May 27, 2011

Native drag queens honor We'wha

Native American Drag Queens and Their Friends = Yes!  Tonight.

By Hiya SwanhuyserDear Friday, in case you want to make the most out of being in San Francisco, check out Two Spirits: Contemporary Custodians of the Ancient Art of Gender Blending. As part of the de Young Museum's excellent series of Friday night multi-art partytimes, tonight finds gay First Nations performers of different kinds, including, hold yourself:The Brush Arbor Gurlz. These queens represent Chickasaw, Cherokee, Choctaw, Navajo, Ojibwa, and Tohono O'odham Nations, and often perform traditional songs, such as "Honor Song," which they do beautifully right here:And who is being honored by those indigenous lovelies, in the above vid and also this evening? Only an ancestral hottie ...

Hold yourself again while we introduce you to We'wha, a Zuni Indian lhamana who lived in New Mexico about two hundred years ago. She was very famous and kept white anthropologists in a froth; she was known for her intelligence, she was introduced to President Grover Cleveland in 1886, and she was eventually the subject of a book called The Zuni Man-Woman. Basically, We'wha's life story supports the idea that a lot of ancient cultures were totally down with mixed-gender, or "two-spirit," people.
Friday Nights at the de Young and the Native American Program Advisory Committee present Two Spirits: Contemporary Custodians of the Ancient Art of Gender Blending

Comment:  For more on Indians and LGBT issues, see Four Genders in Navajo Culture and Two Spirits Documentary on PBS.

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