask You to Listen to Who I am.” In: Jacobs, Sue-Ellen, Thomas, Wesley, and Lang, Sabine. Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.

Ramenofsky, Ann F. Vectors of Death: The Archaeology of European Contact. University of New Mexico, 1988.

Red Earth, Michael. “Traditional Influences on a Gay-Identified Sisseton Dakota.” In: Jacobs, Sue-Ellen, Thomas, Wesley, and Lang, Sabine. Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.

Robinson, Margaret. “Two-Spirit Identity in a Time of Gender Fluidity.” Journal of Homosexuality,67(12), 2019, May 24.

Schneider, Mary Jane. “Women’s Work: An Examination of Women’s Roles in Plains Indian Arts and Crafts.” In: Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Shively, JoEllen. “Cowboys and Indians: Perceptions of Western Films Among American Indians and Anglos.” American Sociological Review, 57(6), 1992, Dec: pp. 725-734.

Slater, Sandra and Yarbrough, Fay A. Gender and Sexuality in Indigenous North America, 1400-1850. University of South Carolina Press, 2011.

Trexler, Richard. Sex and Conquest. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995.

Tucker, Clude, Kojetin, Brian, and Harrison, Roderick. “A Statistical Analysis of the CPS Supplement on Race and Ethnic Origin.” Census.gov. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of the Census. 1995.

U.S. Census Bureau. “Race and Ethnicity in the United States: 2010 Census and 2020 Census.” United States Census Bureau. Retrieved May 1, 2022, from: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/race-and-ethnicity-in-the-united-state-2010-and-2020-census.html

Weist, Katherine. “Beasts of Burden and Menial Slaves: Nineteenth Century Observations of Northern Plains Indian Women.” In: Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Williams, Walter L. The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1986/1992.

Williams, Walter L. “Persistence and Change in the Berdache Tradition Among Contemporary Lakota Indians.” Journal of Homosexuality, 11(3-4), 1986: pp. 191-200.

Wissler, Clark. “Societies and Ceremonial Associations of the Oglala Division of the Teton-Dakota.” American Museum of Natural History Anthropological Papers, 11(1), 1912.

Zitkala-Sa. “Why I Am a Pagan.” Atlantic Monthly, 90, 1902, pp. 801-803. Retrieved Apr 26, 2022, from: https://web.archive.org/web/20110212153707/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=ZitPaga.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1

Audio Credits

Podcast theme music mixed from “Gregorian Chant”, “Mystery Sax”, and “There It Is” by Kevin MacLeod.

Episode theme music courtesy of The Eagle and the Raven Band (feat. Ki’ Earth Spirit)

Other audio from:

“Rebel Rebel” cover by School, written by David Bowie

“The Battle of the Hundred-in-the-Hands” audiodrama mixed from:

“Battling Sioux Singers” from Powwow Times

“Horse Running Sound Effect” from Nagaty Studios

“7 Free Horse Sound Effects” from SoundHelp

“Horse Whinney Giddy Up” from AngryGeezus

“Wind Blowing Through Grass” from Nature Sounds

“Primitive Music 1: Making an Elderberry Whitle (Survival Whistle)” from Make It Primitive

“Dead Body Hitting Ground Sound Effect” from Crazy Films

“Heavy Earth/Rock Ability Sound Effect” from Gravity Sound

“Western Gun Battle Sound Effect” from Chander Prakesh

“Cavalry Charge Trumpet” from Free Sound Effects

“Probably the Most Realistic Cavalry Charge You Will Ever See” from EXOmos2710

“Wild West Battle Feat. Cowboys and Indians Sound Effect” from Sound Effects Library

All narration and voice acting by B. T. Newberg

Image Credits

Dream Catcher silhouette from Public Domain Pictures

History of Sex is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://historyofsexpod.com/

What does it mean to be Two-Spirit? The film The Miseducation of Cameron Post likens it to being a "Native American David Bowie," but that's a far cry. What does it really mean? And what is the Two-Spirit tradition of the Lakota, the winkte?

Episode theme music courtesy of the The Eagle and the Raven Band, featuring Ki' Earth Spirit.

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/btnewberg. Research, writing, editing, and production by B. T. Newberg. Logo Design by Rachel Westhoff. Additional credits, references, and more at www.historyofsexpod.com.

Did you know that Europe had its own third gender tradition, which arose, flourished, and then disappeared over the span of a few centuries? In the Byzantine Empire, this third gender was called a eunuch. They began as exotic imports from abroad, but quickly became a local tradition both feared and respected, reviled and adored, devilish and angelic.

Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/btnewberg. Research, writing, editing, and production by B. T. Newberg. Logo Design by Rachel Westhoff. Additional credits, references, and more at www.historyofsexpod.com.

Partial Transcript (Intro and Outro Only)

There are only two genders, male and female, right?

Well, no, not today. But traditionally, I mean, right? At least in the West, right?

Well, actually no, not entirely.

Third gender traditions, neither male nor female but a third category, are fairly common across the world, known among Asian, African, Pacific, and American Indian cultures. In fact, the West is really the odd one out, knowing only two genders until quite recently. But did you know that even Europe had its own such tradition, which arose, flourished, and then disappeared over the span of a few centuries?

It occurred in the Roman Empire, especially in the Eastern half, which survived much longer and came to be known to historians as the Byzantine Empire. There, it came to be recognized that there was more than just male and female, but a third alternative. For them, this gender was called a eunuch.

Now, third gender traditions are often quite unique in their local manifestations, and this one is no different, being centered on assigned-sex males who were, for whatever reason, incapable of reproduction. Contrary to popular belief, you didn’t have to be castrated to be considered a eunuch in Byzantine eyes. Castration was the most common way to become one, but you could also have been born naturally sterile, for example.

These non-reproductive persons came to be understood as neither male nor female, but a third gender category. They began as exotic imports from abroad, but quickly became a local tradition both feared and respected, reviled and adored, devilish and angelic. It’s a complicated and fascinating story almost entirely forgotten in European history.

What was it like for eunuchs in the Byzantine Empire? How did this third gender tradition arise, and how did it disappear? That’s what we’re talking about in today’s showcase episode.

I’m B. T. Newberg, and this is The History of Sex.

[music]

Hiya folks. Today we’ve got a showcase episode coming at you from my other show, Dead Ideas. We did have a whole five-part series on Byzantine Court Eunuchs, so what you hear today perks your interest, you can check out the rest of the series on Dead Ideas.

Meanwhile, I’m hard at work on the next episode of our current series Sex on the Great Plains. It wasn’t quite ready this month (hence the showcase episode to fill in today), but we should be back to the Lakota next month. That episode will also feature a third gender tradition, the Lakota winkte, which is of course very different from the Byzantine eunuch, but I thought it might be interesting to have the one next to the other as we consider third genders in different cultures.

Also, I do have a big announcement, and that is that next month’s episode will be the final episode of the show. I know, I’ve said that before, but now the time has finally come. It’ll make 70 episodes of The History of Sex, which is way, way more than I ever expected to complete, so that feels good. And my creative energies are restless. I’m ready for something new. Not sure what that new thing will be yet, probably not a podcast, but who knows? It’s always an adventure, and I’m looking forward to whatever’s next on the horizon.

So, with that bittersweet announcement out of the way, let’s get to the show. Today, we’re talking about the Byzantine third gender tradition of the eunuch. What did it mean to be a eunuch, what was it like for them, and how did they arise, soar meteorically to fill some of the highest positions in the empire, and then disappear almost entirely from European history? Let’s find out.

[Dead Ideas episode]

Well, that’s all we’ve got for you today, folks. If you want to hear more about Byzantine court eunuchs, check out the rest of the series on Dead Ideas.

If you’ve enjoyed this show and want to express your support, you can do so by subscribing, rating, and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or you can pledge on Patreon where $5 a month gets you a portrait drawn in the time period and culture of your choosing.

The portraits will continue even though the show is ending, by the way. And all patrons get access to the full backlog of episodes ad-free for both my shows (Dead Ideas and The History of Sex). So, if you are thinking of becoming a patron, you will gain those perks. If you are a current patron, you are welcome to discontinue (no hard feelings, I appreciate that you’ve been with me as long as you have!), or you can choose to continue, enjoy the backlog ad-free, and earn a new portrait each 12 months that you stay on. It’s also possible to do a custom pledge, toss me a year’s worth of $5 pledges all at one time, then discontinue, and I’ll honor that with a portrait as well. Whatever works best for you is cool with me.

