Aboriginal Views of Animal Homosexuality and Transgender

Ideas about animal (and human) homosexuality/transgender figure prominently in three cultural complexes on different continents: native North America, the tribes of New Guinea/Melanesia, and indigenous Siberian/Arctic peoples. Beliefs about sexual and gender variability in animals recur systematically throughout many of the cultures in each of these areas and are paralleled by a corresponding recognition and valuation of human homosexuality and transgender. Although these are by no means the only cultures in the world where such beliefs exist, a relatively extensive body of anthropological research has documented the indigenous views on this subject particularly well for these regions. These cultures offer a useful introduction to aboriginal systems of knowledge concerning gender and sexuality and may be taken as representative of the sorts of worldviews that are likely to be encountered in other indigenous cultures.² Moreover, the forms that such beliefs take show striking similarities in each of these regions. Aboriginal ideas about animal homosexuality and transgender are encoded in four principal cultural forms: totemic or symbolic associations of animals with human homosexuality and transgender; beliefs about mutable or nondualistic gender(s) of particular species, often represented in the figure of a powerful cross-gendered animal or in sacred stories (“myths”) about sexual and gender variability in animals; ceremonial reenactments or representations of animal homosexuality and transgender, sometimes combined with ritual reversals of ordinary activities; and animal husbandry practices that encourage and value intersexual and/or nonreproductive creatures.³

NORTH AMERICA: Two-Spirit, Shape-Shifter, Trickster-Transformer

Most Native American tribes formally recognize—and honor—human homosexuality and transgender in the role of the “two-spirit” person (sometimes formerly known as a berdache). The two-spirit is a sacred man or woman who mixes gender categories by wearing clothes of the opposite or both sexes, doing both male and female (or primarily “opposite-gender”) activities, and often engaging in same-sex relations. As is true for homosexual and/or transgendered individuals in many other indigenous cultures around the world, two-spirit people are frequently shamans, healers, or intermediaries in their communities, performing religious and/or mediating functions (e.g., between the sexes, or between the human, animal, and spirit realms).⁴ In many Native American cultures, certain animals are also symbolically associated with two-spiritedness, often in the form of creation myths and origin legends relating to the first or “supernatural” two-spirit(s). Among the Oto people, for example, Elk (Wapiti) is described as cross-dressing in several origin legends and is considered the original two-spirit; consequently, two-spirits in this culture always belong to the Elk clan.⁵ A Zuni creation story relates how the first two-spirits—creatures that were neither male nor female, yet both at the same time—were the twelve offspring of a mythical brother-sister pair. Some of these creatures were human, but one was a bat and another an old buck Deer.⁶ In “How the Salmon Were Brought to This World,” a Nuxalk (Bella Coola) story that describes the origin of food, the first two-spirit accompanies all the animals (including a Raven, cormorant, crane, osprey, hawk, and mink) on a long canoe journey in their quest for the first salmon. Each of the animals finds a different kind of salmon, while the two-spirit brings back the first berries for people to eat. A mythic journey is also featured in the origin tale of the Kamia (Tipai/Southern Diegueño) people, in which the divine two-spirit and his/her twin sons use the feathers from a number of birds—among them, the crow—to make headdresses.⁷ Finally, the Mothway origin story of the Navajo relates the adventures of an extraordinary figure known as Be’gochidí. Divine trickster, shape-shifter, world-creator, and two-spirit, Be’gochidí is a blond (or red-haired), blue-eyed god who mediates between animals and humans, men and women, and Navajos and non-Navajos. S/he is also intimately associated with Butterflies: born at the ancestral home of Moths and Butterflies, Be’gochidí is responsible for raising the Butterfly People and frequently indulges in fondling or masturbation of both male and female Butterflies.⁸

In other Native American cultures, animal associations with transgender and homosexuality take the form of personal vision quests or totemic creatures linked with two-spirits. Among various Siouan peoples such as the Dakota, Lakota, and Ponca, for example, a man or woman becomes two-spirited if his or her sacred dreaming involves Buffalo (especially a hermaphrodite Buffalo or a white Buffalo calf), or if he or she has a vision of Double-Woman, who often appears in the form of a Black-tailed (Mule) Deer. An Omaha (Sioux) man’s calling to be a two-spirit might be announced by an owl.⁹ Among the Tsistsistas (Cheyenne), a vision quest involving the thunderbird (typically identified with the golden eagle or Harris’s hawk) destines an individual to become a member of the Contrary Society, a group of men who are (heterosexually) celibate, do everything the opposite way, and sometimes have relations with two-spirit people. Those manifesting sexual and gender variance (contraries and two-spirits) may also be symbolically associated with birds that have orange-red coloration, such as orioles or tanagers, and possibly also with Dragonflies.¹⁰ The Arapaho people believe that two-spirit is a blessing bestowed as a supernatural gift from birds or mammals, while Hidatsa two-spirits typically wear Magpie feathers in their hair as part of ceremonial dress. This symbolizes their connection to powerful holy women who are associated with Magpies in this culture.¹¹ In some cases, individual two-spirit shamans may invoke the powers of specific animals, such as a Wolf tutelary for the Tolowa two-spirit shaman Tsoi’tsoi and a Grizzly Bear tutelary for the two-spirit shaman haywí

of the Snoqualmie (Lushootseed/Puget Sound Salish) people.¹²

Bears play a further role in Native American cultures with regard to homosexuality /transgender. A fascinating association between (of all things) left-handed Bears and two-spiritedness reappears in many tribes throughout North America.¹³ In a number of First Nations—for example, the Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka), Kutenai, Keres, and Winnebago—the Bear is seen as a powerful cross-gendered figure. In these tribes, Bears are thought to combine elements of both masculinity and femininity, and they are also seen as mediators between the sexes and between humans and animals (much like the role of the human two-spirit, which is also recognized in all these tribes). Their strength, size, and ferocity are considered quintessentially male attributes, yet Bears are often perceived as female in these cultures and referred to with feminine pronouns and terms of address regardless of their biological sex. In addition, many of the prominent Bear stories and ceremonies concern female Bears, especially the omnipotent, life-giving Bear Mother figure (who often engages in mythic marriage, sexual intercourse, or transformation with humans).¹⁴ There is also a consistent association between Bears and menstruation. A number of Native American peoples have beliefs about the dangers of women going into the forest during their period, since it is thought that they will attract Bears who may try to mate with (or attack) them. Other tribes mythologically connect Bears to menstrual blood or consider Bears to be powerfully drawn to human females in other respects, especially at the onset of puberty.¹⁵

