Bruce Bagemihl - Biological Exuberance

One of the most powerful symbols of scientists’ newfound willingness to listen to indigenous sources took place at the National Forum on BioDiversity in 1986. Organized by the National Academy of Sciences and held at the Smithsonian Institution, this prestigious conference brought together more than 60 distinguished scholars and scientists from around the world. Their task: to discuss the importance of biodiversity as we approach the twenty-first century. One of the most eagerly anticipated speakers was neither a “scholar” nor a “scientist” in the conventional sense. Native American storyteller Larry Littlebird, a member of the Keres nations of New Mexico, was invited to give an indigenous perspective on the natural world. As the audience sat in hushed attention on the final day of the conference, Littlebird treated the biologists to an enigmatic tale of Lizard, who summons forth rain clouds with a song that most ordinary humans can’t hear. 129

Although this unprecedented event is an encouraging sign of a new direction in science, something crucial was missing—the centrality of homosexuality/transgender to indigenous belief systems. How many of the participants at that conference knew that Littlebird’s Pueblo tribe, one of the Keresan peoples, recognizes the sacredness of the two-spirit or kokwimu (man-woman), and honors homosexuality and transgender in both humans and animals? How many of them realized that the Keresan cosmology includes one of the most noteworthy examples of the left-handed, gender-mixing Bear figure? 130Or that the “Lizard” of Littlebird’s story was most likely a Whiptail Lizard, one of several all-female species of the American Southwest that reproduce by parthenogenesis and engage in lesbian copulation? 131How many of them knew that some of the animals mentioned in Littlebird’s closing words, “The deer, eagle, and butterfly dancers are coming… ,” exhibit homosexuality and transgender in nature? The answer, unfortunately, is that probably no one in the audience was aware of these connections.

A contemporary Yup’ik two-spirit, Anguksuar (Richard LaFortune), has drawn attention to the recent convergence of Western scientific thought with indigenous perspectives, and the relevance of notions of gender and sexual fluidity: “Modern science emerged [and] linear flight from disorder led directly to quantum theory. This scrambling toward something orderly and manageable has landed right back in the lap of the Great Mystery: chaos, the unknown, and imagination…. This is a region of the cosmos familiar to many indigenous taxonomies and to which the Western mind is finally returning…. When I read [Fritjof] Capra’s description of the ‘Crisis of Perception’ that appears to be afflicting Western societies, it seemed to make perfect sense that culture, identity, gender, and human sexuality would figure prominently in such a crisis.” 132The fact is that two-spiritedness, homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgender are at the forefront of some of the most significant scientific re-visionings of our time—in which the gap between indigenous and Western perspectives is finally being bridged—yet their contribution is rarely, if ever, acknowledged by Western scientists. When prominent chaos theoreticians, biodiversity experts, and post-Darwinian evolutionists invoke the teachings of tribal peoples, they are usually unaware of the pivotal role played by homosexuality and transgender in these indigenous belief systems, or in the lives of the writers, storytellers, and visionaries who give poetic voice to their scientific concepts.

In the book Evolution Extended, for instance—a recent presentation of innovative scientific and philosophical interpretations of evolutionary theory—the words of Native American poet Joy Harjo are featured prominently as a haunting invocation of life’s interconnectedness. 133Of Muscogee Creek heritage, Harjo has received wide acclaim for her writing, which draws heavily on her indigenous roots and often includes powerful images of the natural world, while also juxtaposing references to specific constructs of Western science such as quantum physics or molecular structures. Harjo is also a “lover of women” whose writing has been anthologized in Gay & Lesbian Poetry in Our Time . She acknowledges lesbian or bisexual authors such as Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Alice Walker, Beth Brant, and Adrienne Rich, as well as the ideas of lesbian-feminism, as primary influences on her work. She has spoken of the importance of eroticism permeating all aspects of life, and she affirms the power of androgyny and the presence of male and female traits in every individual. 134Yet these aspects of Harjo’s life and work are considered incidental or irrelevant to the perspective she brings to the scientific material—not even worth mentioning as one component of her personal vision, let alone a key feature in the bringing together of seemingly disparate worlds that she achieves through her poetry.

“From Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, there came a great unifying life force that flowed in and through all things—the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals—and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred, and were brought together by the same Great Mystery.” So spoke the Oglala (Sioux) chief Luther Standing Bear, whose words grace the pages of Buffalo Nation, a recent book by prominent wildlife biologist Valerius Geist. This vision of the life energy connecting the “buffalo nation” (and all of nature) to the “human nation” underscores the parallel that Geist draws between indigenous and contemporary scientific approaches to wildlife conservation. The sophisticated game-management practices developed by many Native Americans—both traditionally and in their current efforts to resurrect Buffalo herds on their lands—are, according to Geist, at the forefront of recent Bison conservation efforts. Beautifully interwoven through his discussion of this species’ natural history, behavior, and preservation are evocations of the powerful spiritual role played by the Bison in Native American cultures, including descriptions of Mandan Buffalo Dances and the Lakota legend of the White Buffalo Woman. Yet nowhere in this discussion is there any mention of indigenous views on sexual and gender variability in Bison (or humans), let alone of contemporary scientific findings on these topics. Ironically, though, the book still manages to unintentionally present a vivid picture—literally—of Bison homosexuality. In the section on rutting behavior, a photograph of Buffalo mating activity is identified as a bull mounting a female, when in fact it depicts a bull mounting another bull. 135In the end, then, perhaps the animals themselves will have the “final say,” insuring the representation of homosexuality/transgender and its rightful place in both indigenous and Western scientific thinking.

The importance of this missing link cannot be overemphasized. If Western science is to embrace indigenous perspectives—as it should—then it must do so fully, including views on homosexuality/transgender. It cannot pick and choose among aboriginal “beliefs,” salvaging only those that it is most comfortable with while rejecting those that challenge its prejudices. All of us (scientists included) must acknowledge that heeding “aboriginal wisdom” means listening even when—or perhaps, especially when—we aren’t prepared to hear what it has to say about sexual and gender variance. For too long, native views have been sanitized to make them palatable to nonindigenous people. In a world where Native American spirituality is co-opted to sell bottled water—indeed, is sold directly as a “New Age” commodity—it has become something of a cliche to speak of the environmental “balance” and “harmony” of indigenous cultures. 136The reality is that homosexuality and transgender—along with many other beliefs and practices that would probably be considered objectionable by large numbers of people—are usually an integral, if not a central, component of such “balance.” Consider the cosmology of the Bedamini people of New Guinea, which seems to turn conventional ideas about the natural world upside down: