The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

and forced them to give up their unconventional lifestyle and
return to the ways of their village. Sadly, her book is often the
main title featured on the Native American Women shelf at
women’s bookstores across the country.
2. Neithammer, Daughters, pp. 231–234.
3. In an unpublished paper, Evelyn Blackwood cites Kaj
Birket-Smith’s The Chugach Eskimo (Copenhagen: National
Museum, 1953) on the interesting point that evidently only the
Chugash Eskimo and the Navajo literally perceive the berdache
as “half-man/half-woman,” which, Blackwood says, is not a
common perception. “Sexuality, Gender and Mode of
Production: The Case of Native American Female
Homosexuality (Berdache),” unpublished manuscript, 1983.
4. Judy Grahn, Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay
Worlds (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), pp. 55–56.
5. Grahn, Another Mother Tongue, pp. 55–56.
6. Walter Williams, “American Indian Responses to the
Suppression of the Homosexual Berdache Tradition,” presented
at the Organization of American Historians convention, Spring
1983.
7. Martin Duberman, ed., “Documents in Hopi Indian
Sexuality,” Radical History Review 20 (Spring 1979), pp. 109,
112, 113.
8. Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific
States of North America, vol. 1 (New York: Appleton, 1875), p.
82.
9. George Catlin, Illustrations of the Manners, Customs,
and Conditions of the North American Indians, with Letters
and Notes, 10th ed. (London: Henry Bohn, 1866), 2:214–215.
Cited in Jonathon Katz, Gay American History, Lesbians and
Gay Men in the U.S.A. (New York: Crowell, 1976), p. 302.
10. Russell Means, Interview, Penthouse Magazine (April
1981), p. 138.