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

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

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

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

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

Ceremonial “performances” of sexual and gender variability occur in several other Native American sacred animal rites, such as the Massaum ceremony of the Tsistsistas (Cheyenne) people. Also known as the “Crazy” or “Contrary” Animal Dance (from the word massa’ne meaning foolish, crazy, or acting contrary to normal), this 2,000-year-old world-renewal festival was performed annually on the Northern Plains until the early 1900s. Timed with key celestial events in the midsummer sky (including the solstitial alignment of three stellar risings), the Massaum ceremonial cycle invokes and draws upon the powers of two-spirit and “contrary” shamans in order to reinvigorate the earth and all its inhabitants. The five-day ritual is thought to have been bequeathed to the Tsistsistas people by the prophet Motseyoef, an immortal androgynous shaman who presides over each reenactment of the rite in the form of a human representative. A prominent feature of the Massaum is a pair of sacred Bison horns, originally taken from a hermaphrodite Buffalo. Among the central participants are a set of sacred male and female canids, all impersonated by men dressed in animal skins and imitating the actions of the creatures: two wolves—a male red (or yellow) wolf and a female white (or Gray) Wolf—as well as a female kit (or blue) fox. As master hunters, game protectors, and messengers from the spirit world, these animals teach humans how to hunt with the proper reverence and skill. The Massaum culminates with a ritual hunt of epic proportions, in which nearly a sixth of the Tsistsistas population participates by impersonating all the various creatures of their world. Each species is “led” by someone who has dreamed of that animal acting in a peculiar way. On the final day, the androgynous contrary shamans begin their sacred clowning, doing things backward and generally acting in an eccentric manner. As part of their holy “craziness,” they symbolically hunt the animals, “shooting” them with special miniature bows and arrows held in a reversed position. Upon ritually killing each creature, they immediately bring it back to life, thereby assisting in the divine regeneration and fertilization of the earth. By uniting primordial opposites within themselves and in their actions, the two-spirit and contrary shamans are seen by the Tsistsistas as instrumental in restoring wholeness to the world.²¹

Ritual transgender is also enacted in the Buffalo Ceremony of the Oglala Dakota, a girl’s puberty rite presided over by a shaman dressed as a Bison. During this ceremony the shaman combines attributes of both male and female Buffalo: he imitates the courting behavior of a Bison bull, but his face is painted with a pattern symbolic of a Bison cow, and he is designated with the word for a female Buffalo. Likewise in a Hopi Buffalo dance, the men portraying Bison wear some articles of women’s clothing, while female dancers also don some men’s garments. In other sacred kachina ceremonies of the Pueblo peoples, some female animal figures are impersonated by male dancers. The Hopi goddess Talatumsi, or Dawn Woman, for example, who is the mother of Bighorn Sheep-men, is portrayed by a man dressed as a female Mountain Sheep. The bawdy kachina clowns in Hopi ceremonies sometimes simulate sexual intercourse with a burro, one man pretending to be the animal while the other mounts him from behind. The Zuni animal fertility goddess Chakwena —mother of rabbits and other game animals—is also impersonated by a man: s/he performs symbolic versions of female reproductive powers, including ritual menstruation in the form of rabbit blood dripped down his/her legs, and a four-day ceremonial enactment of childbirth. Ritual animal birth can also be associated with Wintu two-spirit shamans: one man, for example, was believed to experience menstrual periods and was thought to have given birth to a pair of snakes.²²

Native American rites and beliefs about sexual and gender diversity sometimes also extend to the sphere of animal husbandry, for example among the Navajo. Consummate shepherds and goatherds, these Southwestern people have developed sophisticated animal-management techniques over the many centuries of tending their domesticated herds. Yet their practical knowledge is also informed by the Navajo recognition and honoring of gender and sexual variability in all creatures. Traditionally, hermaphrodite Sheep and Goats are considered integral and prized members of the flock, since they are thought to increase the other animals’ productivity and bring prosperity. For this reason they are never killed, and their presence is further encouraged by several ritual practices. When hunters catch an intersexual Deer, Pronghorn, or Mountain Sheep, for example, they rub its genitals on the tails of their domesticated female herd animals and on the noses of the males, as this is believed to result in more hermaphrodite Sheep and Goats being born into the flocks. In addition, rennet from the stomachs of intersexual animals is rubbed on Sheep to increase their growth and milk production. This convergent valuing of transgender in both wild and domesticated animals is reflected in Navajo mythology and cosmology: Be‘gochidí, the divine two-spirit described earlier, is regarded as the creator of both game animals and domesticated creatures. S/he is also god of the hunt and a tutelary who instructs humans in stalking techniques and hunting rituals, as well as a prankster who sneaks up on hunters and causes them to lose their aim by grabbing their testicles. Some of the hunting rituals associated with Be’gochidí also involve ceremonial reversals. For example, the skin of a slain Deer, after being removed from the animal, is repositioned with the head resting on the carcass’s rump, sometimes with the Deer’s tail placed in its own mouth.²³