I will draw you as a white-robed, pearl-necklaced eunuch surrounding the emperor like an angel around God, or whatever you want. I’ll make you look awesome, I promise. Just go to www.patreon.com/btnewberg. That’s patreon.com/btnewberg.

Alright folks, I’ll see you next time. I’m B. T. Newberg, and this is The History of Sex.

Image Credits

Byzantine Chi Ro flag from Wikimedia.

Audio Credits

Podcast theme music mixed from “Gregorian Chant”, “Mystery Sax”, and “There It Is” by Kevin MacLeod.

Ancient Roman Music – Synaulia I” from Aemilius Paulus

Episode originally aired as “Byzantine Court Eunuchs I: Third Gender of Byzantium” on Dead Ideas.

Main Sources

Agathias. “The Histories.” Translated by Walter de Grutyer, 1975.
Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=Wp92bUzuMoQC&q

Berger, A., Ed. & Trans. (2013). Accounts of medieval Constantinople: The Patria. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, 24. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Blöndel, S. (1978). The Varangians of Byzantium. Benedikz, B. S., Trans. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Browning, Robert. Justinian and Theodora. Praeger Publishers, 1971.

Evagrius Scholasticus. “Ecclesiastical History, Book Four”. Translated
by E. Walford, 1846.
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/evagrius_4_book4.htm

Kaldellis, A. (2017). A Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Norwich, John Julius. A Short History of Byzantium. Vintage Books, 1999.

Procopius. The Secret History. Translated by G.A. Williamson and Peter
Sarris. Penguin Classics, 2007.

Procopius. History of the Wars, Books I-II and VII-VIII. Translated
into English by H.B. Dewing. Harvard University Press, 1996.

Ringrose, K. (2003). The Perfect Servant: Eunuchs and the Social Construction of Gender in Byzantium. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Rosen, William. Justinian’s Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of
Europe. Viking, 2007.

Rowland, M. R. (2014). “Eunuchs and Sex: Beyond Sexual Dichotomy in the Roman World.” Dissertation. University of Missouri-Colombia.

Tougher, S. (2008). The Eunuch in Byzantine History and Society. New York: Routledge.

and Seasonable Reprehension of Naked Breasts and Shoulders Written by a Grave and Learned Papist. Cooke, E., Trans.

“Historian Reveals Janet Jackson’s ‘Accidental’ Exposing of her Breast was the Height of Fashion in the 1600s.” (Press Release). University of Warwick. Retrieved: Apr 29, 2018, from: https://web.archive.org/web/20040803155530/http:/www.newsandevents.warwick.ac.uk/index.cfm?page=pressrelease&id=1858

McShane, A. (2004, Mar). “Revealing Mary.” History Today, 54(3). Retrieved Apr 29, 2018, from: https://www.historytoday.com/angela-jones/revealing-mary

Randolph, T. (1875). “The Muse’s Looking Glass.” Poetical and Dramatic Works of Thomas Randolph, Vol. 1. P. 240.

Thorpe, V. (2015, Jan. 24). “From Venus to Katie Price: A Brief History of the Breast.” The Guardian. Retrieved Apr 30, 2018, from: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jan/25/beauty-breast-the-sun-female-form

History of Sex is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://historyofsexpod.com/

Did you know that Europe had its own third gender tradition, which arose, flourished, and then disappeared over the span of a few centuries? In the Byzantine Empire, this third gender was called a eunuch. They began as exotic imports from abroad, but quickly became a local tradition both feared and respected, reviled and adored, devilish and angelic.

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/btnewberg. Research, writing, editing, and production by B. T. Newberg. Logo Design by Rachel Westhoff. Additional credits, references, and more at www.historyofsexpod.com.

19th-century writers called Lakota women virtually enslaved to their husbands, but were they? Or were they skilled artisans, valued by the community, and empowered within their marriages? It turns out the working woman of the modern West owes much to the skilled craftswoman of the Great Plains.

Special thanks to Dr. Jon Cleland Host for help in the preparation of this episode. Episode theme music courtesy of the The Eagle and the Raven Band, featuring Ki’ Earth Spirit.

Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/btnewberg. Research, writing, editing, and production by B. T. Newberg. Logo Design by Rachel Westhoff. Additional credits, references, and more at www.historyofsexpod.com.

Transcript

If you time-traveled a Victorian-era gentleman and lady to the present, and they saw modern Western women working, what do you think they would say?

They’d probably choke on their tea. [spitting tea sound] Women today make up a full half of the labor force, whatever we might say about equity in leadership, but in Victorian times, women working at all was a major no-no. Egads!

Now, women did work in Victorian times, but the thing was, it was seen as low-class at best, demeaning at worst.

What dystopia is this where men force women to labor like drudges?, they might exclaim. How crude! How barbaric!

Well, it seems our dyspeptic Victorians didn’t have to get in a time machine to experience this very same reaction. They had a rather similar reaction in their own day and age, but on the Great Plains.

The traditional gender roles of plains tribes like the Lakota baffled European and American settlers, who saw them through the lens of their own gender norms. They scoffed at Lakota expectations that women work, unlike their own delicate domestic goddesses. Consequently, they considered them something like sweat-shop workers, very nearly enslaved to their husbands.

However, they failed to notice that Lakota women were considered skilled craftspeople, rose in status independently of their husbands based on the quality of their craftsmanship, could divorce relatively easily, and self-determined their own fates to a relatively large extent. If observers had asked the Lakota themselves, they would have been told that men’s and women’s labor, though rigidly divided along gender lines, was not exploitative but complementary.

Oh, and by the way, they might also have been told that gender was not binary, that there was not only man and woman but also a third gender called winkte, but we’ll get to that in a future episode.

In any case, all of that, well… let’s just say it got lost in translation. Observers recoiled from Lakota gender norms, and railed against them in written accounts.

Later, in the reservation period, plains tribes like the Lakota found themselves forced to conform to Western gender norms. This led not to a rise in women’s status, as our Victorian observers would have expected, but to a decline. In fact, today, many are trying to revive a form of those traditional Lakota gender roles fit for the modern era.

So, what was it like to live and labor as a Lakota woman? Stripped of all the Victorian poppycock, what was life for women really like on the Great Plains?

That’s what we’re talking about in today’s episode. I’m B. T. Newberg, and this is The History of Sex.

[music]

I’d like to thank our Patreon patron Dave for making this episode possible.

I’d also like to thank Dr. Jon Cleland Host for help in the preparation of this episode.

Finally, our theme song for today comes courtesy of The Eagle and the Raven Band, featuring Ki’ Earth Spirit, whose talented front woman Blanca Iris Acuña belongs to the Taino tribe. We are trying to showcase Native artists in this series where possible, so a big thank you to them.

Folks, this the third episode in our series Sex on the Great Plains, focusing on the Lakota in the 19th century. For a general overview of Lakota gender norms, check out the first episode, and for the viewpoint of one member of the Lakota tribe today, check out the second. Today, we’re looking specifically at women. What was life for women like on the Great Plains?

Plains tribes like the Lakota boasted gender norms that befuddled settlers. They were once thought a textbook case of patriarchal exploitation. While I was not able to find a quote addressing the Lakota specifically, the view was applied to all the plains tribes generally, of which the Lakota were one. For example, in 1872 E.D. Neill wrote of the Lakota’s cousins the Dakota:

“…From early childhood they lead ‘worse than a dog’s life.’ Like the Gibeonites of old, they are the hewers of wood and the drawers of water for the camp… Uncultivated and made to do the labor of beasts” (quoted in Weist, p. 31)

Likewise, Fanny Kelly, who lived in a Dakota camp as a captive, remarked in 1873 on the “slavish” and “unceasing toils” of the women there (Weist, p. 40).

Finally, an 1868 letter by Lt. George Palmer to the Chicago Tribune describes the Lakota’s neighbors on the plains, the Crow:

“The men are indolent and slothful, and look upon labor as degrading and only fit for women… They compel their women to do all the labor, and often reward the overworked creatures with neglect and cruelty,” (quoted in Weist, p. 36).

Palmer goes on to describe a woman’s work, saying she “must move the tepees from place to place, tan all the skins, gather wood, provide the winter supply of food, and take care of the ponies, papooses and dogs; while her lazy buck rides his horses or lies on soft robes in pleasant places, and occasionally pounds her with a club,” (quoted in Weist, p. 36).

Even today, depictions of Native American women in film tend toward either a princess or a menial, downtrodden drudge (Albers, p. 3), and the latter descends directly from Victorian-era accounts.

