Endearing and Enduring: Southeastern Native American Perspectives on Sexuality, Gender, and Marriage

Frankie Bauer, Western Carolina University

 

The roles that sexuality, gender, and marriage within the Southeastern tribes of the United States fulfilled is fluid and complicated. Variations of rituals, taboos, mythology, and social norms underlie gender construction and how sexuality played an essential function to the tribe’s well-being. Understanding the concepts of gender roles and sexuality that Southeastern nations held allows for a nuanced study of indigenous identities. By uncovering the constructions of gender and sexual orientation, this research focuses on the emphasis of females in tribal life and seeks to construct a discursive look at how gender affected the social values of sexuality. By focusing on the Southeastern nations, the binary constructions of male/female typologies are essential factors and how the gender roles of the Southeastern tribes have adapted through political and legislative experience. According to Sabine Long, gender has three main components; “Gender identity reflects a person’s subjectively felt experience of being masculine, feminine, or ambivalent. Gender role is the observable expression of gender identity in the social context. And gender status is the social position of an individual with reference to the other members of his or her culture as a woman, man, or someone belonging to an additional gender status separate from both.”¹ Gender is not static, and the fluidity of the interpretations within the tribes discussed will seek to engage in a discussion of the importance of sexuality in tribal society. The Southeastern nations were matrilineal and interacted with gender constructs in everyday life within the tribe. Marriage patterns also played a critical factor in the interactions between women and men in Southeastern nations social organizations. Gender roles and dynamics are complex components the study of labor duties and their meanings within Native society. Author Will Roscoe states “They are shaped, in part, to meet economic interests and reinforced and validated by the dominant ideology, including religion and normative rules.”² Labor practices within the cultural constructions of the Southeastern nations are determinative of gender and sexuality definitions. Marriage practices enabled females to interact with males in ceremonies that linked them to their society. Women’s labor such as their work in agriculture and child-rearing practices allowed the socially derived power of the home an avenue to affect the domain of the village or town. By examining gender, sexuality, and marriage customs of the Southeastern nations, women’s place in the hierarchy of social and economic fields stands out and demonstrates the importance of women in the heart of their respective communities.

The importance of studying gender and sexuality, with accent given to marriage rites, allows for Native American gender creations to be illuminated and furthers the study of gender history. Single women and widows wielded a considerable amount of power, but the interactions of wives and their husbands help crystallize the social constraints between the genders. Patterns of historical matriarchy emerge in the discussion of gender norms, marriage, and sexuality. Clara Sue Kidwell states “Matrilineal descent was common among Southeastern tribes. Although women generally influenced events indirectly rather than through public rule, they were powerful members of their societies.”³ Women held considerable power in marriage, instruction of children, and maintained their household property. The power of influence deriving from females in Native American societies is linked to the private sphere and permitted women to determine the family’s affairs through agreement or disagreement with their spouses. An account of this is in William Bartram’s early description of a trader that had married a Seminole woman. Bartram, a naturalist, and writer described the power women held in Indian societies. An example of women exercising their property rights is when Bartram writes “and these powerful graces she has so artfully played upon her beguiled and vanquished lover, and unhappy slave, as to have already drained him of all his possessions, which she dishonestly distributes amongst her savage relations.”⁴ The incident Bartram discusses is problematic because the account states that the male lover was too captivated with her to think clearly and question the right to possessions. The use of the term savage is another issue because Bartram was using a biased and prejudiced lens to describe the affair. Because the Seminole tribe was matrilineal and matrilocal, women held power over property and children. The father or husband was not able to withhold their possessions nor take the wife’s wealth in the tribe.