NEW GUINEA: Male Mothers and the Living Secret of Androgyny

In addition to reappearing in the native cultures of North America, beliefs about animal (and human) homosexuality/transgender also feature prominently among the indigenous peoples of New Guinea and Melanesia. Homosexuality is an important aspect of human social and ceremonial interactions in many tribes, while homosexual or transgendered animals are an equally pervasive aspect of their belief systems. In a number of cultures, all males undergo a period of homosexual initiation lasting for several years (from prepuberty to young adulthood). Semen from adult men is considered a vital substance for “masculinizing” boys, and therefore adults “inseminate” younger males through oral or anal intercourse. Other forms of sexual and gender variance also exist: the Sambia and Bimin-Kuskusmin cultures, for instance, recognize a “third sex” among humans (applied to hermaphrodites or intersexed individuals), and the Sambia also have a prominent origin myth involving male parthenogenesis, in which the first people were believed to be created through homosexual fellatio. Ceremonial transvestism occurs in some New Guinean tribes as well, along with beliefs and ceremonies relating to “male menstruation” (often ritualized as bloodletting of the penis).²⁴ A number of animals are symbolically and ceremonially associated with homosexuality in these cultures as well. Among the Sambia, for example, plumes from several birds, including the Raggiana’s Bird of Paradise, the kalanga parrot, and several species of lorikeets (a type of parakeet), are ritually worn by boys and adolescents to mark their various stages of initiation and participation in homosexual activities. Homosexual bonding among the Ai’i people is emblematized by two men sharing a bird of paradise totem, which also connotes the joint land-holding rights of the male couple. And in the Marind-anim tribe, the wallaby, jabiru stork, and cassowary are symbolically associated with homosexuality.²⁵

Beliefs about variant gender systems in animals—including all-female offspring and various forms of sex change—also occur in several New Guinean cultures.²⁶ Opossums, Tree Kangaroos, and other tree-dwelling marsupials are thought by the Sambia to start out life as females, with only some individuals later becoming male once they reach adulthood.²⁷ Thus, the life cycle of these species, in the indigenous conception, involves a sort of sequential sex change for animals that end up as male. In contrast, the nungetnyu —a kind of bird of paradise or bowerbird—is thought to exist only in female form throughout its life. The Sambia liken the communal courtship dances of this species to their own dance ceremonies, except with a gender inversion (all-female bird groups versus all-male human groups).²⁸ Other birds are thought to go through multiple sex changes: they start out life as female, then some briefly become male birds as adults and develop brightly colored plumage, after which they revert back to a female form (with dull plumage) in their old age. The Bimin-Kuskusmin also believe that several species of birds of paradise go through multiple gender transformations during their lives, but with the opposite sequence: the brightly plumaged individuals are considered to be females and the drably plumaged ones to be males. Likewise, a daily oscillation between genders is attributed to a species of nightjar: these nocturnal birds are thought to be either male or female in the daytime but both male and female at night.²⁹ Parallel ideas about sex change in sago beetles and their grubs are held by the Bedamini, Onabasulu, and Bimin-Kuskusmin peoples.

Perhaps the most extraordinary example of beliefs about ambiguous or contradictory genders in animals concerns the cassowary. A large, flightless, ostrichlike bird of New Guinea and northern Australia, the cassowary is considered by many New Guinean peoples to be an androgynous or gender-mixing creature, and it often assumes a preeminent mythic status in these cultures. The cassowary possesses many of the physical attributes of strength, audacity, and ferocity that are traditionally considered masculine in these cultures. It has powerful legs, feet, and razor-sharp claws (capable of inflicting serious, even lethal, injuries to people); a dinosaur-like bony helmet or “casque” (used for crashing through the jungle); dangerously sharp spines or quills in place of wing feathers; booming calls (described as “warlike trumpet barks”); bright blue and red neck skin with pendulous, fleshy wattles; and an imposing size (over five feet tall and 100 pounds in some species). Yet numerous New Guinean peoples also regard the cassowary to be an all-female species (or for each bird to be simultaneously male and female) and often associate them with culturally feminine elements.

The cassowary is considered a powerfully androgynous creature by many indigenous New Guinean peoples. This is the one-wattled cassowary (Casuarius unappendiculatus).

The Sambia, for instance, consider all cassowaries to be “masculinized females,” that is, biologically female birds that nevertheless lack a vagina and possess masculine attributes (they’re thought to reproduce or “give birth” through the anus). Similarly, the cassowary is perceived as an androgynous figure by the Mianmin people: the bird is thought to have a penis, yet all cassowaries are considered female. One Mianmin tale actually recounts how a woman with a penis was transformed into a cassowary, and this mythological trope is found in the sacred stories of several other New Guinean peoples. Other cultures elevate the cassowary to a prominent position in their traditional cosmologies and origin myths as a generative figure, a powerful female creator of food and human life. The cassowary is believed to combine elements of femininity and masculinity in many other tribes, a number of whom also practice ritualized homosexuality, such as the Kaluli and Keraki. Finally, in a striking parallel to the cross-gendered Bear figure of many Native American cultures, the androgynous cassowary is also considered an intermediary, of sorts, between the animal and human worlds. In addition to mythic transformations and marriages between people and cassowaries, in several tribes this creature is not classified as a bird at all, but is grouped in the same category as human beings because of its size and upright, two-legged gait. Combining images of male-female and bird-mammal, the Waris and Arapesh peoples also believe that cassowaries suckle their young from their neck wattles or wing quills, which are found in both male and female birds.³⁰

Ritual performance of the cassowary’s gender-mixing also occurs. Among the Umeda people, for example, a central feature of the tribe’s Ida fertility rite involves two cassowary dancers whose costumes, movements, and symbolism combine both male and female elements. The dancers impersonating the birds are both men and are called by a name that refers to male cassowaries. Yet they are identified with the ancestral mothers of the tribe (who act as female tutelary spirits to the dancers), and the entire ceremony is said to have belonged in mythic times only to women and was performed without men. Each cassowary dancer also has an exaggerated phallus consisting of a large black gourd worn over the head of his penis, but the enormous mask/headdress that he carries (representing the cassowary’s plumage as well as a palm tree) is imbued with feminine symbolism (in the form of its inner layer of underbark). The dancing of the cassowary impersonators emphasizes their male sexuality: they rhythmically hop and move their hips in such a way that their penis gourds flip upward and strike their belts in a motion that imitates copulation, and their phallic organs are said to become enormously elongated during the all-night ceremony. At the same time, the two men frequently hold hands and dance as a pair, activities that are otherwise seen only in female dancers among the Umeda.³¹

The figure of the gender-mixing cassowary reaches its greatest elaboration among the Bimin-Kuskusmin people. In the belief system of this remote tribe of the central New Guinea highlands, the cassowary presides over an entire pantheon of androgynous and sex-transforming animals, and it is physically embodied in the form of special human representatives that ritually enact its transgendered characteristics. In addition to the cassowary and sex-changing birds and grubs mentioned previously, numerous other creatures are believed to combine male and female attributes in the worldview and mythology of the Bimin-Kuskusmin. Several species of marsupials, a bowerbird, and a python are all considered androgynous or hermaphroditic. The wild boar is regarded as a feminized male that never breeds but instead fertilizes androgynous plants with its semen and menstrual blood. And a species of centipede is thought to be female on its left side and male on its right, using its venom to bring life to other androgynous centipedes and death to nonan-drogynous creatures.

