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Post by Saiok Tarek on Aug 29, 2004 12:22:48 GMT -5
Many Native American cultures had the tradition of a sort of shamanic leader. He/She was their spiritual guide and the bridge between death and life, gods and man, male and female.
The word Two-spirit is a general term and quite obviously each culture had their own word for it.
A Two-spirit person was considered to be both male and female. If a boy was born and grew up enjoying doing traditionally female work and activities, he was sent to the tribe's priest, often another Two-spirit, to be taught the ways of their religion.
If a girl was born and grew up liking to hunt, climb, and be generally agressive, she was also sent to the priest to be taught the ways of their religion.
Two-spirit people were allowed to have their choice of spouse, man or woman. To be the spouse of a Two-spirit was quite an honor.
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I thought this was rather facinating. I ran across this concept when I was reading about the "medicine men" of native tribes. I need to do more research, but I think it will be well worth it!
I encourage you to look up some info yourselves!
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Post by Marius Morningstar on Aug 31, 2004 8:20:44 GMT -5
Medicine man is meteu in the Lenape language...learned that from the Brotherhood of the Arrow (AKA Wimachtendienk Wingolauchsik Witahemui) from summer camp. Lenape - English dictionary
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Post by Saiok Tarek on Sept 1, 2004 10:35:40 GMT -5
Interesting....I know that quite a few tribes have many types of magic workers and names for them.
I don't remember which one, but there was a pre-history tribe that had as many as twenty different types of healer/shaman.
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Post by aiyanna on Nov 22, 2004 21:38:24 GMT -5
"Two Spirit" actually is a contemporary term that is used to describe a member of a Native American community who expresses both masculine and feminine. This different from transsexual because many Two Spirit blend the two genders, instead of choosing one or the other. Different tribes had different terms - winkte in Lakota, Nadleeh in Navajo, hee-man-eh in Cheyenne - and different traditions. Two Spirit people were honored and served as leaders in their communities. Click here for source
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Post by aiyanna on Feb 7, 2005 4:03:24 GMT -5
In addition to the Native American Two-Spirit belief Pagans have also accepted Plato’s explanation of homosexuality as presented in his The Speech of Aristophanes: “In the beginning each person was made up of two sexes, some were male-male, some were male-female and some were female-female. However, Zeus wanted to punish humans for misbehaving and cut each persons soul into two. Since then, each person searches for the other half (their soul mate), which may be a woman or a man. So, the idea behind The Speech of Aristophanes is that there are three types of sexuality, homosexuality exists as one type of sexuality because Zeus split the souls of humans. For Plato and other Pagans this is why certain people seek certain sexes.
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