However, there’s something fishy going on here, because later ethnographic studies from the early 20th century report nothing of the kind. For example, Hewitt in 1910 and Grinnel in 1923 explicitly denied that women were slaves. Further, later interviews with actual Lakota women, including Pretty Shield, Iron Teeth, Plenty Coups, and Wooden Leg, denied experiencing overwork or disdain (Weist, p. 40).

So, what’s going on here? Historian Katherine Weist believes the perception of drudgery was due to Victorian notions of womanhood at the time. Settlers thought:

“…the proper roles of women were to provide nurturance, psychological support, and educational benefits to husbands and children – all activities considered appropriate to Euro-American women who were the models for what Indian women should become. In actuality, Euro-American women had lost many of the productive activities they had performed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Due to an increase in industrialization, competition for jobs by large numbers of poor laborers, and the development of a middle class during the nineteenth century, many women no longer had their previous economic freedoms and became more dependent upon men. There arose around women a ‘cult of true womanhood’ characterized by the virtues of piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity” (Weist, p. 38).

Huh. So, it seems settlers saw plains tribes, along with many other peoples, through a peculiar lens. They took norms unique to their own industrial way of life as the standard for all women everywhere, and judged accordingly. Settlers, especially those of the middle and upper classes (who were the ones most likely to leave written accounts), recoiled at the treatment of women on the plains. Forgetting their own recent history of women’s labor, they believed women such delicate flowers that they ought not be asked to lift a finger. Consequently, when they saw women on the plains stretching and tanning hides, putting up and tearing down tipis, and trucking firewood, they nearly swallowed their kravats. [choking sound] “You couldn’t find a better example of women exploited by men,” they thought. ”These poor women are practically sweat-shop workers!”

But were they?

What was it really like to live and labor as a Lakota woman on the Great Plains? And how did it come to be that way? That’s what we’re going to find out next, but first we’ll take a short break, and be back after this.

Audiodrama

Hey folks, we’ve got something special for you today: an audiodrama presentation of excerpts from a story by Yankton (that’s one of those tribes sometimes called Nakota) author Zitkála-Šá. Born in 1876, she was of the first generation raised in the boarding school system, which removed children from their parents, forced them to become Christian, and attempted to erase from them all trace of tribal ways – “Kill the Indian to save the man,” as it was once put. Zitkála-Šá became a stalwart activist against this system, as well as an accomplished author, editor, translator, educator, musician, and opera writer. This story, published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1902, evokes her traditional spirituality, and is entitled “Why I Am a Pagan.”

[sounds of the prairie]

WHEN the spirit swells my breast I love to roam leisurely among the green hills; or sometimes, sitting on the brink of the murmuring Missouri, I marvel at the great blue overhead. With half closed eyes I watch the huge cloud shadows in their noiseless play upon the high bluffs opposite me, while into my ear ripple the sweet, soft cadences of the river’s song. Folded hands lie in my lap, for the time forgot. My heart and I lie small upon the earth like a grain of throbbing sand. Drifting clouds and tinkling waters, together with the warmth of a genial summer day, bespeak with eloquence the loving Mystery round about us.

…

[sound of a yellow-breasted warbler chirping]

Yellow Breast, swaying upon the slender stem of a wild sunflower, warbles a sweet assurance of this as I pass near by. Breaking off the clear crystal song, he turns his wee head from side to side eyeing me wisely as slowly I plod with moccasined feet. Then again he yields himself to his song of joy. Flit, flit hither and yon, he fills the summer sky with his swift, sweet melody. And truly does it seem his vigorous freedom lies more in his little spirit than in his wing.

With these thoughts I reach the log cabin whither I am strongly drawn by the tie of a child to an aged mother.

[sound of a yapping dog]

Out bounds my four-footed friend to meet me, frisking about my path with unmistakable delight. Chan is a black shaggy dog, “a thorough bred little mongrel,” of whom I am very fond. Chan seems to understand many words in Sioux, and will go to her mat even when I whisper the word, though generally I think she is guided by the tone of the voice. Often she tries to imitate the sliding inflection and long drawn out voice to the amusement of our guests, but her articulation is quite beyond my ear. In both my hands I hold her shaggy head and gaze into her large brown eyes. At once the dilated pupils contract into tiny black dots, as if the roguish spirit within would evade my questioning.

[sound of footsteps and a creaking chair]

Finally resuming the chair at my desk I feel in keen sympathy with my fellow creatures, for I seem to see clearly again that all are akin.

The racial lines, which once were bitterly real, now serve nothing more than marking out a living mosaic of human beings. And even here men of the same color are like the ivory keys of one instrument where each represents all the rest, yet varies from them in pitch and quality of voice. And those creatures who are for a time mere echoes of another’s note are not unlike the fable of the thin sick man whose distorted shadow, dressed like a real creature, came to the old master to make him follow as a shadow. Thus with a compassion for all echoes in human guise, I greet the solemn-faced “native preacher” whom I find awaiting me. I listen with respect for God’s creature, though he mouth most strangely the jangling phrases of a bigoted creed.

As our tribe is one large family, where every person is related to all the others, he addressed me:

“Cousin, I came from the morning church service to talk with you.”

(The Native preacher goes on to tell her of the reward of Heaven, the punishment of Hell, and the folly of the old beliefs.)

…

I offered midday meal to the converted Indian sitting wordless and with downcast face. No sooner had he risen from the table with “Cousin, I have relished it,” than the church bell rang.

[sound of church bells and footsteps departing]

Thither he hurried forth with his afternoon sermon. I watched him as he hastened along, his eyes bent fast upon the dusty road till he disappeared at the end of a quarter of a mile.

…

Still I would not forget that the pale-faced missionary and the hoodooed aborigine are both God’s creatures, though small indeed their own conceptions of Infinite Love. A wee child toddling in a wonder world, I prefer to their dogma my excursions into the natural gardens where the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers. If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan.

[sounds of the prairie]

Alright, we’re back. Now, what was it like for women on the Great Plains? Were Zitkála-Šá and her sisters among the plains tribes really drudges, as the Victorians would have us believe?

Women Among the Lakota

As we heard in the first episode of this series, for the Lakota, tasks were divided along gendered lines. This is not uncommon for pre-modern cultures, nor for modern ones for that matter – after all, Euro-American culture was arguably even more strictly divided at the time, but we’ll leave that as it lies. So, it’s not surprising to find a strict gender-coding of tasks. However, it seems plains tribes like the Lakota at this time were especially pronounced in this respect relative to other Native American tribes in North America. Anthropologist Raymond DeMallie explains:

“In symbolic terms, the distinction between male and female was the single most important attribute for defining an individual in Lakota culture. Sex differences were emphasized in virtually every aspect of life. Masculinity and femininity were marked most importantly by behavioral differences. Sexual division of labor was very rigid and it may be said that behavior itself was the most important criterion differentiating male from female.” (DeMallie, p. 238)

As the Lakota adapted to life on the plains, gender roles broke down around bison, divided between hunting and processing. To sum up what we learned in our first episode:

If you were male, you were in charge of hunting. You scouted for bison, spied out the herd, organized the approach, made the kill, and transported it back to camp. You also defended and enlarged the tribe through raids and warfare.

If you were female, you were in charge of processing. When the bison carcasses were brought back to camp by men, they were handed over to you for everything else necessary. Thus, your roles included cooking meat; drying meat into jerky; tanning hides; fashioning hides into clothing, bedding and tipi dressings; decorating hides; crafting utensils, tools, and implements; and generally manufacturing bison into every other product necessary for survival, comfort, and trade on the plains. You also did beadwork, and quillwork using dyed porcupine quills. When it came time to move the camp, it was your job to strike and pack the tipi, guard it during the move, and erect it again upon arrival. Finally, you gathered firewood, fetched water, and cared for children (DeMallie, p. 238).

This gendered division between the hunting and processing of bison meant the male sphere was largely outside the camp, the female sphere inside. To Victorian observers, this appeared dangerously close to their own breakdown of male and female spheres, so they mistook Lakota women for mere domestic servants. They saw men coming back from the hunt and then lounging around on soft hides while the women did all the work, and assumed the one was virtually enslaved to the other. They failed to recognize that the Lakota way was less like slave and master, and more like two departments of a factory. Each provided the other with the goods necessary for their department to function: men procured the raw goods that women turned them into refined products.