At the pinnacle of this transgendered bestiary stands the creator figures of Afek, the masculinized female cassowary, along with her brother/son/consort Yomnok, a feminized male fruit bat or echidna (the latter being a spiny anteater, an egg-laying mammal related to the platypus). Both are descended from a powerful double-gendered monitor lizard and are believed to be hermaphrodites possessing breasts and a combined penis-clitoris. Afek gives birth through two vaginas (one in each buttock), while Yomnok gives birth through his/her penis-clitoris. The gender-mixing of these mythical figures parallels the way they straddle the categories of bird and mammal: the cassowary is a “mammallike” bird—huge, ferocious, flightless, with furlike feathers—while the echidna is a “birdlike mammal”—small, beaked, and egg-laying (the fruit bat is also birdlike, being a flying mammal).

The Bimin-Kuskusmin elect certain people in their tribe to become the sacred representatives and lifelong human embodiments of these primordial creatures: they undergo special initiations and thenceforth ritually reenact and display the intersexuality of their animal ancestors. Two postmenopausal female elders in the clan are chosen to represent Afek: they undergo male scarification rituals, experience symbolic veiling or dissolution of their marriages and children, adhere to combined male and female food taboos, receive male names, and are awarded both male and female hunting and gardening tools. During ceremonial functions—in which they are sometimes referred to as “male mothers”—they ornament themselves with cassowary plumes, often cross-dress in male regalia, or wear exaggerated breasts combined with an erect penis-clitoris made of red pandanus fruit. Physically intersexual or hermaphrodite members of the tribe are selected to be the embodiments of Yomnok. They are adorned with echidna quills or dried fruit-bat penises, wear both male and female clothing and body decorations, sport an erect penis-clitoris (made from black, salt-filled bamboo tubes) during rituals, and are lifelong celibates.³² In each case, these living human representatives of the primal animal androgynes become highly revered and powerful figures in the tribe. They apply their sacred double-gendered power in curing, divination, purification, and initiation rites and officiate at ceremonies that require the esoteric manipulation and mediation of both male and female essences. Above all, these transgendered and nonreproductive “animal-people” are symbols of fertility, fecundity, and growth—corporeal manifestations of what one cassowary man-woman calls “the hidden secret of androgyny … inside the living center of the life force.”³³

Ritualized “performances” of homosexuality combined with animal imagery are also found in the extraordinary initiation and circumcision rites of several cultures of Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides), including the Nduindui and Vao peoples. During these secret ceremonies, symbolic homosexual intercourse is enacted or implied between young male initiates and their elder initiators or ancestral male spirits. Along with other ritual inversions of everyday activities or breaking of taboos during the rites, these ceremonial homosexual activities are thought to imbue the participants with an unusually intense, dangerous, and glorious power. All of these activities coalesce around the image of the shark. The ceremonies are known as shark rites; participants wear elaborate shark headdresses; the initiators /elder partners in actual or symbolic homosexual relationships are referred to as sharks; the rituals are staged in enclosures that symbolize a shark’s mouth; and circumcision itself is likened to the bite of a shark. In some cases there is a connection to other gender-mixing creatures. During the enactment of ceremonial homosexual overtures or intercourse, for example, participants sometimes refer to hermaphrodite Pigs, and the story of one Vanuatu culture hero bearing the title of “shark” tells how his son brought intersexual Pigs to several islands. The linked themes of androgyny and Pigs also appear in narratives from outside the Vanuatu region, for example among the Sabarl people. In their tale “The Girl Who Dressed as a Boy,” a young woman adopts warrior paraphernalia—and later assumes the full garb of a man—during a heroic encounter with a giant Pig who is the offspring of an androgynous creator god.³⁴

Gender-mixing Pigs also feature prominently in another fascinating Vanuatu cultural practice that honors sexual and gender variance in animals (in some cases alongside ritual human homosexuality/transgender). Hermaphrodite Pigs are highly prized in a number of Vanuatu societies, being valued for their uniqueness and relative rarity. Although only a minority of Pigs are intersexual, their husbandry is an esteemed pursuit (especially in the northern and central regions), and animal breeding practices that result in hermaphrodite offspring are encouraged. As a result, nearly every village in some areas has intersexual Pigs, and gender-mixing animals comprise a fairly high proportion of the total domesticated Pig population, perhaps as much as 10–20 percent in some regions. In fact, on these islands there are more hermaphrodite mammals—probably numbering in the thousands—than anywhere else in the world. These intersexual Pigs possess internal male reproductive organs and typically grow tusks like boars (although they are sterile), yet their external genitalia are intermediate between those of males and females, tending toward the female. Behaviorally, they often become sexually aroused in the presence of females and may even mount other females while exhibiting clitoral erections. Among the people of Sakao, seven distinct “genders” of hermaphrodite Pigs are recognized and named, ranging along a continuum from those with the most femalelike genitalia to those that are truly ambiguous to those with the most malelike genitalia. The indigenous classification of these gradations of intersexuality exceeds in completeness any conceptual or nomenclatural system developed by Western science. So precise is this vocabulary, in fact, that the native terminology was actually adopted by the first Western biologist who studied the phenomenon in order to distinguish the various types of gender mixing.

