Changing Ones (Chapter 4)

This chapter talks about gender roles and the roles of native women. It also talks a lot about how the Native women status is somewhat stereotyped such as Pocahontas. In Pocahontas it shows that to be a Native woman you have to be exotic, wild, crazy, or a collaborationist to get attention from white males. In reality however, most native leaders and cultural brokers sought to manage and minimize the negative consequences of change in their people. Native women’s lives were also differentiated in terms of identities and social roles. Female berdaches occupied a distinct gender role. They were not thought of as women and their behavior, appearance, and temperament differed from women. Avoidance of marriage was common for female berdaches. Also females who became berdaches were inspired by dreams or visions, had shamanic powers, or were sanctioned by tribal myths. Many of those traits are similar to male berdaches. In most every tribe that has been documented if there was a female berdache in the tribe there was most definitely male berdaches as well. It was interesting to because in some tribes where the same term was used for both, they belong to a third gender role. In tribes where distinct terms are used to separate female and male berdaches, the male berdache represents a third and female berdaches represent a fourth gender role.
Native American “queens” are known to have existed in Algonkian and Muskgoean speaking tribes. Kinship practices allowed women to inherit these offices. The career of Women Chief of the Crow Indians included hunting, welfare, leadership, as well as a sexual dimension. She married four women which only increased her stature in the tribe. There is a disadvantage to not taking part in marriage and women who refused to marry gave up the chance to acquire wealth from her husband. Married women were classified as high status women because they were near wealth and prestige through marital ties and kinship. They had opportunities that poor women did not. Women of chief however provided a great opportunity for certain women to enter positions of leadership and participate in the war.