Clan affiliation and kinship roles are essential aspects of the constructions of how gender roles were determined. Clan membership, labor roles, property, and race formulate lenses that help to establish a critical discussion of gender and sexuality. Sherry B. Ortner states “The secondary status of women in society is one of the true universals, a pan-cultural fact. Yet within that universal fact, the specific cultural conceptions and symbolizations of women are extraordinarily diverse and even mutually contradictory. Further, the actual treatment of women and their relative power and contributions vary enormously from culture to culture and over different periods in the history of particular cultural traditions.”⁵ Society often views women as secondary status individuals in history, but Ortner stretches the truth by arguing for a universal fact. Women in the Southeastern tribes exercised a considerable amount of power and were central individuals in their societies. Conceptions of gender dynamics and sexuality have a profound meaning for the identities of tribal members and race constitutes an essential aspect of the discussion. Cultural traditions and gender intersect in the Southeastern tribe’s cosmology through ceremonies, rituals, oral tradition, and constructed gender roles. To illustrate the constructions of gender and sexuality, one must begin at childbirth and the rearing of offspring within the Southeastern tribes.

Childbirth and pregnancy are influential factors that can hold insight into the gender dynamic of the Southeastern tribes. Cultural attachment related to women’s labor can be examined using ceremonies and rituals. The Cherokees used sacred formulas to ascertain the sex of a child, rituals, and ceremonies were critical components to the gendered ideas of many tribes in the Southeast. Using European and American sources for experiencing Native sexuality is somewhat problematic. Comparing Southeastern tribe’s gender practices to non-Indian customs allows for biased and culturally insensitive methodology. Native American sources on gender and sexuality to compare with the European and American views on gender dynamics in early American history are rare, if not impossible. James Mooney describes a Cherokee formula enticing children to prepare to enter the world. Invoking gendered labels, Mooney states the purpose of this recitation was “In this formula, the possible boy or girl is coaxed out by the promise of a bow or a meal-sifter to the one who can get it first. Among the Cherokees it is common, in asking about the sex of a new arrival, to inquire, ‘Is it a bow or a sifter?” or “Is it ball sticks or bread?’”⁶ Labor responsibilities and roles are emphasized it the language of bows for males and sifters for females. The boundaries of gender identities illuminate Cherokee sexuality. Warfare was an aspect of a man’s sphere while cooking and making bread was the normative female role in Cherokee society. The Southeastern Indians divisions of labor encompass gender roles and “The primary responsibility of the men was to provide meat, which they obtained by hunting and fishing, and the primary responsibility of women was to provide vegetable food, which they obtained by cultivating domesticated food and collecting wild foods.”⁷ Women labored for sustenance, cleared and worked crops, took care of the children, and were responsible for household duties. Women of the Southeastern tribes enjoyed considerable economic independence and security. An example of independent females is their roles in owning property that their husbands had no control over such as gardens. Hudson states “Indeed, in the early colonial period, British traders and soldiers who went among the Cherokees bought food such as corn, chickens, wild fruit, and pork from women, for which they were the ones who produced and therefore owned it.”⁸ The matrilineal society of the Southeastern tribes allowed women freedom and choice because the line of descent is composed of female bloodlines.

Taboos played a critical role in the gendered societies of the Southeastern tribes and established sexual identities. Men and women participated in separate spheres that were distinctly related to their gender roles. Charles Hudson states “In keeping with this concern with categorical tidiness, the Southeastern Indians believed that if a person mixed things from opposing categories, the result was sure to be some form of chaos. Therefore, many rules in Cherokee society had to do with avoiding the mixing of categories, or pollution, while many of their ceremonies were intended to dispel pollution once it had occurred.”⁹ Women who were menstruating could not handle certain foods, bathe upstream from men, and were secluded in huts away from the village. Women’s blood during menstruation was an essential feature of Southeastern Native American life, and “Chickasaw and Creek women in the South who did not seclude themselves during their menses committed a crime on a par with murder or adultery.”¹⁰ Specific taboos showcased the gendered society of the tribes and ensured that no cross mixing of female and male fluids would endanger the community to disasters. Women in the Cherokee culture are believed to have blood that was thought powerful enough to destroy enemies. Cherokee women derived their power from their bloodlines and when menstruating, were sheltered away from the communities’ men because women’s blood was thought to be dangerous and powerful. Theda Perdue states “The similarity of attitudes regarding menstruation, pregnancy, and parturition is not surprising because the Cherokees associated menstrual blood with childbirth: menstrual blood was, they believed, a child who had not been born.”¹¹ Women’s blood is central to the ideas of life and death, and Hudson states “Men and women were regarded as very different beings, and there were certain occasions when special care was required to ensure separation and thereby avoid pollution.”¹² The foundation for separation practices is the role women have in the cultural ceremonies and histories. The part that menstrual blood had in Cherokee society determined the rituals and traditions that the people engaged in to bring balance into the human world. The Southeastern tribes held taboos to be a crucial factor in the well-being of the village and used seclusion to separate women from men in critical times.

Carolyn Niethammer explains that “Before returning to her village after each sojourn in the brush hut, a Creek woman was required to bathe in deep running water, even if she had to break ice to get it. While walking to the water, she had to pass downwind of all men, and it was also necessary for her to bathe downriver from any man who happened to be in the creek.”¹³ Menstruation according to the Creek ideology of gender relations is a leading factor determining how the sexes interact and maintain a balance. The practices of seclusion and isolation held specific religious connotations that guided an observance of separate gender spheres. Crossing into another boundary often was a transgression. Claudio Saunt states “In Koasati and Alabama, two Muskogee languages, the word for menstruation, hollo, was associated with dangerous magic and spiritual energy. A woman’s retreat from town during menstruation may have reflected a positive choice to sustain her life-giving power, but at the same time, it permitted if not encouraged both women and men to hold fears about the other sex.”¹⁴ Saunt illuminates the infusion of separate spheres within Creek cosmology and could extend into the ceremonial life of the tribe. Amelia Rector Bell explains that Creek ideology is essential to the discussion on sexuality and “Gender relations are expressed through two fundamental social roles in the Creek talwa. These roles, hompita haya ‘food makers’ and talapi ‘townsmen/warriors’ model the symbolic and subjective interdependencies distinctive of Creek social life.”¹⁵ Gendered activities emphasized the importance of keeping separate physical spaces and sacred boundaries in place to prevent cross-mixing. Gender and sexuality were central themes in the Southeastern tribe’s organization and societies.

Men were also designated crucial roles in isolation taboos and rituals. Because warfare was thought of as a man’s activity, before and after warfare men were isolated from women.

Men’s labor responsibilities are also composed of a separate sphere foundation. Theda Perdue states “Young Cherokee men training to be hunters also abstained from intercourse, perhaps to prepare them for the hunting seasons in fall and winter, and while hunters were away from the village for months at a time in search for game, they refrained from engaging in sex even though a few women accompanied them on the hunt.”¹⁶ Labor activities placed high values associated with sexuality and gender ideas. Women and men interacted with their labor roles through a gendered lens and framework, established upon constructed attitudes that resulted from tradition. Another example of women and men’s separate places in community life was the Green Corn Ceremony and the Busk Ceremony.

The ceremonial life of the Southeastern tribes was crucial for the villages harvests and is an essential factor in the religious activities of the communities. The Green Corn Ceremony of the Cherokees is a substantial time of the year that illuminates the ways gender influenced the spiritual life of Native American societies. An association with corn and women was one of the determining factors that emphasized sexuality and the Green Corn Ceremony was the central village activity in Cherokee life. The story of Selu and Kanati in the Cherokee oral history illustrate the importance of women. Selu, as first women and harbinger of corn, plays a vital role in Cherokee belief. Selu is believed to provide corn to the Cherokee through her death and contribution to humans. Corn was thought to have come from her body and highlight the part that the female gender played in the structure of Cherokee history. Perdue explains that “The Green Corn Ceremony marked the social and spiritual regeneration of the community, and the role of women in the ceremony symbolized that which they played in Cherokee society. Selu was not only the first women; she was also the spirit of corn. By honoring the corn, Cherokees played homage to women.”¹⁷ Women played a prominent part in the ceremony by presenting the freshly harvested corn to their communities and were linked to the health of the Cherokee world.