In these Vanuatu cultures, hermaphrodite Pigs are a status symbol of sorts, since their ritual sacrifice is required to achieve progressively higher rank within the society (they are also used in dowries). In some cases, a sophisticated monetary system and trading network has developed in which pigs actually function as a type of currency, complete with forms of “pig credit” and “pig compound interest.” In this system, intersexual Pigs (and the sows that produce them) can be worth up to twice as much as nonintersexual Pigs. The prestige of these animals also extends to the domestic sphere: hermaphrodite Pigs are often depicted on finely carved household items such as plates and bowls, and intersexual Pigs are sometimes kept as pets. They may even become highly valued “family members,” to the point of being suckled by a woman like one of her own children. Moreover, men who raise tusked Pigs (either boars or hermaphrodites) are in some cases viewed as sexually ambiguous or androgynous themselves, since their intimate tending and nurturing of the Pigs is thought to parallel the mother-child relationship. Simultaneously “father” and “mother” to the creatures, they constitute another example of the indigenous concept of “male motherhood” as it pertains to animals.³⁵

SIBERIA/ARCTIC: Reversal and Renewal, Traversal and Transmutation

A similar constellation of phenomena concerning animal homosexuality and transgender is found among the numerous indigenous cultures scattered across Siberia and the Arctic (including the Inuit and Yup’ik [Eskimos] of arctic North America).³⁶ Aboriginal Siberian shamans often harness the power of cross-gender animal spirit guides or assume characteristics of the opposite sex under the direction of spirit animals. The most powerful male shamans among the Sakha (Yakut) people, for example, are believed to undergo a three-year initiation during which they experience aspects of female reproduction, including giving birth to a series of spirit animals (such as a Raven, loon, pike, Bear, or Wolf). Some female shamans also claim to manifest their power by transforming themselves into a male Horse. Gender reversals and recombinations are most prominently expressed in the phenomenon known as the transformed shaman, a sacred man or woman who takes on aspects of an opposite-sex identity. Transformation ranges along a continuum from a simple name-change, to partial or full transvestism during shamanic rituals, to living permanently as a transgendered person (including marrying a husband in the case of a transformed male or marrying a wife for a transformed female). Among the Chukchi, transformed shamans are sometimes associated with animal powers through spirit-name adoptions and animal transmutations. One such male shaman was named She-Walrus, for instance, while another believed s/he had the ability to change into a Bear when curing patients. Animal gender transformations that parallel those of shamans are also encoded in sacred stories. Among the Koryak, for example, a mythological figure named White-Whale-Woman turns herself into a man and marries another woman. In another story s/he marries a male Raven who has turned himself into a woman (and whose son later gives birth to a boy).³⁷

The ornate and beautiful costumes worn by shamans in many Siberian cultures often combine animal impersonation with cross-dressing. The robes, headdresses, and footgear of male shamans among the Yukaghir, Evenk, and Koryak people, for example, are usually women’s garments adorned with animal imagery. This may include an “antlered cap” bearing a symbolic representation of Reindeer antlers, or two iron circles representing breasts sewn to the front of the cloak. These sacred vestments—often made from an entire animal skin—are believed to allow the shaman to incarnate an animal or undertake supernatural bird-flight during trance, and s/he often performs dances that closely imitate the movements of a particular species that serves as his/her tutelary spirit. Shamanic ceremonies in a number of Siberian tribes also sometimes involve all-male dances imitating the mating activities of various animals, aimed at promoting sexual activity and a “renewal of life.” The word for shaman in the Samoyed language actually has the same root as the words to rut (of a stag) or to mate (of game birds). Chukchi transformed shamans do not generally wear special garments or impersonate animals; however, female-to-male shamans sometimes wear a dildo made from a Reindeer’s calf muscle, attached to a leather belt. In addition, Chukchi women and girls who are not shamans often perform all-female dances imitating various species, including white-fronted geese, long-tailed ducks, swans, Walruses, and seals. Some of these dances actually represent the courtship displays of male Ruffs or rutting Reindeer, and dances may also conclude with two girls lying on the ground and simulating sexual intercourse with each other.³⁸

Reindeer (known as Caribou in North America) are regarded in the shamanic contexts of some Arctic cultures as powerful transgendered creatures belonging to the supernaturàl. The Iglulik Inuit (Eskimo), for example, believe in mythical Caribou known as Silaat (in their male form) or Pukit (in their female form; singular Pukiq). These enormous animals are swifter and stronger than ordinary Caribou, can create dangerous weather conditions, and are thought to hatch from giant eggs on the tundra (sometimes identified with actual wild-goose eggs). The males wear female adornments on their robes (such as white pendants) and can transform themselves into females (some Silaat also assume the form of bearded seals or Polar Bears). The Silaat/Pukit also serve as spirit guides to shamans: one shamanic initiate named Qingailisaq tells of encountering a herd of such creatures, one of whom metamorphosed into a woman. The other Silaat then instructed him to make a shaman’s cloak that resembled her garment. The robe Qingailisaq created combines both male and female elements: in pattern and overall style it resembles a man’s coat, but in its ornaments and decoration it is similar to women’s clothes. The cloak’s white pendants evoke the garments of the transgendered Caribou, and an embroidered image of a transformed white Caribou or Pukiq adorns each shoulder. These Caribou are thought to be the original male descendants of Sila, a powerful deity and life force associated with gender variability. The Iglulik Inuit culture is based on a ternary gender system that recognizes a “third sex” or gender category. This encompasses a number of different cross-gendering phenomena such as “transsexuals” (people believed to have physically changed sex at birth), transvestites (people who adopt or are assigned the clothes, name, and other markers of the opposite sex), and shamans (who may be fully transgendered, or combine various male and female elements, or undergo mythic transformations between sexes and species). Sila occupies a central position in the Inuit cosmology as an intermediary between gender poles, and Sila’s descendants—the transgendered Caribou—are a further manifestation of this bridging and synthesis of “opposites” (male and female, animal and human).³⁹