Lakota women were not slaves to their husbands. To see that, consider first that women were usually able to choose their own mates, as DeMallie explains:

“Although the ultimate decision as to whether a girl should marry a particular suitor was the responsibility of her male relatives, particularly her brothers, in theory and normally in practice, girls were allowed to make their own decisions as to whom to marry” (DeMallie, p 251).

Next, consider that women could divorce their husbands easily:

“Divorce was simple in Lakota society and could be initiated by either husband or wife. The tipi belonged to the woman and the children usually went with their mother in the case of divorce” (DeMallie, p. 251).

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like it would be a strange thing indeed if a slave could run from bondage so easily, yet did not do so.

Notice also that DeMallie says the tipi “belonged to the woman.” He doesn’t mean this figuratively, but literally. Married couples continued to own property separately, and everything pertaining to the home including the tipi belonged to the wife. She might own livestock as well.

In light of this, it becomes clear that Lakota women, far from being enslaved in the home, were actually masters of the home. Unlike traditional Western norms, where women are domestics but men are the householders, Lakota women were themselves the householders. They could take their tipi and go, leaving a man shivering in the cold.

Not only were women empowered to pick up and leave if unhappy with their husband, but they earned social status independently from him as well. Citing a Lakota man named Long Knife again, also known as George Sword, DeMallie writes:

“Sword leaves no doubt that the work of men was considered to be more glorious and highly honored than the work of women. But it is equally clear from his account that Lakota women were accorded a full measure of respect for the performance of the work appropriate to their sex” (DeMallie, p. 238).

That performance attached to the quality of their craftsmanship. As historian Mary Jane Schneider describes:

“The manner in which a woman could obtain wealth and status through her craftwork, is analogous to the manner in which a man obtained wealth and status through brave exploits. … Women counted robes and tipi covers in much the same way that men counted coups” (Schneider, p. 116).

This might have manifested similarly to a custom found among the neighboring Blackfoot tribe, with whom the Lakota shared many customs in common. As historian Royal Hassrick explains, among the Blackfoot:

“Women took pride in the number and quality of robes they dressed, often keeping records and referring to them when about to perform a ceremony. … Accomplishments were recorded by means of dots incised along the handles of the polished elkhorn scraping tools. The dots on one side were black, on the other red. Each black dot represented a tanned robe; each red dot represented ten hides or one tipi. When a woman had completed one hundred robes or ten tipis she was privileged to place an incised circle at the base of the handle of her scraper” (Hassrick, quoted in Schneider, p. 115).

Whether the Lakota followed their Blackfoot neighbors in this particular custom is difficult to say, but we do know that Lakota women were honored for their work. Hassrick adds:

“The Sioux also had a quilling contest in which output was measured and the four top women were publicly honored” (Hassrick, quoted in Schneider, p. 115).

So, in short, Lakota women were lauded for their craftsmanship in a manner akin to the war and hunting glories heaped on men, and may even have displayed their glories prominently, similar to the Blackfoot hide-scraper custom.

Thus, it is difficult to maintain with the Victorians that Lakota women were virtually enslaved to men. They owned their own property, could leave their husbands readily, and won honors for their skill. The Victorian charge of sweatshop drudgery just doesn’t track.

Lakota Polygyny

Another thing that misled Victorian observers was the Lakota practice of polygyny, where one man might have multiple wives. While this can and often does lead to inequality among the sexes, it can also contribute to greater independence for women. As we heard in our previous episode “Go West, Young Woman”, Mormon women in polygynous arrangements had to be self-sufficient during times when their husband was away on business or with another wife. Similarly, Lakota women were quite capable of supporting themselves while the men were away on long hunts or raids.

Further, a new wife could bring prosperity to the whole family. Another wife in the household meant dividing the work, a prospect not entirely unwelcome to existing wives. It also meant expanding production. According to historian Katherine Weist, among the Lakota’s cousins the Dakota, who were deeply involved in the fur trade, one man could bring in more furs than two women could feasibly tan (Weist, p. 43). I have to imagine the case for Lakota bison hunting was similar, if not more so. Therefore, another wife meant another coworker, which meant increased production. Bison hides were desirable trade goods, so more wives meant more wealth for the whole family – again, not entirely unwelcome.

There were some downsides, of course. Jealousy was a common theme. To cut down on that, however, Lakota polygyny was sororal, meaning one man might marry multiple sisters or cousins (Weist, p. 43). This was preferred so that the wives might be more likely to get along. At the same time, however, it also made it possible for the wives to present a united front against the husband when necessary. Thus, wives in polygynous arrangements were in this respect bolstered with allies.

For further support, wives could call on other relatives for backup. Unlike the modern West, Lakota did not live in nuclear families, but in extended family units called thiyóšpaye. Thus, if in need of aid against their husband, wives could muster the whole extended family, which might very well be their own birth family, since a married unit might live with the thiyóšpaye of the husband or that of the wives.

Thus, Lakota polygyny did not necessarily spell inequality. In some ways, it fostered independence, prosperity, and empowerment.

We should also remember that this was a population decimated by smallpox and other diseases. While this may not have been the initial reason for polygyny, it must have helped. Since a man can theoretically impregnate all his wives at once, whereas a woman with multiple husbands can usually only carry one of their children at a time, polygyny can help a recovering population.

So, in the big picture, the division of labor and practice of polygyny, which made the Victorians’ parasols pop inside out [popping sound], was not the virtual slavery that was claimed. On the contrary, it was an arrangement that valued women’s labor, accorded them honor on the merit of their craftsmanship, empowered them within the family, provided a measure of self-determination, and aided the recovery of a decimated population.

All of that notwithstanding, it’s true that Lakota arrangements were unequal in some respects. Women did do a lot of work. I mean childrearing alone is a full-time job, and then you’ve got processing hides, carrying water, gathering firewood, cooking, cleaning, making clothes… I mean, it just sounds exhausting, right? So, what did Lakota women themselves think of this arrangement? Did they feel it was unfair?

The answer is: no, apparently not. DeMallie summarizes the typical Lakota view:

“…the ultimate aim of all the men’s glorious activities in war and hunting that took them far from the comforts of camp was the continuation of society. From the Lakota point of view, the glory was recompense for the suffering required. In a culturally real sense, it was men who subordinated themselves to women, resisting sexual temptations and the comforts of home to risk their lives in war and hunting and to humiliate themselves before the powers of the universe to beg for spiritual help to enable them to accomplish their duties as providers and protectors” (p. 261).

Interestingly, this view frames equality not as a question of labor but of risk. Sure, women did a lot of the work, but men accepted much of the risk. That, for the Lakota, was a fair trade-off. As Yankton anthropologist Ella Deloria wrote in 1944:

“A woman caring for children and doing all the work around the house thought herself no worse off than her husband who was compelled to risk his life continuously, hunting and remaining ever on guard against enemy attacks on his family” (Deloria, quoted in DeMallie, p. 238-239).

In light of that, the Lakota felt their rigidly-divided gender roles were not exploitative but complementary. As anthropologist Patricia Albers summarizes:

“…the ideal relationship between men and women was based on principles of complementarity. Under these principles, the members of each sex were expected to be proficient in their respective work activities and self-sufficient as well. Work autonomy and prior claims on the products of one’s labor, however, did not mitigate against voluntary sharing between the sexes. For just as each sex was accorded a certain degree of independence from the other, men and women were expected to be generous and willingly share the products of their respective labors” (p. 189).

In other words, men and women worked together. They were each masters of their own domain, but did not for that reason abandon each other. They shared the fruits of their work, and together made a greater whole.

This view was apparently held by both men and women. If the division of labor were perceived as unfair by one party, one might expect it necessary for the other to enforce it upon them. However, this was not the case. Deloria explains:

“The sexual division of labor was strictly upheld. Women doing the work of their husbands, or men doing the work of their wives, prompted ridicule from other Lakotas. It was dishonorable for both partners” (Deloria, quoted in DeMallie, p. 238-239).

So, commitment to the division of labor was mutual. Not only that, but it was often women who enforced it upon men:

“If a man was found doing what was considered women’s work, the women would ridicule him and attempt to dress him in women’s clothes” (Walker, quoted in DeMallie, p. 238-239).

So, there you have it. In the view of the Lakota themselves, men and women were not unequal, or at least not drastically so. They were equally committed to the arrangement, and enforced it upon each other enthusiastically.

So, in the end, were the Victorians and Euro-American settlers right to consider Lakota women drudges very nearly enslaved to their husbands?

The answer is no.

In fact, in a very real sense, Lakota women presage the modern Western woman proud to take part in the work force. We in the modern West can look back to Lakota women among our foremothers.

