Angelizing and Romanticizing Native Views on Gender, Sexuality or Socialism Is Fetishization

I should point something out for those who only romanticize everything from Native American cultures from a Leftist perspective.

1. Yes, Socialism and Communist thought were influenced by various Native American concepts, such as the spiritual inability for one to own property. This is why any idea that Native Americans “sold” land is complete nonsense. Native Americans alleged to have “sold” regions, in fact believed they were being given gifts of tribute from visitors, not that there was any possibility of a legal contract (whatever that is) for the purchase and private ownership of land. No, Manhattan was not “traded for beads.”

STILL, at no time did ANY Native culture believe that Socialism or Communism was to be implemented by a Nation-State governmental apparatus. Native ideas were “Anarcho-Communist” in nature, though that too is a misnomer, as “Anarchism” as it is conceived of today, is borne out of the European philosophical system and only closely overlaps in many ways that of Indigenous “anarchism” (with a small a, as it were). The point, however, is that Native American “communalists” were not Statist in any way, shape or form.

American Indian Movement activist Russell Means famously said “Marxism is as Alien to My Culture as Capitalism”.

What he meant was not that all of the concepts expressed by Marx were alien, but how Communism played out in administration through a state apparatus, and its indifference to “natural resources” and the ecosystem, made it diametrically opposed to traditional Native American approaches.

Marx, for his part, was influenced and inspired by Native American social-communalism, but he insultingly termed this “Primitive-Communism.” This was not in a positive sense, how “Anarcho-Primitivism” has reclaimed this reference to our primate roots and social structures – as something superior to “Human Civilization.” This was in the sense of saying they were lower than the European concepts of socialism and communism. When the European says “primitive” they mean to say “We are humans, and these are primates” – thus separating themselves from our true place in the Natural Order as a highly intelligent species of apes.

Marx was influenced by Lewis Henry Morgan’s descriptions of “communism in living” as practiced by the Iroquois Nation of North America. Engels offered the first detailed theorization of primitive communism in 1884, with publication of The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. Their views and romanticizing, however, came from a place of fetishizing where the European looked down upon the “primitive” specimens.

Russell Means thus concluded that “Hegel and Marx were heirs to the thinking of Newton, Descartes, Locke and Smith. Hegel finished the process of secularizing theology–and that is put in his own terms–he secularized the religious thinking through which Europe understood the universe. Then Marx put Hegel’s philosophy in terms of ‘materialism,’ which is to say that Marx despiritualized Hegel’s work altogether. Again, this is in Marx’ own terms. And this is now seen as the future revolutionary potential of Europe. Europeans may see this as revolutionary, but American Indians see it simply as still more of that same old European conflict between being and gaining.”

2. The idea of being “Two Spirited” or the concept of the “Five Native Genders” (better stated as “Five Native Sexes”), is attractive, but it simply was not held by all Native American communities universally. We see it with a lot of Plains Indian cultures, but plenty of homophobia from others.

The Cherokee concepts of male-to-female trans identity was “nudale asgaya” or “acts like a woman”, while female-to-male identity was “nudale agehya”. Such individuals were not seen as the same as those viewed as women and men. Those who were hermaphroditic were in the middle of a five gender or even five sex scale as “asegi” – both male and female.

Societies like the Cocopa however called male-to-female trans “Elha” which means “coward.” Hardly a great example of “non-heteronormative” progressive thinking.

The Cree perhaps had the widest array of gender identities with a “man who dresses as a woman” only being “napew iskwewisehot”; a “female who dresses as a man” being “iskwew ka napewayat” and these were differentiated from male-to-female individuals actually living and communally accepted as a woman being “ayahkwew”, and the same for female-to-male individuals in society being accepted as men being “inahpikasoht”. Then there was the concept of a man viewed as “fake women” or “iskwehkan”, or a female “fake man” or “napehkan”.

The Ingalik also accepted the reality of different genders and sexualities but the language was far from free of what today would be characterized as “transphobia”, as the Nok’olhanxodeleane were “woman pretenders” and the “Chelxodeleane” were “man pretenders.”

The Lakota (Teton Sioux) had the idea of “Winkete” and “Blocka egla wa ke” – one who “wants to be a woman” and she who “thinks she can act like a man.”

Still, there were plenty of examples throughout a variety of tribes of acceptance, whether of homosexuality or trans-identity. To that end, we can say that Native American societies were typically far ahead of their times – and one could say “timeless” in a sense – though still not identical to views that are often ascribed to them. 

The overarching point is these attitudes were not evenly disbursed across indigenous societies. Let’s not angelize or romanticize because in reality that is FETISHIZING and this does no one any good in terms of understanding culture or history.

3. Many Native communities like the Hopi and Haudenosaunee were matriarchal, others like the Nez Perce had strict gender roles and women could not hold positions of formal leadership. The often fetishized Sioux (Lakota, Dakota and Nakoda) had very much defined gender roles and were patriarchal. Eastern Woodland societies varied widely in terms of their views on gender roles and patriarchy versus matriarchy, though in general they can said to be balanced, and neither matriarchal nor patriarchal.

To say “Native Americans” or “Indigenous Peoples” of the Americas or Turtle Island were this way or that oversimplifies the matter, and it does so because it is born out of romanticized fetishization.

So again, for the people in the back: angelizing and romanticizing is a form of FETISHIZING.