The Choctaw also engaged in the Green Corn Ceremony and tied the harvest to the roles that women played in their society. Michelene E. Pesantubbee explains that “Just as women, through their labor, provided the corn needed for renewal of Choctaw society at harvest time, the Green Corn Ceremony acknowledged and celebrated those tasks carried out by women. Since Choctaw women provided corn and engaged in activities that embodied desired values, it makes sense that those women entrusted with the most important and sacred of those activities, if not all those involved, would be respected.”¹⁸ Corn’s prominence in the Southeastern tribe’s cosmology and histories link women to the food sustenance that both men and women depended on for their survival. By drawing heavily on associated relationships between women and corn, the Southeastern nations centered women at the apex of society. The Choctaw story of Ohoyo Chisba Osh or Unknown Woman, underlines a female, who is the daughter of the Great Spirit, as the figure that brought the Choctaw corn. The story cites that two Choctaw hunters could not find food for their village and were only successful at killing a hawk. When Ohoyo Chisba Osh appeared to them, the generous hunters gave her their only food. In return, the women set a date for them to meet. Upon the hunters return, “Then remembering she told them they must come to the very spot where she was then standing, they at once ascended the mound and found it covered with a strange plant, which yielded an excellent food, which was ever afterwards cultivated by the Choctaws, and named by them Tunchi, (corn).”¹⁹ The Cherokee and Choctaw ink their respective origins of corn to the images of women and center the female gender in a significant capacity for sustaining life. The myths and oral traditions of the Southeastern Indians showcase the ways that women’s life-giving capabilities are in high regard. The Choctaw example of Ohoyo Chisba Osh and the Cherokee’s Selu link the female gender to a powerful being that supplied people with a permanent and essential crop.

Gender plays a crucial role in the political influence of women and the use of the term “War Woman” is an example of women in roles usually reserved for warriors. Women’s participation in warfare is influential to the constructions of sexuality because females could transcend typical gender norms and engage in activities reserved for men. There is a difference between gender change and crossing gender boundaries. Sexual boundaries existed and “Female warriors were generally women who strove for masculine prestige without giving up their gender status. This is also true of women who crossed out of their role in other spheres, and who often gained considerable esteem because of it.”²⁰ Women could exert their influence by voting for their leaders and interacting in Women’s Councils. A well-known example of women taking an active role in political affairs is the Cherokee woman Nancy Ward. Carolyn Niethammer states “In this position, White Rose had the right to request the freedom of captives and she once rescued a Mrs. William Bean, who had already been bound to a stake and was about to be burned.”²¹ Women could be influential in the interactions of captives by choosing who was incorporated into the tribe and who was to be killed. The decisions that women participated in could have significant implications for their tribes. By actively partaking in ceremonial rituals that men usually filled, women could demonstrate their power and influence. Women in adoption ceremonies were in positions of power because their sons, husbands, and male family members made up the warrior group of the society. Through captive adoption ceremonies, women took part in these interactions seeking to replace a male family member lost to warfare. Theda Perdue states “War Women also participated in the Eagle Dance, which commemorated previous victories. Athletic young men performed the dance, but in one-part, old warriors and War Women related their exploits. These women sat apart from other women and children on ceremonial occasions and partook of food and drink not normally given to women.”²² The Eagle Dance and the Green Corn Ceremony are two examples of how Southeastern Native American women utilized their capacity as givers of life from corn and protectors of the community through exploits in warfare. Theda Perdue cites Moravian missionary John Gambold and states “The aged women, named Chicouhla, claimed that she had gone to war against hostile Indians and suffered several severe wounds. Vann’s wives verified this and said that she was very highly respected and loved by browns and whites alike.”²³ Exploits of women acting like men in times of great political, cultural, and social upheaval showcase the ways that gender dynamics could sometimes be flexible abstractions in Native American society.