Some Inuit peoples share with Native American tribes the belief that Bears—in this case, Polar Bears—manifest qualities of gender mixing and left-handedness.⁴⁰ In Siberian cultures, however, the association of Bears with sexual and gender variability is most notable in the activities generally known as Bear ceremonialism. A pan-Siberian religious complex, Bear ceremonialism involves the ritual killing of a Bear, whose skin and head are then placed on a sacred platform and feted for many days. Among the Ob-Ugrian peoples, these carnivalesque ceremonies involve feasting, dancing, the singing of sacred epics, and the performing of satirical plays. The latter typically include bawdy displays of transvestism: all female roles are played by men, who often simulate sex acts with one another. In ecstatic ritual dances men may also remove each other’s clothes. During Nivkh (Gilyak) Bear festivals, male hunters wearing articles of female clothing (and men’s clothing backwards) try to grab a Bear from behind or kiss it. This highlights a fundamental aspect of Siberian Bear ceremonialism: transgressions of gender and sexual boundaries are simply one of many ritual “reversals” that occur during the festivities (others include saying the opposite of what one means, and the breaching of various other social prohibitions). Bear ceremonies thereby serve, in the words of one anthropologist, as a “liminal (mediating) period of ritual excess,” believed by these Siberian peoples to be essential for both human and animal fecundity and prosperity.⁴¹

A cloak belonging to the Inuit shaman Qingailisaq. Just below each shoulder is the image of a Pukiq, a mythical transgendered Caribou that combines and transforms elements of male and female, animal and human.

Dramatic performances of gender reversals and sexual ambiguity are also an integral component of the elaborate animal renewal and fertility ceremonies of the Yup‘ik (Alaskan Eskimo) people. Such festivals feature “male mothers,” hermaphrodite and androgynous spirits, ritual transvestism, and cross-gender impersonation of animals, among other elements.⁴² One of the most important ceremonies is Nakaciuq or the Bladder Festival, a ten-day winter-solstice feast in which seals and other sea mammals are honored and invited to return for the next year (so named because the animals’ souls are believed to reside in their bladders, which are inflated and displayed during the ceremony). Another important ceremony is Kelek or the Masquerade, part of a larger festal cycle in which shamans and others interact with and appease the spirits of game animals. Images of male motherhood, pregnancy, and birth abound during these ceremonies. At the beginning of the Bladder Festival, for example, two men (often shamans) are designated “mothers” and pretend to be married to each other, with a third man playing the part of their “child.” In the Masquerade, male participants occasionally enact the part of a nursing woman, wearing a female mask and two wooden breasts carved with nipples. Male shamans dressed in women’s clothing also undertake trance journeys to visit animal spirits, symbolically give birth to spirit beings, and observe rituals associated with menstruation and childbirth following their spirit encounters. At the climax of this festival, a young boy dressed in women’s clothes acts as a ceremonial staff-carrier. Transvestism occurs in other Yup’ik festivities as well, involving both men and women disguising themselves as the opposite sex or two men dressing as bride and groom and pretending to get married. Men also sometimes wear articles of women’s clothing for luck when hunting land mammals.

The Tuunraat or spirit helpers visited by shamans—including the powerful guardians of game animals—are often considered to be hermaphrodite beings. During the Masquerade festival they are impersonated by men wearing masks that meld elements of male-female and animal-human. One such mask, for example, combines a downturned mouth—a standard female symbol in Yup‘ik art—with labrets at both corners of the mouth (ornaments worn in lower lip piercings by men), symbolic of a male Walrus’s tusks. A stylized sea-mammal tail for a nose and other animal imagery also adorn the mask. Masks of androgynous spirits such as Qaariitaaq —represented as a sort of “bearded woman”—are used in the Bladder Festival as well. Animal dances, in which people impersonate various creatures using realistic movements, sounds, and costumes, are also a central aspect of the Yup’ik ceremonial cycle. Most notable of these are a dance in which a man portrays a mother eider duck, wearing a birdlike hunting helmet decorated with female phallic symbols (two young boys play “her” ducklings), and another in which two men impersonating a loon and a murre also wear these gender-mixing helmets as they dance side by side. As in Siberian Bear ceremonialism, all of these activities are part of an overall pattern of reversals and traversals characteristic of Yup‘ik fertility ceremonies. Ordinary activities are turned upside down and the boundaries between “opposite” worlds are rendered fluid (e.g., participants walk backwards, invert traditional hospitality rituals, go nude or wear clothing inside out, etc.). In Yup’ik cosmology these sacred inversions are believed to remake, renew, and regenerate the natural world, ultimately insuring a harmonious relationship between humans and animals.

Although Siberian/Arctic peoples do not appear to accord special meaning to intersexuality among domesticated animals (as in some Native American and New Guinean cultures), nonbreeding animals do feature prominently in some Siberian animal husbandry practices. The Chukchi, for example, believe that castrated and nonreproductive animals insure the success of their domesticated Reindeer herds. The largest bucks are always gelded and, along with several “barren” does, allowed to fatten rather than being slaughtered. Castration is often accomplished by the herdsman biting directly through the animal’s spermatic ducts or tubules. These “eunuchoid” Reindeer (both male and female) are highly prized, as they are considered essential for the prosperity of the entire herd. Likewise, the Sakha (Yakut) people always donate one mare from their large herds of domesticated Horses to a shaman. This animal is not permitted to breed during its life, and it becomes an embodiment of the cosmic life force and a symbol of fertility for the tribe as a whole.⁴³

Despite wide differences in cultural contexts and details, there are a number of remarkable correspondences and continuities between native North America, Melanesia, and Siberia in their perception of alternative systems of gender and sexuality in animals. In numerous indigenous cultures widely separated in space and time, we find recurring variations on five central themes: Animals are totemically or symbolically associated with homosexuality and transgender, often in a shamanic context. Powerful gender-mixing creatures such as the Bear, cassowary, and Caribou/Reindeer occupy a central position in tribal cosmologies and worldviews. Ritual enactments of animal homosexuality and transgender are commonplace and are often directly associated with notions of fertility, growth, or life essence; this is sometimes concretized in the image of a “male mother” figure and may also be part of a larger pattern of sacred reversals or inversions. Among domesticated creatures, hermaphrodite and nonbreeding animals are cultivated and highly valued. And finally, both animals and people that combine aspects of maleness and femaleness or exhibit sexual variation are consistently honored and ceremonialized, and an essential continuity is recognized between homosexuality /transgender in both human and nonhuman creatures. While fascinating in their own right, these cross-cultural parallels are perhaps even more significant in terms of their implications for contemporary scientific thought.