[music]

Well, that’s all I’ve got for you today, folks. I hope you learned something; I certainly did. We’ve got still more coming for you in this series. Next up, we’ll take a look at the third gender in Lakota society, the Two Spirits tradition of the winkte, which reveals that Lakota gender relations were not nearly so binary as they may appear. That’s what’s slated for next month.

A big thank you once again to The Eagle and the Raven Band, featuring Ki’ Earth Spirit, for contributing the theme song for today’s episode. You can check them out on Youtube or Soundcloud.

If you like what we’re doing here on this show, you can support us by subscribing, rating, and reviewing on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or you can pledge on Patreon, where $5 a month gets you a portrait in the time period and culture of your choosing. I will draw you as a wanderer of the plains, hunting on horseback or hauling your handcrafted tipi. Or whatever you want, I’ll make you look awesome, I promise.

And by the way, the proceeds from Patreon collected during this series will be donated to One Spirit, a volunteer organization helping the Lakota meet their goal of achieving food sovereignty and self-sufficiency in their communities.

Just go to www.patreon.com/btnewberg. That’s patreon.com/btnewberg.

Alright, I’ll see you next month. I’m B. T. Newberg, and this is The History of Sex.

References

Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Albers, Patricia. “Introduction: New Perspectives on Plains Indian Women.” In: Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Albers, Patricia. “Sioux Women in Transition: A Study of Their Changing Status in Domestic and Capitalist Sectors of Production.” In: Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Albers, Patricia. “The Role of Sioux Women in the Production of Ceremonial Objects: The Case of the Star Quilt.” In: Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Carpenter, Roger M. “Womanish Men and Manlike Women: The Native American Two-Spirit as Warrior.” In: Slater, Sandra and Yarbrough, Fay A. Gender and Sexuality in Indigenous North America, 1400-1850. University of South Carolina Press, 2011.

DeMallie, Raymond. “Male and Female in Traditional Lakota Culture.” In: Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Dollarhide, Kenneth. “Lakota Winkte.” Transgender Tapestry, 94, 2001, July 1.

Gibbon, Guy. The Sioux: The Dakota and Lakota Nations. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.

Gilley, Brian Joseph. Becoming Two-Spirit: Gay Identity and Social Acceptance in Indian Country. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006.

Hoffert, Sylvia D. “Gender and Vigilantism on the Minnesota Frontier: Jane Grey Swisshelm and the U.S.-Dakota Conflict of 1862.” Western Historical Quarterly, 29, 1998, Autumn: pp. 343-362.

Lang, Sabine. Men as Women, Women as Men. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2010.

Means, Jeffrey. “From Buffalo to Beeves The Transformation of the Oglala Lakota Economy 1868-1889.” Thesis. University of Montana. 2001.

Means, Jeffrey. “Indians Shall Do Things In Common: Oglala Lakota Identity and Cattle-raising on the Pine Ridge Reservation” Montana: The Magazine of Western History. 2011, Autumn: pp. 3-21.

Means, Jeffrey. “Oglala Paths Oglala Choices: A Turning Point in Oglala Lakota Culture The Sioux Bill of 1889.” In: A Parallel History: Stories from Indian America. Cajune, Julie, Ed. UCLA Press: 2014-2015, submitted.

Medicine, Beatrice. “Warrior Women – Sex Role Alternatives for Plains Indian Women.” In: Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Night Pipe, Michelle L. “Displays of Personal Adornment and Body Decoration by Nineteenth Century Lakota (Sioux) Tribes: A Costly Signaling Model.” Thesis. University of Nebraska, Lincoln. 2012.

Rifkin, Mark. When Did Indians Become Straight? Kinship, the History of Sexuality, and Native Sovereignty. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Robertson, Doyle V. “I Ask You to Listen to Who I am.” In: Jacobs, Sue-Ellen, Thomas, Wesley, and Lang, Sabine. Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.

Ramenofsky, Ann F. Vectors of Death: The Archaeology of European Contact. University of New Mexico, 1988.

Red Earth, Michael. “Traditional Influences on a Gay-Identified Sisseton Dakota.” In: Jacobs, Sue-Ellen, Thomas, Wesley, and Lang, Sabine. Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.

Robinson, Margaret. “Two-Spirit Identity in a Time of Gender Fluidity.” Journal of Homosexuality,67(12), 2019, May 24.

Schneider, Mary Jane. “Women’s Work: An Examination of Women’s Roles in Plains Indian Arts and Crafts.” In: Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Shively, JoEllen. “Cowboys and Indians: Perceptions of Western Films Among American Indians and Anglos.” American Sociological Review, 57(6), 1992, Dec: pp. 725-734.

Slater, Sandra and Yarbrough, Fay A. Gender and Sexuality in Indigenous North America, 1400-1850. University of South Carolina Press, 2011.

Trexler, Richard. Sex and Conquest. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995.

Tucker, Clude, Kojetin, Brian, and Harrison, Roderick. “A Statistical Analysis of the CPS Supplement on Race and Ethnic Origin.” Census.gov. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of the Census. 1995.

U.S. Census Bureau. “Race and Ethnicity in the United States: 2010 Census and 2020 Census.” United States Census Bureau. Retrieved May 1, 2022, from: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/race-and-ethnicity-in-the-united-state-2010-and-2020-census.html

Weist, Katherine. “Beasts of Burden and Menial Slaves: Nineteenth Century Observations of Northern Plains Indian Women.” In: Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Williams, Walter L. The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1986/1992.

Williams, Walter L. “Persistence and Change in the Berdache Tradition Among Contemporary Lakota Indians.” Journal of Homosexuality, 11(3-4), 1986: pp. 191-200.

Zitkala-Sa. “Why I Am a Pagan.” Atlantic Monthly, 90, 1902, pp. 801-803. Retrieved Apr 26, 2022, from: https://web.archive.org/web/20110212153707/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=ZitPaga.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1

Audio Credits

Podcast theme music mixed from “Gregorian Chant”, “Mystery Sax”, and “There It Is” by Kevin MacLeod.

Episode theme music courtesy of The Eagle and the Raven Band (feat. Ki’ Earth Spirit)

Other audio from:

“Wind Blowing Through Grass” from Nature Sounds

“Glass Breaking Sound Effect” from Free Sound Effect

“American Yellow Warbler Sound Effect” from Bango Music

“Dog Panting Sound Effect” from Nagaty Music

“River Stream” from Web Adventure

“Moving Chair” from Alexander Refsum Jensenius

“Umbrella Opening” from Fesliyan Studios

“Church Bell Sound Effect” from Free Sounds Library

“Floor Walking Chair Getting Up Standing Up” from Spectral Sound Effects

All narration and voice acting by B. T. Newberg

Image Credits

Eagle silhouette from Open Clipart

History of Sex is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://historyofsexpod.com/

19th-century writers called Lakota women virtually enslaved to their husbands, but were they? Or were they skilled artisans, valued by the community, and empowered within their marriages? It turns out the working woman of the modern West owes much to the skilled craftswoman of the Great Plains.

Special thanks to Dr. Jon Cleland Host for help in the preparation of this episode. Episode theme music courtesy of the The Eagle and the Raven Band, featuring Ki' Earth Spirit.

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/btnewberg. Research, writing, editing, and production by B. T. Newberg. Logo Design by Rachel Westhoff. Additional credits, references, and more at www.historyofsexpod.com.

If you had to choose between giving up your way of life or facing the death of your people, what would you do? What if it meant having to give up ever feeling like a man, a woman, or your authentic self again? Lakota historian Jeff Means is here to helps us understand that question.

Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/btnewberg. Research, writing, editing, and production by B. T. Newberg. Logo Design by Rachel Westhoff. Additional credits, references, and more at www.historyofsexpod.com.

Associate Professor of History at the University of Wyoming

References

Means, Jeffrey. “From Buffalo to Beeves The Transformation of the Oglala Lakota Economy 1868-1889.” Thesis. University of Montana. 2001.

Means, Jeffrey. “Indians Shall Do Things In Common: Oglala Lakota Identity and Cattle-raising on the Pine Ridge Reservation” Montana: The Magazine of Western History. 2011, Autumn: pp. 3-21.

Means, Jeffrey. “Oglala Paths Oglala Choices: A Turning Point in Oglala Lakota Culture The Sioux Bill of 1889.” In: A Parallel History: Stories from Indian America. Cajune, Julie, Ed. UCLA Press: 2014-2015, submitted.