The Choctaw women were also influential in wartime and carried an essential role in the morale of their warriors. Michelene Pesantubbee explains that “Although women did not, as a matter of course, engage in battle, they did provide assistance in returning warriors, particularly the wounded. On occasion, this assistance included seeking out the wounded or dead following a battle.”²⁴ Choctaw women were also known to accompany war parties and would place them in dangerous situations with the risk of being captured by the enemy. Gender roles were blurred when men helped women clear fields and women engaged in warfare activities. Greg O’Brien states “Female participation in warfare happened often enough that Choctaws developed a term for it, calling such a woman ohoyo tashka (‘warrior woman’). Men, not women, expected to become warriors, however, and if they failed to do so, they never reached manhood.”²⁵ Gender norms through activities such as warfare reinforce traditional gender functions for men. Choctaw men could not reach maturity if the actions of normative practices were not satisfied. The examples of women participating in wartime activities seem not to have the same connotations than the men.

Marriage customs and rituals have an interesting dynamic in the discussion of gender and sexuality. Women wielded more influence and power within their households and females were the head of the home. Carolyn Niethammer explains that among the Cherokee, the bridegroom and bride would interact in a symbolic ceremony to welcome the couple into their respective roles in the community. Niethammer states “Later they met with the rest of the community in the central council house where the groom’s mother gave him a leg of venison and a blanket and the bride received from her mother an ear of corn and a blanket. Then the couple exchanged the gifts of food and enclosed themselves together in the blankets. Cherokees called divorce the ‘dividing of the blankets’”.²⁶ Marriage among the Southeastern tribes is considered sacred and has imagery that defined the responsibilities of each gender construction. The issue of polygamy and clan membership in the Cherokee Nation is an example of the structure of the use of marriage to strengthen an individual’s position in the tribe. Faye A. Yarbrough states “Through polygamous marriage Cherokee men might solidify alliances with several other clans. Cherokee men may also have achieved status not through their economic support of their wives but from the male’s own ability to attract mates. And Cherokee sisters or female cousins might all choose to wed one male to lessen their shared household duties.”²⁷ The usefulness of polygamy was lessening workloads, economic functions, and creating alliances with different clan members. Kinship was influential in marriage unions because a tribal member was not allowed to marry into their respective clans.

Property rights linked to established gender relationships within the Southeastern tribe’s communities illuminate the importance of sex. An example of this comes from John Swanton describing Choctaw social structures related to the property of men and women. On the death of a male member of a family, Swanton states “His children, being looked on as members of another ogla, since they belonged to their mother’s family, were not considered as entitled to any of this property.”²⁸ The roles that fathers played in their children’s lives were secondary to the mother’s because clan membership determined that children took the mother’s clan and a woman’s brother was usually the father figure of the children. Fay A Yarbrough states “While children joined the clans of their mothers, both Choctaw men and women were responsible for the care and nurture of children, the difference being that Choctaw men were not always the primary decision-makers regarding their own biological children but instead played an important role in the lives of their nieces and nephews.”²⁹ Kinship and clan membership were central components in the dynamics of gender within Southeastern nations marriages and transgressions that could alter the power structures that society had constructed.

Marriages within Southeastern tribes held crucial significance in economic issues and was a central factor in transactions with white traders. Kathryn E. Holland Braund states “One important result of Creek participation in the world economy was the large numbers of marriages, according to Creek custom, between Creek women and white traders. When white traders first appeared among the Creeks, the village headsman often cemented his friendship with the trader by arranging a marriage to his niece or other female relative.”³⁰ Creek leaders joined their female relatives in a union with white men and by marrying in a Native American custom, the traders were committed to the tribe through the wife. The economic incentives of this partnership stemmed from the wealth of trader allegiance to the tribe, and Creek women could rely on their status as a wife of a trader to strengthen their position in the community. The deerskin trade of the colonial Southeast provided women paths to participate in the markets of emerging towns and cities. By interacting with the frontier economy, Southeastern Native American women demonstrated new positions of power and accumulated knowledge and material culture. The roles of women in the deerskin trade were to clean and prepare the skins for sale on the markets. The deerskin trade became more important to the Creeks, and women’s position in the economic realm became more central to their tribe. The deerskin trade influenced the private sphere of the Creek community, the traditional Creek woman’s domain. Robert Paulett states “As the eighteenth century progressed, Creek towns became less nucleated, as Creeks opted to string their households along the country’s river valleys rather than cluster together in more traditional centralized town sites. As settlement moved farther away from male- dominated town centers, life likely became increasingly house-hold based.”³¹ The gender dynamic of Creek women exercising influential positions likely threatened the male members of society because female members were interacting with markets men needed for the deerskin trade. Guns and ammunition were more important to men than the items women wanted and were a contributing factor for Creek men’s argument for controlling the traffic that brought traders to their villages or town sites.