 

Chimeras, Freemartins, and Gynandromorphs: The Scientific Reality of Indigenous “Myths”

How accurate are indigenous views about animal homosexuality and transgender? In other words, do the species associated with homosexuality and transgender in these cultures actually exhibit same-sex behavior or intersexuality? If taken literally, the connection is certainly less than systematic: many animals linked in aboriginal cultures with alternate sexualities are not in fact homosexual, bisexual, or transgendered, while many animals in which sexual and gender variance have been scientifically documented do not have symbolic associations with homosexuality /transgender in these cultures. Moreover, many of the more “fanciful” indigenous beliefs about animals are obviously false (at least in their specifics).

Nevertheless, some striking parallels involving particular species suggest a connection that may be more than fortuitous. For example, homosexuality—including full anal penetration between bulls—is common among American Bison, same-sex courtship and pair-bonding occur in Black-billed Magpies, male and female ho-mosexualities are found in Caribou, and same-sex mounting and coparenting also occur among Bears. These species are all directly identified with homosexuality and/or transgender in some Native American tribes. Moreover, in many cases where the exact species that figures in indigenous conceptions of homosexuality is not accurate, a closely related animal (often in another geographic area) does exhibit the behavior. For example, homosexual activity has not been recorded among New Guinean wallabies, yet it does occur in Australian Wallabies. Likewise, although homosexuality is not yet reported for the cassowary, it has been observed in Emus and Ostriches (related species of flightless birds). Other examples are summarized in the table below.

Some Correspondences between Indigenous Beliefs and Western Scientific Observations of Animal Homosexuality/Transgender (TG) Animal traditionally associated with homosexuality/TG Homosexuality/TG reported in scientific literature Homosexuality/TG observed in related species NORTH AMERICA Black-tailed Deer (Lakota, Zuni) yes (Mule Deer) yes (White-tailed Deer) Elk (Oto) yes (Wapiti) yes (Red Deer, Moose) Buffalo (Lakota, Ponca, Mandan, etc.) yes (American Bison) yes (other Buffalo species) Bighorn Sheep (Hopi) yes (Bighorn Sheep) yes (other Mountain Sheep) mountain lion (Okanagon, etc.) no yes (African/Asiatic Lion) fox, coyote (Arapaho, Okanagon, etc.) yes (Red Fox) yes (Bush Dog) Gray Wolf, red wolf (Tsistsistas) yes (Gray Wolf) yes (other Canids) NORTH AMERICA (cont.) Bears (Nuu-chah-nulth, Keres, etc.) yes (Grizzly, Black Bear) yes (other carnivores) jackrabbit, cottontail species (Zuni) no yes (Eastern Cottontail) bat species (Zuni) no yes (Little Brown Bat, other Bats) golden eagle, Harris’s hawk (Tsistsistas) no yes (Kestrel, Steller’s Sea Eagle) owl species (Omaha, Mandan) yes (Barn Owl) yes (Powerful Owl) oriole, tanager species (Tsistsistas) no yes (Yellow-rumped Cacique) Magpie (Hidatsa) yes (Black-billed Magpie) yes (other Crows) blue jay (Winnebago) no yes (Mexican Jay) crow (Kamia) no yes (Raven, Jackdaw) turtle species (Fox) yes (Wood Turtle) yes (Desert Tortoise) salmon species (Nuxalk) no yes (European Salmon species) butterfly/moth species (Navajo) yes (Monarch, others) yes (other butterfly species) dragonfly species (Tsistsistas) yes (Dragonflies) yes (Damselflies) NEW GUINEA wild boar, Pig (Bimin- Kuskusmin, Sabarl, etc.) yes (domestic Pig) yes (Warthog, Peccaries) New Guinean wallabies (Marind-anim) no yes (Australian Wallabies) arboreal marsupials (Sambia, Bimin-Kuskusmin) yes (Tree Kangaroos) yes (other marsupials) fruit bat species (Bimin- Kuskusmin) no yes (other Fruit Bats) echidna (Bimin-Kuskusmin) no no jabiru stork (Marind-anim) no yes (White Stork) Raggiana’s Bird of Paradise (Sambia) yes (Raggiana’s) yes (see below) other birds of paradise (Ai‘i, Sambia, etc.) no yes (Victoria’s Riflebird) bowerbird species (Sambia, Bimin-Kuskusmin) no yes (Regent Bowerbird) cassowary (Sambia, Bimin- Kuskusmin, etc.) no yes (Emu, Ostrich, Rhea) black-capped & purple-bellied lories (Sambia) no yes (several Lorikeet species) other New Guinean parrots (Sambia) no yes (Galah) NEW GUINEA (cont.) nightjar species (Bimin- Kuskusmin) no no python species (Bimin- Kuskusmin) no yes (other snake species) monitor lizard (Bimin- Kuskusmin) no yes (other lizard species) shark species (Nduindui, Vao) no no sago grub (Bedamini, Sambia, Bimin-Kuskusmin) no yes (Southern One-Year Canegrub) centipede species (Bimin- Kuskusmin) no yes (Spiders, other arthropods) SIBERIA/ARCTIC white whale (Koryak, Inuit) yes (Beluga) yes (other Whales & Dolphins) bearded, ringed, & Spotted Seals (Yup’ik, Inuit) yes (Spotted Seals) yes (Harbor Seal, other Seals) Walrus (Chukchi, Yup‘ik, Inuit) yes (Walrus) yes (other pinnipeds) Caribou/Reindeer (Inuit, Yukaghir, Chukchi, etc.) yes (Caribou) yes (other Deer) Horse (Sakha) yes (Takhi, domestic Horse) yes (other Equids) Wolf (Sakha) yes (Wolf) yes (other Canids) Bears (Ob-Ugrian, Nivkh, Chukchi, Inuit, etc.) yes (Grizzly, Black, Polar Bears) yes (other carnivores) eider duck (Yup’ik) no yes (Lesser Scaup, other Ducks) loon (Sakha, Yup’ik) no yes (Grebes) murre species (Yup’ik) yes (Common Murre) yes (other diving birds) Ruff (Chukchi) yes (Ruff) yes (other sandpipers) Raven (Sakha, Koryak) yes (Raven) yes (other Crows) pike species (Sakha) no yes (Salmon species)