History of Sex is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://historyofsexpod.com/

If you had to choose between giving up your way of life or facing the death of your people, what would you do? What if it meant having to give up ever feeling like a man, a woman, or your authentic self again? Lakota historian Jeff Means is here to helps us understand that question.

After hunting bison for centuries, the Lakota suddenly switched to cattle in the late 19th century. Why did they hunt cattle? Why was it crucial to maintaining the gender norms of Lakota men, women, and those Two-Spirit folk called the winkte? And why was the cattle hunt their last best hope for survival?

Special thanks to Dr. Jeff Means, Dr. Jon Cleland Host, and Neil McKay for help in the preparation of this series. Episode theme music courtesy of the Battling Sioux Singers.

Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/btnewberg. Research, writing, editing, and production by B. T. Newberg. Logo Design by Rachel Westhoff. Additional credits, references, and more at www.historyofsexpod.com.

Transcript

[sounds of the prairie and cattle lowing]

The summer sun burns hot on the plain. Insects whiz from pasqueflower to pasqueflower. A herd of hundreds of cattle grazes on clumps of blue grama prairie grass.

Branded into the beasts’ rumps is a peculiar symbol: a circle with two branch-like wings. Locals know it as the “Flying O.” Does it mark the property of some frontier rancher? The living wealth of some vast cattle baron?

No, this is the mark of a people for whom this is no frontier, and for whom these cattle mean something very, very different.

Suddenly, the cows’ eyes shoot wide. Ears perk up. Hooves stomp warily. Something is coming, or someone.

[sound of galloping horses]

Over a ridge crests a party of riders. They raise high their rifles and bows and shout war cries. The lumbering beasts dart, and the stampede begins.

[sounds of the hunt]

With practiced hands the riders guide the fleeing cattle, corralling them to keep the herd together. When the moment is right, they move in for the kill.

As the beasts go down, children watch with awe as men earn honor by deed. Men are men again. Meanwhile, women move in to skin the creatures. They harvest not only the meat but also the hides essential to the craftsmanship that will bring them honor. Women are women again.

But this is no callous slaughter. This is life sustaining life. As the heartbeat of the beasts fade, another beats stronger. Generations can be heard in that life-beat. This is a prayer, and an answer to a prayer. For to these people, this is their last best hope to save a way of life.

This is the cattle hunt of the Lakota.

(adapted from Means, 2001, p. 8)

[sounds fade to silence]

Wait… the cattle hunt of the Lakota? Shouldn’t that be bison? That B. T. Newberg guy must be really off his rocker this time.

No, it’s true. For about two decades in the late 19th century, the Lakota became cowboys, albeit of a very different sort.

Why did the Lakota hunt cattle? Why was it crucial to maintaining the gender norms of Lakota men, women, and those Two-Spirit folk, the winkte? And why was the cattle hunt their last best hope for survival?

That’s what we’re talking about in today’s episode. I’m B. T. Newberg, and this is The History of Sex.

[music]

I’d like to thank our Patreon patron Miki Jennings for making this episode possible.

I’d also like to thank Dr. Jeff Means, Dr. Jon Cleland Host, and Neil McKay for help in the preparation of this series.

Folks, I record this show here in Minnesota on the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg, also called the Ojibwe, and the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, better known to most as the Sioux, comprised of the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota peoples.

There was a time in the not too distant past when my ancestors called this the frontier, but there were already peoples here for whom it was no such thing. The meeting of our ancestors was sometimes peaceable, sometimes even mutually beneficial, but in the end wrought atrocities upon those native to this place, who have been striving to maintain their culture through waves of change ever since. Despite it all, they remain proud and vital.

Folks, this is the beginning of our new series Sex on the Great Plains, looking at the same region as the Wild West but through the eyes of its native inhabitants. Specifically, we’ll be focusing on the Lakota.

When you see Native Americans depicted in Western films, wearing eagle feather headdresses and riding horses across open range, that is mostly inspired by plains tribes like the Lakota. Often the depiction is completely inappropriate, transporting a specifically plains-based lifestyle to the Southwest desert and transposing it onto tribes who lived very differently in actual history. As a result, the impression in many people’s minds is that all Native Americans are more or less like the Lakota, when in fact they are just one tribe among hundreds, each with different cultures, identities, and languages.

In actual fact, the traditional Lakota way of life is unique to them, and uniquely adapted to the Great Plains. They ranged across the expanse on horseback in a nomadic lifestyle, following herds of bison and striking fear into the hearts of their enemies.

But according to historian and Oglala Lakota tribe member Jeff Means, by the 1860s, the bison were nearly gone from the plains (Means, 2011, p. 6). An entire way of life was at risk of disappearing. Deprived of the herds that once roamed in the tens of millions, the Lakota were brought to their knees.

This was not military conquest. The Lakota had won Red Cloud’s War against the U.S. Army, and defeated General Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn. No, this was loss of a different kind. By the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Lakota knew they had to change. They could not sustain themselves without the base of their power: the bison.

Nor could they sustain their culture. Men who once made their names in the hunt, and especially in the warfare that defended access to the hunt, had no way left to prove themselves. Women once famed for their craftsmanship at hides had nothing left to craft. Leaders who once earned power through generosity had no meat left to share. To them, the bison was not just a source of food and raw materials; it was the very lifeblood of their culture. Without it, they would die – unless, that is, they could find a substitute for the great shaggy beasts of the plains.

And so, reluctantly, in 1868 they made peace with the United States, who guaranteed them a territory almost the size of Germany, and promised, in recognition of the loss of bison, a pound per day of beef on the hoof to every Lakota (Means, 2011, p. 7).

Cattle were poor cousins of bison to be sure, but perhaps… perhaps they might do.

It stung to rely on handouts from a government that had taken from them everything they had known, but they had no choice. With cattle, they could hunt again. They could craft again. They could lead again. They could be proud again. Men could be men again, and women could be women again. And the Two-Spirit winkte could be winkte again (by the way, we’ll have more to say about them in a future episode).

In short, through cattle, it just might be possible that the Lakota could live as they once did: as a people of the plains.

How did the Lakota come to this point? How did they develop gender norms that were centered around the mighty bison? And when the bison disappeared, how did they strive to preserve those norms by switching to cattle?

Today, we’re going to see how the Lakota developed over time, changing again and again in response to new challenges, beginning with how they became a people of the plains in the first place.

A Forest People

Lakota culture is uniquely adapted to the Great Plains, but it was not always so. They began as forest people.

Pre-contact histories in North America are notoriously difficult to reconstruct. According to one theory put forward by anthropologist Guy Gibbon and supported by tribal oral narratives, archaeological evidence, and linguistic patterns, the ancestry of the Lakota traces back to the northwoods around the Great Lakes in modern-day Wisconsin and Minnesota.

According to this theory, the ancestors of the Lakota were bands of hunter-gatherers who moved into the Southwestern Great Lakes area by 800 CE. There, they may have interacted with some of the great mound-building cultures of the Mississippi. Then, sometime around 1300 CE, trade and conflict with the Oneata to the south led them to form together into a cohesive tribe (Gibbon, p. 43). This was not yet the Lakota, but what archaeologists refer to as the Psinomani Complex, psinomani being a Dakota word that means “wild rice gatherer.”

It may have been at this time that they developed what Gibbon calls a “male warrior/supremacist complex” (p. 42). Setting aside the problems with that term for the moment, a development like this often coincides with the emergence of tribes. As Gibbon explains, tribalization is frequently spurred by conflict with neighboring aggressive and more highly-organized peoples, which leads bands to come together for mutual defense. This produces opportunities to gain status and authority through warfare, hence the tendency for tribal societies to privilege warriors.

Associating this exclusively with male warriors is problematic in this case, however, because there may have been female warriors as well. The Psinomani Complex would eventually give birth to both the Lakota and Dakota tribes. While we have no records of female fighters among the Lakota, they were apparently fairly common among the Dakota. Anthropologist Beatrice Medicine writes of the Dakota:

“…while women were tacitly barred from joining war parties, many did participate in war for glory as well as revenge, and some even led war expeditions (Ruth Landes, 1968: 49). Women who had achieved war honors played an important role in the winoxtca (the female equivalent of the male akicita or soldiers). These women were called upon to police other women in the campsite and to punish female offenders (1968: 69)” (Medicine, p. 274).

That term Medicine uses, winoxtca, can also mean female elder, but here refers to women warriors. So, there you have it. There were female fighters. Yes, the vast majority were male, but female fighters were not unknown among the Dakota, and one might reasonably wonder if they were also present among their parent culture, the Psinomani Complex, and therefore among the ancestors of the Lakota. We can’t say so with confidence, but it’s certainly possible.