Another example of a Native American woman that participated in activities usually filled by men was Mary Musgrove. Born of a white trader and a Creek woman, Musgrove was conversant in both Creek and English. Her exploits as interpreter and mediator between the two cultures and Musgrove’s battle with the Georgia Board of Trustees for land placed a Creek woman in a position of importance. The life of Mary Musgrove intersected with the potential influence of a Creek woman in the economic and material wealth of the Creek nation. Michael Morris states that “Her investment in pastoral farming and trade outposts were economic strategies that came from British contact. Her lifestyle was no longer truly traditional nor was it fully colonial, but a fusion of both. She was a woman and an Indian. When she no longer quietly complied with the wishes of Georgia colonists, they began to devalue her because of her sex and heritage. At the same time, her status among her own people seemed to continually rise.”³² The discussion of economic issues showcases the gendered dynamic of Native American women in the Southeast region. Financial matters for the Creek women in the Upper Creek town of Okfuskee demonstrate the influence women could establish through trader alliances or marriages. Joshua Pike examines the dynamics that gender relations created and states “Creek women, for example, frequently opposed communal or national initiatives that threatened to undermine their ties to British traders. William Bartram noted that ‘if their love and esteem for each other is sincere, and upon principles of reciprocity,’ women rarely betrayed ‘the interests and views of their temporary husbands,’ the traders.”³³

Marriages with traders had a complicated dynamic and motives for interracial unions were various, depending on the need for the tribe and the individuals involved. The public sphere in which Southeastern women sometimes interacted pales in comparison to their essential functions in the private realms. Nancy Shoemaker explains that “One could just as easily criticize the model of male/public and female/private by asking whether power resided only in the public sphere. Given the significance of the family, the clan, in native political systems, the private or domestic sphere may have been an important site for discussion and decision-making about issues such as whether their people should go to war, move, or make alliances with other tribes.”³⁴ The private sphere within Southeastern tribes was the center of discussions that had significant implications for men and women. Studies on gender and sexuality must account for the influence of Native American women utilized in the private sector.

Adultery was an aspect of sexual norms that was punished lightly in Cherokee society and harsher in Creek marriages. A determining factor in the discussion of adultery cases in indigenous cultures is the biases and prejudices that European and Anglo-Americans painted the Native Americans. The image of the savage Indian that many European and American people subscribed to transferred over to views on the social and cultural elements of the Southeastern tribes. Felicity Donohoe states “While outwardly criticizing the punishment of choice, Euro- American observers constructed culturally specific understandings of sexualized adultery punishments within a framework that sought to make sense of behavior that mirrored some aspect of European social customs. These European norms assumed complete male control of women, including their bodies, upon marriage.”³⁵ Historians and researchers must keep the culture of Southeastern tribes in a context that does not allow preconceived ideas and assumptions to color their studies. James Adair, a well-known trader that lived among the Cherokees, explains that “The Cherokees are an exception to all civilized or savage nations, in having no laws against adultery; they have been a considerable while under petticoat- government, and all their women full liberty to plant their brows with horns as oft as they please, without fear of punishment. On this account, their marriages are ill observed.”³⁶ Cherokee men dealt with an unfaithful wife by either ignoring the affair or taking another wife. Polygamous relationships were not uncommon in the Southeastern nations. Revenge was considered an extreme action in cases of adultery. Autonomy in the matters of sexual practices is key to understanding Cherokee sexuality and “Unmarried women engaged in sex with whomever they wished as long as they did not violate incest taboos against intercourse with members of their own clans or the clans of their fathers. Married women also enjoyed considerable latitude.”³⁷

