THE BERDACHE TRADITION
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THE BERDACHE TRADITION

In some Native American cultures, male children who display feminine characteristics at an early age are valued by the tribe as a sacred trust. It is believed that the Great Spirit has sent this child to them as a go-between for males and females, a bridge between the sexes who understands both sides of the human condition.

Such a child is apprenticed to a shaman, or holy man of the tribe. In his training, he learns the traditional work of both sexes, dresses as a woman, and usually performs the functions of healer and arbiter for his people.

The European word for this person is "berdache". Among the Zuni, for example, it is "lhamana".

The ideal of male and female sharing one body has long been fertile soil in my psychic garden.