Reclaiming Two-Spirits decolonizes the history of gender and sexuality in Native North America. It honors the generations of Indigenous people who had the foresight to take essential aspects of their cultural life and spiritual beliefs underground in order to save them. A sweeping history of Indigenous traditions of gender, sexuality, and resistance that reveals how, despite centuries of colonialism, Two-Spirit people are reclaiming their place in Native nations.

[[[More Info]]] Before 1492, hundreds of Indigenous communities across North America included people who identified as neither male nor female, but both. They went by aakíí’skassi, miati, okitcitakwe or one of hundreds of other tribally specific identities. After European colonizers invaded, centuries of violence and systematic persecution followed, imperiling the existence of people who today call themselves Two-Spirits, an umbrella term denoting feminine and masculine qualities in one person.

Drawing on written sources, archaeological evidence, art, and oral storytelling, Reclaiming Two-Spirits spans the centuries from Spanish invasion to the present, tracing massacres and inquisitions and revealing how the authors of colonialism’s written archives used language to both denigrate and erase Two-Spirit people from history. But as Gregory Smithers shows, the colonizers failed - and Indigenous resistance is core to this story. Reclaiming Two-Spirits amplifies their voices, reconnecting their history to Native nations in the 21st century.

[[[Specifications]]]

Year Published	2023
Pages	368
Format	Paperback

Gregory Smithers is an American historian whose books explore the experiences of Native Americans and African Americans since the late eighteenth century. He teaches history at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. Follow Gregory Smithers at http://www.gregorysmithers.com

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Reclaiming Two-spirits

Getting Started

Lost in a sea of vibration?

Getting Started

Lost in a sea of vibration?

Lost in a sea  of vibration?

Lost in a sea  of vibration?