Speech By a Lakota Sioux, re T issues
MITAKUYEPI OYASIN CHANTE WASTE YANAPE CHIYESAPI - All my kinspeople with good heart I shake hands with you.
LAKOTA WINKTE by Kenneth Dollarhide, Ph.D
My topic is called “TWO SPIRIT TRADITION AMONG THE LAKOTA” but that is not what I intend to talk about today. I will explain why in the body of my talk. My background I think is important in light of the topic. I am a mixed blood Oglala Lakota. I was born and raised on the Pine Ridge Reservation and lived in nearby border towns in South Dakota and Nebraska. My earliest memory of seeing a winkte was as a child. I was with my grandmother at a ceremony at Pine Ridge. Perhaps I was ten or twelve years old. A child walked by us wearing a brown dress and her hair was in tight curls. I think it was called a poodle perm, and I asked my grandmother why that “boy” was wearing a dress? She said in so many words “Hush, that is not a boy, she is a winkte. If you tease her she will bring you harm and might even make you into a winkte. So you must always treat her with respect and be kind to her.” I didn’t know exactly what my grandmother meant by a winkte but I knew even then that the winkte had something to do with magic and mystery and I wanted to find out about this power and how a boy became a girl and a winkte. I began asking questions about the winkte, but everyone I would ask would tell me to “run along” or “don’t be silly”. Finally I asked my uncle Eddie, who, other than his military duty spent his entire life on the reservation, about the winkte and he told me the winkte is only a sissy. I was disappointed and told him what grandmother said and that he was wrong. He smiled and sent me away. That November when my birthday rolled around he gave me a gift. I was so happy and just knew it was the football I wanted. I tore open the box and it was a doll. My uncle Eddie said I wanted to know about sissies so I must want a doll. I was not to receive another present from him until just before he died many years later. Of course what I didn’t understand at the time was that even a discussion of the winkte was just not done. Even today there are those that would rather not have this tradition known or talked about. This primarily because the early missionaries, the U.S. Government and Lay Christians did and often continue to demand the total destruction of other faiths and traditions, thus the historical and continuing attack upon native traditions all in the name of bringing G*d and civilization to the heathens who had/have an open and tolerant society, something perhaps the missionaries lacked. Leslie Marmon Silko describes the old Pueblo world view in her book of [autobiographical] essays, Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit: “Before the arrival of the missionaries, a man could dress as a woman and work with the women and even marry a man without any fanfare. Likewise a woman was free to dress as a man, to hunt and go to war with the men, and to marry a woman. In the old Pueblo world view we are all a mixture of male and female and this sexual identity is changing constantly. Sexual inhibition did not begin until the Christian missionaries arrived.” (P. 67) As I grew up I did not think of the winkte for a number of years. I was too busy with my life as a teenager and growing up. After serving in the army I started college on the GI Bill at the University of Nebraska and a friend of mine, also a veteran, called one night and said he and his girlfriend Belinda were going to come by and pick me up to go get a beer or coffee. They picked me up and as I climbed into the back seat I noticed a girl was sitting there and I said “Hi, my name is Ken.” My friend turned around and said to me, “That is Charlie and he is a queer.” Charlie laughed and said very little. It turned out that we lived near each other and we gradually became friends. I was informed by my friend’s girlfriend, Belinda, who was Charlie’s mentor that Charles preferred to be called Charlene and was a transsexual. There after I always called her Charlene and used feminine pronouns in reference to her. She reawakened my earlier wonderings about winkte. I began trying to learn more about the winkte and I returned to the stories, myths and legends of the Lakota people. Dreams and visions are central in Lakota society. Nothing takes place, be it hunting, war parties, even joining particular societies, without a dream or vision quest. This dream or vision may come in various forms, as an animal, as a spirit, as a person and even as an inanimate object. These dreams and visions often determine one’s place and roll in society. There is, for example, the legend of the Double-Face Woman (Anukite). Those who dream of Anukite, who has both a male and female face become experts in the handiwork of women, quillwork, beading, tanning, dress making etc.... The