Finding prehistoric roots of the two-spirit tradition in the North American Southwest
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We demonstrate the antiquity of the Native American two-spirit tradition using mortuary data from the North American Southwest. A two-spirit person embodies a liminal combination of masculine and feminine spirits and participates in both male and female gender roles. Each group has its own name(s), but the general third/fourth gender category of "two-spirit" is increasingly used with the growth of LBGTQIPI2S+ research and activism. The ubiquity of two-spirit traditions across North America and their presence in many origin stories suggests ancient roots of the tradition. We correlate individuals' sex and grave goods of burials from Paquime, Wind Mountain, and Hawikuh to find burials indicative of two-spirits. We identify four possible two-spirit burials (reflecting third-gendered individuals) and two burials that may reflect gender fluidity (overlap in the general categories of men and women). We also address the methodological challenge of differentiating between third genders and gender fluidity in the past.
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M.A.