In any case, this newly-tribalized warrior culture lived in the northwoods, harvesting wild rice, tapping maple trees, and hunting deer (Gibbon, p. 3).

What were their gender norms like at this time? I tried to find out, but was not able to turn up any studies speculating on this. However, hunter-gatherer societies in general tend to divide tasks along gender lines, and the descendants of this early people show such divisions strongly. Both the Lakota and Dakota would come to allot hunting and fishing to men, and the processing of these animals to women. Horticulture and agriculture, when practiced, would also be allotted to women. Whether these task allocations were already customary at the time of the Psinomani Complex is difficult to say, but it would be a reasonable assumption.

In any case, the Psinomani Complex persisted for several centuries in the Northwoods.

The first non-indigenous record of this people comes from 1641, when a pair of French missionaries asked the Anishinaabeg, or Ojibwe, about them. As the story goes, the Anishinaabeg said they were “people of an alien tribe”, which in their language is na-towe-ssiwa. As the story goes, the French shortened this to Sioux, and that’s how they got their name (Gibbon, p. 2). This may or may not be true. Today some are fine with the name Sioux, while others, such as Jeff Means, have started to move away from it, preferring instead to be called the people of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ or Seven Council Fires, and so that’s what we’ll call them from here on out.

Into the Plains

This people of the Seven Council Fires may have ventured into the prairie once or twice a year to hunt bison, but they were not yet a people of bison. That was soon to change, however, for several reasons.

First, Anishinaabeg began to expand into their turf. This was partly the result of European colonization far to the east in New England, which pushed tribes westward, which in turn pushed their neighbors westward in a kind of domino effect, until finally the Anishinaabeg started pushing into the homeland of the Seven Council Fires.

Second, influence came from the south as well. As Europeans explored up the Mississippi looking for furs, it created a profitable opportunity for local tribes. By the early 18th century, many were competing for a piece of the lucrative new trade with this alien people.

Finally, a new technology became available: the horse. While horses are native to North America, they had gone extinct thousands of years earlier. Not until they were re-introduced by Europeans did the capacity for mounted travel become available again. This revolutionized life on the plains. Much as the horse enabled the Mongols to sweep across the steppes in Asia, it empowered the people of the Seven Council Fires to strike out across the Great Plains. By 1700, they were mounting up and moving out. Over the next hundred years, they left behind the familiarity of their forest homeland and exploded westward.

As they struck out in all directions, they developed distinct identities formed around new ways of life. Some settled along the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, and got in on the fur trade. These became the Dakota. Meanwhile, those that went northward into present-day northern North Dakota, Montana, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta became the Yankton-Yanktonai Dakota, sometimes called the Nakota. Finally, a third group became nomads riding far in search of game, pushing across the Red River into present-day North and South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. These became the Lakota (Gibbon, p. 5).

As their lifestyles changed, so too did their language, diverging into dialects. All three of these names – Dakota, and Nakota, and Lakota – are essentially the same word pronounced in three now-divergent dialects, but all roughly translatable as “the people” (Gibbon, p. 2).

I should note at this point that there are other ways these people categorize their identities, you know, exactly who is a subsection of who, and next month we’ll hear Jeff Means give a slightly different breakdown, so I want to acknowledge that there are other legitimate ways of presenting this. But the for the sake of clarity, we just have to choose one and stick with it, and so we’ll go with this tripartite division in this series.

This was how the Lakota developed their own unique identity: by roving far out onto the plains, and even more than their cousins, adopting a nomadic horseback lifestyle centered around the bison.

What was that new culture like? And how did it affect their gender norms? We’re going to find that out next.

Gender on the Plains

We just saw how the Lakota emerged out of the early Psinomani Complex, who became the people of the Seven Council Fires, or Sioux, who then diverged into the Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota. Now, what did the new culture of the Lakota become, and how did their gender norms change?

The answer to both lies in the great shaggy beast of the plains, the bison.

The herds they found at this time numbered in the tens of millions. It was inconceivable that in a mere hundred years they would be all but gone, for in the 18th century, they seemed almost infinite.

So abundant were the bison that the Lakota went all-in on this life-giving beast, shaping their entire culture around it. Gender norms became defined by how each interacted with bison.

If you were male, you were in charge of hunting. You scouted for bison, spied out the herd, organized the approach, made the kill, and transported it back to camp. You might also share out the bison meat you procured, along with other possessions like horses, gaining influence through gifting and thus rising toward leadership within the tribe. Finally, you took part in warfare, which secured continued access to the herds of bison.

If you were female, you were in charge of crafting. When the bison carcasses were brought back to camp by men, they were handed over to you for everything else necessary. Thus, your roles included cooking meat; drying meat into jerky; tanning hides; fashioning hides into clothing, bedding and tipi dressings; decorating hides; crafting utensils, tools, and implements; and generally crafting bison into every other product necessary for survival, comfort, and trade on the plains. You also did other kinds of crafts, like quillwork using dyed porcupine quills, and beadwork, which functioned as a substitute for quills after moving to the central plains where porcupines were rarer. When it came time to move the camp, it was your job to strike and pack the tipi, guard it during the move, and erect it again upon arrival. Finally, you gathered firewood, fetched water, and cared for children (DeMallie, p. 238).

If you were a Two-Spirit winkte, meaning someone assigned sex as male but culturally third gender, you joined the women in crafting activities while also joining the men in warfare. You had a foot in both worlds. We’ll save the details for a future episode, but the important thing to recognize for now is that this third gender followed the overall pattern of gender roles breaking down along interaction with bison.

These roles were especially rigid compared to neighboring tribes. While a certain level of rigidity is expected in a society more collective than individualistic, it seems the Lakota took it to extremes. If you were a man, you hunted; if you were a woman, you crafted. With the exception of the winkte, there was very little middle ground.

For example, there was no option for those assigned sex as female but called to male roles. Those expressing behaviors considered masculine might be chased out of camp (Lang, p. 319), while women warriors were unheard of. The latter was especially odd because female fighters were known among neighbor tribes like the Piegan, as well as among their close cousins, the Dakota, so it’s not like the Lakota couldn’t conceive of such a thing. Rather, they made the collective choice to maintain gender norms that were particularly rigid in this respect.

Why that was I will not speculate. However, I will say that as strict as their norms were, they were still less strict than Euro-American norms at this time. Settlers had no culturally-recognized options at all for those assigned one sex but drawn to another, nor for women who wished to go to war.

Likewise, Lakota women may have been slightly more politically-empowered than their settler counterparts at this time. While Lakota leadership did concentrate indisputably in male hands, women were perhaps closer to the decision making, and may have had more leverage, than White women. This was due to norms that stemmed, again, from a lifestyle based on bison.

To follow the herds, the Lakota needed to spread out and move with maximum flexibility. Thus, they developed a decentralized system of governance based on extended family units called tiospaye. These camps of kin were more or less autonomous. They maintained ties with one another through marriage, and came together for tribal gatherings, but otherwise operated independently. This meant that power was much closer to the average person, including the average woman. Although barred from becoming chiefs, women were respected in council and usually able to make their opinions known.

In addition, they had considerable leverage over the men in their lives. First, as the exclusive producers of the craft products brought wealth through trade and influence through gifting, Lakota women had what you might call “labor power.” Second, divorce was relatively easy within Lakota society, so she could leave a husband if unsatisfied with his decisions. Third, couples could live with the tiospaye of either the husband or the wife, so she might be able to call up blood-family to support her. Finally, in cases of polygynous marriages with multiple wives, the wives were usually sisters or cousins of each other, which meant they could present a unified front. All of these things meant Lakota women were nothing to be trifled with. They had significant leverage and influence within society, perhaps slightly more even than White women at this time.

In short, Lakota gender roles may have been relatively rigid, but that needs to be seen in its proper context.

The gender roles of the Lakota stemmed ultimately from a lifestyle based around bison. This beast presented an unparalleled opportunity for the Lakota, and made them powerful.

Yet, all good things come to an end. Even as the Lakota were on the rise, the beginning of the end was already blowing in the wind.

The Beginning of the End

Along with the pale-skinned aliens from the far shores had come a different kind of invader.

It started with fever, headache, fatigue, and severe back pain. Then came the spots, first on the face and hands, then all over the body. They called it the rotting face sickness. Settlers called it smallpox.

It took time for this disease to penetrate to the plains, but when it did, it hit hard.