males who dream of her, are required to choose between being male or female. There are also those who dream of a wakan win, a sacred woman or a buffalo cow (pte winkte). These are required to forever become a woman, marrying a man, etc.... Walter Williams describes this “choosing ceremony” in a discussion of the Omaha Indians, another plains tribe. “When an Omaha boy sees the Moon Being on his vision quest, the spirit holds in one hand a man’s bow and arrows, and in the other a woman’s pack strap. ‘When the youth tried to grasp the bow and arrows the moon being crossed his hands very quickly, and if the youth was not very careful he seized the pack strap....thereby fixing his lot in later life. In such cases he could not help acting the woman, speaking, dressing, and working just as Indian women used to do.” (Williams, The Spirit and the Flesh, p.29, quoted from James O. Dorsey, “A Study of Siouan Cults”, Bureau of American Ethology - Annual Report 11, 1889-90, p.378. It then becomes a spiritual and sacred duty and responsibility to fulfill this vision whether one desires to be a winkte or not. There are times however, that the dreamer will/would resist this dream or vision until finally one is compelled to submit to it. If one resists something terrible will happen to the family, clan or even the tribe. Sometimes one will submit only after a disaster forced one to accept his/her true nature. Lame Deer, a Lakota Holy Man said, “If nature [Wakan Tanka] puts a burden on a person by making the person different [Wakan Tanka] gives that person a special spiritual power.” (Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions, p.127). The winkte tradition, among others, makes possible an inclusive Lakota society. No one, regardless of an individual difference, is excluded from participating fully in the greater society. Indeed, among the Lakota, uniqueness and individual differences are seen as gifts and blessings from the creator placing the individual who possesses these gifts in a central ritual role within the tribe. There are four classes of “holy” or “sacred wakan” people, (1. Wapiyapi - curers, 2. Wakan kaga - performers, 3. Wicahmunga - wizards, and 4. Winkte. See William Powers, Sacred Language, p. 181 ff.) all of whom have been given, by Wakan Tanka, unique gifts. Among the Lakota, uniqueness is a blessing. This is why the Lakota can say, “Unlike white people, we Indian people throw no one away.” It is interesting that in several biographies many TG/TS women speak of their rejection of their true nature and it is only after some crisis, either emotional or physical or both, that they finally accept their true or authentic nature. After accepting herself as TS/TG the author of these biographies will often report how surprised she is at the number of people that accept her. But this is possible only after she is willing to accept herself, as herself. This is exactly what the Lakota mean when it is said that one must accept one’s nature. What does Winkte mean? Win, means “woman”; kte, is an enclitic future tense, “will be...” Winkte means ‘will be woman’. It is known by the Lakota that the winkte are given certain kinds of powers by the creator, Taku Wakan or Wankan Tanka. The Winkte is a Wakan person, a sacred person. She often has healing powers and knowledge of medicine. She is the one who gives boys’ secret sacred names, she is often called upon to participate in girl’s ceremonies. She is known for her compassion and wisdom, and often young men and women go to her for advice and guidance in matters relating to the heart and love. She is also known for her profound love of children and often is given children to raise. In addition, Winkte were also known to be excellent small game hunters but they did not go on buffalo hunts. They would however often go on war parties and were known to be very brave warriors. There is indeed a reference to a Crow Winkte who fought with Custer against the Lakota at the Little Big Horn. “Yes a Crow woman fought with Three-stars on the Rosebud, two of them did for that matter; but one of them was neither a man nor a woman. She looked like a man yet she wore a woman’s clothing; and she had the heart of a woman. Besides, she did a woman’s work. Her name was Finds-them-and kills them. She was not a man, and yet not a woman,” Pretty-shield repeated. “She was not as strong as a man, and yet she was wiser than a woman,... Two women, one of them not quite a woman, fought with Three-stars, and I hope that you will put it in a book, Sign-talker, because it is the truth.” (Frank Linderman, Pretty-shield, Medicine Woman of the Crows, p.228-231) Those that think the winkte are “sissies” are wrong. As the above demonstrates, among the Lakota, indeed among many tribes, one very important element in defining whether one is male or female is the functional role one