While reading "New Directions in Native American History" by Calloway, I came across a term I wasn't familiar with, Berdache. After looking into the term further I found that in Native American culture many tribes have members known as Berdaches, men and women who dress as and fulfill the gender roles of the opposite sex. Berdaches are coined as a "third gender" by westerners. This is another example of how little is truly understood of Native American culture due to stereotypes and misrepresentations. I wanted to share this finding in case some of you hadn't heard of this aspect of certain tribes' culture. I was surprised to have not heard of this previously. Many tribes included this third gender and they were not looked upon as outsiders, but were part of the community and fulfilled certain gender roles. From what I have found it seems that the meaning of a Berdache and their position varies from tribe to tribe, but us as westerners have not been able to truly understand their role. For many tribes such as the Plains, a Berdache was not always a person of same sex orientation. In some tribes the status of Berdache was inherited. I would imagine an understanding of this third gender would be difficult to grasp due to our current views and stereotypes especially when terms such as trans gender, homosexual, and transvestite are brought up. What writings I could find on Berdaches were scant and those produced by Native Americans next to none which is a central reason for misunderstanding Aboriginal culture in general. I did find an article by a Donald J. Blakeslee of Wichita State University written on the topic of Berdaches. I have not read all of it as of yet, but what I have gone over has been helpful. If you'd like to read the paper, the url is
<http://soar.wichita.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10057/1747/LAJ_v11_no1_p50-74.pdf?sequence=3>
Also, I have found the origin myth of the Berdache which I would suggest be read first as it is shorter that the above and more insightful to the true meaning of Berdache. The URL is
http://hotcakencyclopedia.com/ho.BerdacheOriginMyth.html
