Posted by
Andrews on Saturday, July 05, 2008 2:52:04 AM
I was reading about the "two spirits", as they are now called, individuals in Indian tribes (also found in Greco-Roman history) who adopted the clothing and social roles of the opposite sex.
The wikipedia article is filled with absurdly politically correct language, including the absurd designation "biological sex male, gender female", which seems to indicate "sex male, behavior female". I know, I know, sociologists, being the preeminent champions of PC word bending use "gender" to describe roles, but it still sounds absolutely bizarre to refer to an individual with a Y-chromosome as "gender female".
Anyway, the interesting part in the article is the handling of those tribes which either did not have, or even rejected these individuals. First there is a bit of skepticism about the Apache rejection of two spirits. The author arguing that it most likely represents an acceptance of "European homophobia/transphobia".
But it truly becomes absurd when they deal with the mesoamerican cultures. Confronted with the Florentine manuscript, written in nahuatl by natives, they have to invent meddling monks who forced the natives to misrepresent their own beliefs, but only about homosexuality.
That is just bizarre. As it was in the interest of Spaniards to make the natives appear as backwards and blasphemous as possible, why would they give them laws they saw as virtuous if no such laws existed? Second, why would the Spaniard suppress evidence that the practice was accepted in mesoamerica, but not in the more northerly tribes? Is it not much easier to believe that some tribes accepted them and some did not? Just as it appears some European cultures, mostly Mediterranean, had priestly individuals who adopted feminine garb and manners, while other European cultures did not?
It is, once again, the silly belief in the "noble savage" rearing its ugly head. Just as the belief continues to resurface of the peaceful matriarchies of primordial Europe who were laid low by evil patriarchies, the myth of the enlightened natives of the Americas will not die. Of course, in this case it is a doubly whammy. If there were natives who banned the adoption of non-conforming sexual roles, then not only does it dispel the myth of noble savages, but it also destroys the myth that "homophobia" is some peculiarly European evil.
When will people learn that man is pretty much the same the world over, and, more than that, is just as prone to brutality, ignorance, and mistakes regardless of his skin color, location or level of advancement? The only exception being, oddly enough, the one group they seem to despise, those white European males who developed the one culture which spoke out for the rights of every individual and a government based on respect for those rights?
It is ironic that they despise the only culture that actually did even a small bit to stem the tide of brutality which is most of human history. And worse still, they despise it so much that they are willing to falsify all of history to prove their hatred is correct.