has in the group. For example, a winkte may, at times, transcend the female role, that is, a winkte may participate in a war party but she will always return to her functional role as a woman, i.e. beading, cooking, tanning, dress making, picking berries etc.... Her humor is well known and understood, as is her anger if she is abused too much. If one should anger a Winkte she may reveal the sacred, secret name, or she may give one a very public vulgar name. Let me give you just a couple of examples of her anger and power within the tribe. One comes from an account in 1780 that explains that “Slukela haka iwoto.” Slukela bumped into haka.” Haka is a stick game and the person called Slukela gambled and lost all of his horses, weapons and all of his clothing playing haka. The name Slukela that has come down to us, and the only name that has come down to us by which this person is known, is a name given by a winkte, it means “Skinned-penis”. There is an 1872 account of someone called Anog onze who killed a couple of Crow Indians. This means “Anus at Both ends”. This name, I suspect adequately describes what a winkte thought of this particular man! Such is the power of the winkte. (Walker, Lakota Society, p.127,14) The winkte is accepted because she is part of Creation, she may be unique, she may be different but that uniqueness is what makes her sacred and honored by the tribe. To quote again from Leslie Marmon Silko, “Persons born with exceptional physical or sexual differences were highly respected and honored because their physical differences gave them special positions as mediators between this world and the spiritual world.” (p.67) What I would like to focus the remainder of my time on is the notion of sexuality and gender. There are a number of books, including Walter Williams, The Spirit of the Flesh, Roscoe, The Zuni Man-Woman, Changing Ones, Lang, Men as Women Women as Men, Jacob, Thomas, Lay, eds, Two Spirit People, etc... all of which address this question but in some minor details I disagree with them. It seems to me that while those who speak of the “Two Spirit” tradition and present this tradition as genuinely more complex and interesting than traditional binary stuff are still not adequately describing the winkte tradition because the Two Spirit notion still relies on the sex organ relationship. Too often even these scholars seem to still be focused on what is between people’s legs and fail to understand that there is more going on when it comes to the winkte. There are, among many Native Peoples a notion of two sexes and four or more genders: 1. Male sex organs - Male gender 2. Female sex organs - Female gender 3. Male sex organs - Female gender 4. Female sex organs - Male gender This is an interesting concept and it goes very much against the traditional monotheistic two sex/two gender model; what can be called the binary notion of sex and gender that dominates western society. It is this notion that lead to the Two-Spirit concept that became popular in about 1990. I mentioned that I did not want to focus on this Two-Spirit tradition. Now I will explain. I may be wrong but it seems to me that much of the so called Two-Spirit tradition focuses upon same sex/same gender relationships. While I am not making any kind of value statement, I will argue that the winkte tradition has little to do with same sex/same gender relationships; that in fact they were/are not same sex relationships. Did traditional wintke take a husband or male lover? The answer is usually, yes. Was this a same sex relationship? I believe the answer is NO! The reason this is not a traditional same sex relationship is because the winkte is a gender woman and NOT A MALE. According to Lakota tradition it is quite natural that a man would desire a woman, and that a woman would desire a man. A winkte is a woman, she would of course, desire a male partner. What is really important to note here is to remember the focus IS NOT UPON SEX BUT UPON GENDER. THE GENDER ONE IS, IS MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE SEXUAL ORGANS ONE POSSESSES. It is a same sex relationship only and only if one buys into the binary, monotheistic model of sex and gender. If one understands the two sex, four gender paradigm, then one must understand that gender, that is, what one KNOWS ONESELF TO BE, is much more important than the sexual organs one happens to possess. That is not to say that sexual organs are unimportant, clearly in most cases they are important. However, [by winkte tradition] sex organs alone can not and do not make one a female or male. The sacredness of the winkte, that which makes her wakasa, sacred, has nothing to do with her sex organs, but everything to do with her gender. She is wakasa because she has the unique ability to see the totality of the world, not just from a male perspective, nor only a