Native Americans

By: Aleisha Murrell

The life of Native Americans, their customs, heritage, and beliefs were so interesting to me after I had class on it. There are a few topics that I want to discuss and that I have my opinions about. I want to start off by talking about the Two Spirit People. Two spirit people are usually men, and they dress and live as women. [1] I thought this was very interesting, that cross dressing and transvestites were going on earlier than I thought. The PowerPoint explained how “most Two Spirits excelled at weaving, beadwork, pottery, arts and crafts associated with women and that they were known to be strong family/community members. Also, most of them adopted children and how they acted as marriage counselors and match makers because they were either male or female.” It is easy for me to see that Two Spirits adopted a lot because they are able to work at times that women cannot, and that they do not have to deal with pregnancy and aren’t pinned down to nursing small babies. I can also see why men were easily attracted to these Two Spirits, since they were such a helping hand, they could endure hard and long labor. In the PowerPoint it states that “Two Spirits were known to do almost two times the work of a woman.”[1] Another cultural custom that the Native Americas went by was the way they would raise their children. Unlike the Europeans, they were pretty relaxed with punishment. In the PowerPoint I learned that Indians never physically punished their children, and that “children had few restrictions on sexual experimentation, which ranged from masturbation to sex play with same-sex and opposite sex partners.” And that men would actually penetrate (have sex) the boys as punishment to teach them a lesson. [1] This is almost hard to believe for me, knowing and understanding the ways of Native Americans helps me to understand their background and their ways of living to a greater degree. It has broadened my mind to the different cultures and ways of thinking that has gone on, and that goes on now. Looking at these things in today’s world I am very open minded to how they lived, however, I don’t know how I would have judged them if I was living back then. Which brings me to my next point, I noticed that the Europeans were out to get the Native Americans, because of their different ways of life and their culture. For example, after sex the native Americas were expected to be given a gift, a gift like fish or beads. The Anglo-Americans assumed these women were prostituting themselves but the Indians saw this as nothing more than their culture. I understand that some of the Native American ways could be hard to fathom but I am happy that I was able to get a lesson on their culture and their ways of life because before this class all I knew was the horrible stereotypes of the Native Americans.

 

Citation: 

[1]. Moore, Crystal. “Native American Sexuality & Sexual Violation in the Conquest of the America’s”. Charlotte: The History of Sexuality in America from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Accessed January 14, 2014.