The current world only recognizes two genders: male and female, with no room for in-betweens; anyone else who identifies differently is perceived as deviant. When the Europeans and other nations of North America perceive one thing as the norm, then anything that contrasts it is considered abnormal. Subsequently, the world is denied the pleasure of enjoying the great diversity of human existence. This has been reflected in today’s idea of gender and the roles associated with each. Currently, people identifying as gays are struggling to find a place and acceptance in society. At the same time, most American Indian societies have a diversity of sex roles that go beyond how the traditions define them. These cultures have established distinct alternatives to “male” or “female.” The alternative roles in most of the American Indian societies are what is known as berdache by anthropologists. Berdache played significant spiritual, artistic, and intellectual roles in most of the American Indian societies. These roles accorded them social prestige within society.
A person regarded as berdache is considered hermaphroditic; they are neither grouped as women nor men. In other words, a berdache is a “morphological male who does not fill a society’s standard man’s role, who has a non-masculine character” (Williams 73). According to a respected Mohave leader, a child’s desire to become a berdache is detected before they reach puberty, when they are between nine and twelve years (Williams 77). This is the period they begin to identify with their sex and experience numerous physiological changes (Williams 77). They have a mediating function between the two genders as they mix the dress, behavior, and social roles of both men and women. Berdaches play significant roles in their respective religions and families.
The berdache tradition signifies the extent of human diversity in the world today and in the years before. Berdaches are acknowledged differently in the Native American religions through their creation stories. For instance, the people of Kamia of the Southwest acknowledge Warhami as the founder of their culture; Warhami is known to have both male and woman spirits. Further, the creation story of the Zuni involves a transformation of the kachina spirits, the agricultural Zunis, to become a mediator between hunters and farmers. The deities in the Zunis story created berdache to improve their society by bringing peace between the hunters and farmers. The Zuni reenact this story up to this day to justify the presence of berdache in each generation.
Therefore, the reason why behaviors associated with berdache are considered deviant in Western cultures but accepted by Native speakers is that the latter encourages respect for nature. If nature causes a person to be different, then the Indians, for example, believe that no human is in a position to counter such a spiritual dictate. Unlike Western cultures, the Native American religions consider berdachism as a reflection of spirituality rather than alien or threatening. They embrace and accommodate people considered “unusual,” keeping them away from the stigmatization of being abnormal. To them, this is an expression of diversity, but a modern society with all the arrogance classifies this as deviant behavior. For Indians, a person is what the universe or his dreams shape him (Williams 77). They embrace them for what they want to be because that is a personal decision; they do not box people to conform to their expectations.
Work Cited
Williams, Walter. “The Berdache Tradition”. Crl.Ucsd.Edu, 1995, Web.