From 1775 to 1782, the North American Smallpox Epidemic decimated Plains Indian tribes, and continued to do so year after year after year for the rest of the century. The typical tribe lost 25-50% of their population on average.

Now, it’s hard to conceptualize just how bad that is. For comparison, we all know how disruptive COVID-19 has been, but that has only killed about 0.3% of the U.S. population, or 0.07% of the global population. Now imagine losing 25-50%. This was apocalyptic.

Some tribes were worse hit than others. The river tribes, like the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara, clustered together as they were in populous villages along the riverside, were almost entirely wiped out. Some estimate their losses as high as 90%. They were annihilated.

So, you have to imagine what this landscape looks like now: a vast grassland full of villages, but when you ride into them, all the homes are empty. Where there used to be people, now there is nothing but the wind. It was like something out of a Mad Max movie.

But in this post-apocalyptic wasteland, some tribes suffered less. Among these were the Lakota. Their newly nomadic lifestyle, being spread-out with little contact between groups, insulated them (think social distancing x100!). As a result, as their neighbors fell, they rose. They found the plains opened up for them.

At first, the Lakota cleaned up, preying on the weakened peoples around them. But this very same raiding brought them in contact with the disease, and soon they began to fall as well. The tragedy is recorded in Lakota winter counts, which are pictographic calendars painted on bison hides, with each year symbolized by its most significant event. Many of them symbolize year after year with designs representing smallpox (Hodge, p. 83).

While Lakota losses may have been on the low end, perhaps around 25%, if we recall that COVID-19 has taken a mere fraction of a percentage yet wreaked havoc on our society, 25% remains absolutely catastrophic.

To put that further into perspective, part of the raiding of weakened peoples included carrying off women and children. Why? They would be incorporated into the tribe to replenish their numbers – that’s how desperate they became (Hodge, p. 137). So, now you have to imagine a people whose view of gender is skewed by an increased emphasis on male warfare and an influx of women from foreign peoples. You can only imagine how that must have affected them.

Smallpox struck again with the 1837 Great Plains epidemic, when an outbreak on an unquarantined steamboat infected local native populations. Once again, the Lakota faired less poorly than their neighbors, this time aided by inoculation. A vaccine had been developed back in 1796, and the U.S. government was motivated to inoculate native peoples to prevent spread to settlers.

Mind you, that is not to say that the stories of giving smallpox-infested blankets to local tribes in order to undermine them are not also true. That may well have happened, as historian Ann F. Ramenofsky contends. However, the policy of the United States was that the risk of spread to Whites was too great, so the vaccination of tribes should be encouraged.

In this case, the local official only had enough vaccines for one tribe, and gave it to the regional power who could keep the other tribes in line: the Lakota. This garnered them even more power at the expense of their neighbors.

But despite this power, they were facing an existential threat. As if the smallpox invasion were not enough, they also watched warily the encroachment of the United States. The Lakota and the U.S. represented two expanding powers in the region, and it was all but inevitable that they would come into conflict eventually. Although they had fought together in the Arikara War of 1823, they were uneasy allies. Relations with the U.S. would soon strain to breaking.

The Lakota witnessed their cousins, the Dakota, starved and humiliated by settlers. The U.S. wanted them to take up agriculture, but among the people of the Seven Council Fires, farming was women’s work. This along with droughts brought famine to the Dakota people, and desperation sparked an uprising. The U.S.-Dakota Conflict of 1862 saw the Dakota defeated, marched along the Minnesota River in a local version of the trail of tears, and eventually forced onto reservations.

Now, if you were the Lakota witnessing this, what would you say about that? They knew it was only sooner or later that their turn would come. If they wanted to preserve their way of life, they had to fight, not as a disorganized uprising as with the Dakota, but as a strategic war.

A number of small conflicts occurred in the 1860s. Then, in 1866, the U.S. established a number of illegal forts within territory recently conquered by the Lakota. This was more than the Lakota could bear. Red Cloud’s War resulted in a victory over the U.S. Army at what the Lakota call the Battle of the Hundred in Hand, an outcome predicted by a winkte seer. Further conflicts gave the U.S. endless trouble, culminating in the 1876 battle that saw General Custer fall at Little Big Horn.

Despite these glorious victories, the Lakota were nevertheless backed into a corner. They had won the war of arms but lost the war of stomachs. You see, the bison, on which they depended for food and everything else in their culture, were disappearing.

Why were the bison disappearing? There were many reasons, but Dr. Jeff Means lays the largest share of blame on the development of a chemical process for tanning hides, which greatly increased the rate of production among settlers, supplying gluttonous markets back East with these coveted bison hides (Means, 2001, p. 18). Consequently, herds that once roamed in the tens of millions dwindled down to mere thousands.

In light of this, what future could there possibly be for the Lakota, whose entire culture had until this point revolved around bison? They faced certain doom if they could not find a substitute.

How the Lakota Become Cowboys

With no other viable option at hand, the Lakota made peace with the U.S. government, and in return were guaranteed a territory roughly the size of Germany, stretching across parts of South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Nebraska. In recognition of the fact that without bison the Lakota could not sustain themselves (and therefore might turn to raiding White settlements), the U.S. made the practical to decision to promise them per-capita payments of flour and beef.

The beef was delivered on the hoof as live cattle – and here, it seemed, could be just what the Lakota were looking for. This might be the answer to their prayers. Without bison, they could not eat, nor produce clothing, or tipis, or crafts for trade. Men could not be men, women could not be women, and winkte could not be winkte. Their whole way of life was about to perish, but this creature – a poor man’s bison, you could say – just might be the answer.

And so, the Lakota began to hunt again. There was no more of that mighty grunting; now it was mere mooing. But it would suffice. The cattle turned out on the range was the new herd. Beef was the new food, and leather the new hide.

Many even chose to own their herds in common, putting the group first as in the tiospaye of old. At Pine Ridge, the brand of the collective was the Flying O, a circle with two branch-like wings. This brand marked far more than ownership; it symbolized an entire way of life now sustained by cattle.

The Lakota had become cowboys.

Just as the Lakota had adapted to life on the plains, so too did they adapt to this change. They would go on.

And for a time at least, they were free.

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Well, that’s all I’ve got for you today, folks, but we have so much more for you on the way. What happened to the Lakota after they became cowboys? How did it work out for them? That’s what we’re going to learn about next month in a very special interview with historian and Oglala Lakota tribe member, Dr. Jeff Means.

The theme music for today’s episode is courtesy of the Battling Sioux Singers. You can check them out on Youtube on the Powwow Times channel.

If you like what we’re doing here on this show, you can support us by subscribing, rating, and reviewing on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get podcasts. Or you can pledge on Patreon where $5 a month gets you a portrait drawn in the time period and culture of your choosing. I will draw you as a mustang-mounted hunter bringing home the bounty, or a bead-bejeweled craftswoman making her masterpiece. Or whatever you want, I’ll make you look awesome, I promise.

And for this series, Sex on the Great Plains, the proceeds from Patreon will be donated to One Spirit, a volunteer organization helping the Lakota meet their goal of achieving food sovereignty and self-sufficiency in their communities.

Just go to www.patreon.com/btnewberg. That’s patreon.com/btnewberg.

Thanks for listening everybody, and be sure to check out our next episode where we talk to Dr. Jeff Means.

I’ll see you then. I’m B. T. Newberg, and this is The History of Sex.

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References

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Albers, Patricia. “Introduction: New Perspectives on Plains Indian Women.” In: Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Albers, Patricia. “Sioux Women in Transition: A Study of Their Changing Status in Domestic and Capitalist Sectors of Production.” In: Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

Albers, Patricia. “The Role of Sioux Women in the Production of Ceremonial Objects: The Case of the Star Quilt.” In: Albers, Patricia, and Medicine, Beatrice. The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983.

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Audio Credits

Podcast theme music mixed from “Gregorian Chant”, “Mystery Sax”, and “There It Is” by Kevin MacLeod.

Episode theme music courtesy of “Battling Sioux Singers” from Powwow Times

Other audio from:

“Cows Eating Grass at Lowland Farm” from LFGrassFedBeef

“A Prairie Afternoon” from Dale Bohlke

“Large Stampede Sounds” from A1 Sound FX

“World’s Largest Public Bison Stampede – Custer State Park Buffalo Roundup” from Cross Timbers Bison

All narration and voice acting by B. T. Newberg

Image Credits

Bison silhouette from Pixabay

Bull silhouette from Stockvault

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