female, but both. She is both male and female, and neither male nor female. She lives in a world that understands both and denies neither; she lives in that unique sacred space where only she can be.... - that space where all of us existed before the beginning of gender and sexual differences. When the winkte observes the world, when she confronts the world and all that appears in the world, she does not desire “to know” the world, or even to transform the secrets imbedded in Creation; on the contrary she is engulfed in the very mystery of existence and desires to emphasize those very mysteries as mysteries. There is in the winkte a unique and dynamic relationship that exists between her, the SUBJECT-KNOWER, and the universe, the OBJECT-KNOWN that can be expressed only by accepting, without question, that very mystery that envelops the object, the world. Sacred space does not mean that she should walk around with head bowed and hands folded. Nor does it mean that she is a goddess or priestess of some sort. Nor does it mean that she can perform some sort of miracle. Her sacredness lies in her every day ordinariness. The winkte are not seen as a threat to her society but rather are seen in the words of Marjorie Anne Napewastewin Schutzer, “...an affirmation of humanity’s original pregendered unity ,,,,representative of a form of solidarity and wholeness which transcends the divisions of humans into men and women.” (http://www.gendys.mcmail.com/welgndys/conf/trilogy/winkte.htm) To be sacred in the Lakota way means to have ones feet firmly planted in the earth, to know who you are and to know where you are physically standing and to know that place is sacred because you are standing there. CONCLUSION When our societies finally recognize the transgendered person, as the person he/she is, we will open ourselves to the possibility of new unique, wonderful, and as yet not completely realized, contributions to society. By this recognition of the sacredness of the transgendered person, we will be able to recognize the sacredness in all humans. We will be able to live in a world where all possibilities exist, where it will be possible for all of us to see ourselves as something precious and thus the violent outbursts of fear, ignorance and hatred will disappear and no one will have to fight for his/her place in society, everyone will have a place, a special and sacred place. Indian people say, ”Everyone is sacred, we have no throw away people.” The transgendered, the winkte who observes herself, who reflects upon herself, and who recalls her near or distant past, instead of giving herself over to the ordinary activities of life is free to be herself. The failure to satisfy this need will and does compromise all possible equilibrium. Even if she incurs grave dangers in meeting this need, it is even more dangerous to refuse this summons, to be who one is born to be, a winkte. To be a winkte, to be transgendered, has little to do with sexual orientation and a great deal to do with gender identity. To be transgendered is to deny the rigid binary of political monotheism and to embrace that which is sacred within. It is to open oneself to the totality of oneself and thereby to the other. The connection between the traditional notion of the winkte and the contemporary transgendered community, lies, I believe in this spiritual realm where one accepts oneself and this acceptance opens all other possibilities. When society understands gender as a continuum and not as some rigidly defined system, we will finally be able to develop wacin kiciyuzapi, Mutual Respect for all of Wakan Tanka’s Creations. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Allan, Paula Gunn, The Sacred Hoop. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986, 1992 Blackwood, Evelyne, and Wieringa, Saskia E., Editors, Same-Sex Relations and Female Desires. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999 Herdt, Gilbert, Third Sex, Third Gender. New York: Zone Books, 1996 Jacobs, Sue-Ellen, Thomas, Wesley and Lang, Sabine, editors, Two Spirit People. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997 Lang, Sabine, Men as Women, Women as Men. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998 Linderman, Frank, B. Pretty-shield, Medicine Woman of the Crows. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1932 Powers, William K. Sacred Language, The Nature of Supernatural Discourse in Lakota. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986 Roscoe, Will. The Zuni Man-Woman. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1991 ____________. Changing Ones. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998 Silko, Leslie Marmon. Yellow Woman and the Beauty of the Spirit. New York: Touchstone Books, 1996 Williams, Walter. The Spirit and the Flesh. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998 =====