Some of the most precise correspondences involve transgender (particularly intersexuality) rather than homosexuality per se. Modern science has provided startling confirmation of a number of indigenous “beliefs” about purportedly cross-gendered animals, most notably the left-handed Bear figure of many Native American cultures. Biologists have actually uncovered evidence that some species of Bears probably are left-paw dominant. “Handedness,” or laterality, is a widespread phenomenon in the animal kingdom, with species as diverse as primates, cats, parrots, and even whales and dolphins showing preferences for the use of a right or left appendage (or side of the body) in various behaviors and tasks.⁴⁴ Although in most species there is considerable variation between individuals as to which side is dominant, it does appear that at least some kinds of Bears are consistently “left-handed.” Scientists and naturalists report that Polar Bears, for example, regularly use their left paw for attack and defense as well as for clubbing seals and hauling them out of the water. In many cases they exhibit greater development of the left paw and may also use their left forelimb and shoulder to carry large objects. The consistency of left-paw use is exemplified by an incident in which wildlife biologists set up snare traps to capture and tag Polar Bears (for long-term study of their migrations). The traps were triggered by the bear’s reaching for some bait with its paw, and all 21 Bears caught in this way were snared by their left front foot.⁴⁵ Incidentally, there also appears to be a correlation between left-handedness and homosexuality/transgender in humans: a higher than average proportion of gays and lesbians are left-handed (or ambidextrous), and one study found the percentage of left-handers among lesbians to be more than four times that among heterosexual women. Left-handedness also appears to be more common among transsexuals, particularly male-to-female transsexuals.⁴⁶ As yet, no studies have looked for possible correlations between laterality and homosexuality/transgender in animals.

Another astonishing correspondence concerns the attraction of Bears to human menstrual blood, a widespread belief in many Native American tribes. Implausible as this connection may sound, zoologists decided to conduct experiments to see if there was any truth to these “superstitions.” Employing controlled olfactory-preference tests on Polar Bears in both laboratory and field settings, they found that the animals were indeed significantly more attracted to the odors in human menstrual blood than to a number of other smells, including several animal and food odors as well as nonmenstrual blood. In fact, human menstrual odors in many cases elicited a response from the Bears as strong as that prompted by the smell of seals (their primary food in the wild), which they could detect from more than 1,200 feet away.⁴⁷

Even more extraordinary, biologists have found actual cases of physical gender-mixing in Bears. In 1986, Canadian zoologist Marc Cattet made a stunning discovery: the presence of significant numbers of “masculinized females” in wild populations of Grizzly, Black, and Polar Bears. These animals have the internal reproductive anatomy of a female combined with portions of the external genitalia of a male, including “penislike” organs. As many as 10–20 percent of the Bears in some populations may exhibit this phenomenon.⁴⁸ Such individuals are able to reproduce, and most adult intersexual Bears are actually mothers that successfully raise cubs. In fact, the reproductive canal in some intersexual Bears extends through the phallus rather than forming a vagina, so that the female actually mates and gives birth through the tip of her “penis”—similar to the way female Spotted Hyenas mate and give birth through their “penile” clitoris. These findings offer striking parallels to the gender-mixing Bear Mother figure of many Native American tribes, as well as the Bimin-Kuskusmin and Inuit beliefs about “male mothers” and androgynous animals that give birth through a penis-clitoris.

Intersexual animals that combine male and female sex organs (and in some cases that are intermediate between males and females in their body proportions and size) also occur spontaneously in other mammals that are not usually hermaphroditic, such as primates (e.g., Common Chimpanzees, Rhesus Macaques, Savanna Baboons), whales and dolphins (e.g., Bowhead and Beluga Whales, Striped Dolphins), marsupials (e.g., Eastern Gray and Red Kangaroos, various Wallabies, Tasmanian Devils), and rodents and insectivores (e.g., moles).⁴⁹ In fact, a veritable profusion of different kinds of gender mixing has been uncovered throughout the animal world—so much so that scientists have had to develop a special terminology to refer to the bewildering variety of intersexualities. Fanciful-sounding names such as chimeras, freemartins, mosaics, and gynandromorphs are actually the technical terms used by biologists to designate animals with various types of chromosomal and anatomical gender mixing.⁵⁰ In Greek mythology, a chimera is a fantastic creature combining features of a lion, goat, and serpent, while Hermaphroditus is the child of the gods Hermes and Aphrodite. It is ironic that Western science uses names with mythological connotations to refer to animals that are actually the living “proof” of indigenous myths about homosexual and transgendered species. The left-handed androgynous Bear may exhibit chimerism (scientifically speaking), but it isn’t “chimerical” at all—it’s alive and well and living in North America!

A freemartin is an animal that becomes intersexual as a result of association in the womb (or egg) with a twin of the opposite sex (note the motif of twinning in some Native American two-spirit traditions that involve animals, such as the Kamia and Wintu), while chimera refers to an animal with organs that combine genetically male and female elements. Similar to chimerism, a mosaic is an individual that has variable chromosomal patterns and a corresponding mixture of male and female traits. Some of the diverse types of chromosome configurations (in addition to the “typical” female and male patterns of XX and XY, respectively) include XXY, XXX, XXYY, XO, and even combinations of these in different cells of the body. Each chromosomal pattern, in turn, manifests itself as a different mixture of male and female sex organs and secondary sexual characteristics, sometimes juxtaposed in separate parts of the body, sometimes combined in the same organ, and sometimes blending together as a gradation of traits or a combination of all of these.⁵¹

Myth made real: a transgendered (intersexual) Eastern Gray Kangaroo. This animal has both a penis and a pouch (the latter usually found only in females). Chromosomally, it combines the female pattern (XX) with the male (XY) to yield an XXY pattern.

One particularly remarkable type of mosaic is called a gynandromorph: an animal that appears to