Cherokee women’s adultery practices stand in stark contrast to the Muskogee Creek cases. Sexual irregularity within Creek society centered on the solidification of marriage and the groom was expected to conform to social norms. If the married couple encountered deviant behavior after the union, “The clan relatives of the injured husband beat both culprits into insensibility, cut off their ears and sometimes their noses, and cut off the woman’s long hair and fixed it in some conspicuous place in the square. A woman so punished was cast off by her husband, but if she and her paramour chose to continue their relationship, they were recognized as husband and wife.”³⁸ Creek sexual norms were policed by the offended male’s family members and were used to curb sexual malpractice. Marriage offenses were severe in Creek communities although if both husband and wife could withstand the brutal treatment, they could live together.

Among the Choctaw, emphasis on adultery cases is highlighted by civil legislative statutes. An example of written law circumscribing sexual mores is a letter from Aboha Kullo Humma, chief of the Okla Hunnali band. Writing in 1822 to Mr. Kingsbury, a missionary of the Choctaws in Mississippi, Aboha Kullo Humma states “The Choctaws have, sometimes, run off with each other’s wives. We have now made a law, that those who do so, shall be whipped thirty-nine lashes; and if a woman runs away from her husband with another man, she is also to be whipped in the same manner.”³⁹ Adultery cases that hindered Choctaw marriages were punished under legislative measures and demonstrate the gender dynamic of offenses dealing

with civil unions. A crucial aspect of the Aboha Kullo Humma letter is the establishment of laws circumscribing punishments for sexual transgressions. Faye A. Yarbrough examines the intersection of civil government and sexuality through Choctaw social customs influenced by white people. Yarbrough states “Chief Aboha Kullo Humma did not mention punishments for runaway husbands; perhaps Choctaws found errant wives more threatening because their behavior emasculated Choctaw men. In any case, when a couple separated there was no questions about who would be responsible for raising the children: the wife and her family would maintain the children.”⁴⁰

Gender distinctions played a significant factor in the written laws of the Choctaws because of the responsibility of clan membership and blood law. In a matriarchal society, women were the primary individuals who determined civil jurisprudence in their households achieving influential positions of prominence. Choctaw women’s social status and influence started to decline after the passing of new legislation in the Choctaw Nation in 1826. Richard White states “The new elite was neither reticent about attacking traditional ways nor tactful in the pursuit of their ends. Their new laws renewed the ban on polygamy and infanticide, effectively enforced the ban on whiskey traffic, provided for inheritance through the male line- a crippling blow to both the iksa and the control of women over property, set new guidelines for the setting of estates, provided for the lawful enclosure of fields, and prohibited trespassing.”⁴¹ A crucial component of these written laws that hindered women’s activities was the enclosure of fields. By enclosing the boundaries of communal lands, the women who worked the crops could not work the grounds as they had for centuries. The loss of property rights and inheritance for male bloodlines are equally stunning, and the 1826 legislation began the process of changing the exterior of Choctaw life, although the tribe would continue to practice traditionally constructed beliefs and practices.

By tracing gender and sexuality roles through rituals, taboos, ceremonies, wartime participation and marriages of the Southeastern tribes, the foundation for discussion on how cultures define the functions of the female/male binary arise. The intricate construction of gender practices and compositions demonstrates the avenues that women and men established their place in traditional society and how the fluidity of gender boundaries allowed for crossing sexual barriers. Changes through political referendum or law significantly was an issue in Southeastern tribe’s loss of tradition. Rituals and ceremonies were vital components of society and had specific functions in which women or men interacted. Changes through political referendum or law significantly was an issue in Southeastern tribe’s loss of tradition.

The issues of gender and sexuality in the Southeastern tribes showcases the thought processes and traditional life-ways that maintained a separate sphere boundary. Gender fluidity allows women to pass the threshold of normative interactions at certain times and wielding power. Gender studies provide insight into the methods that tribal societies kept allowing fluidity in sexuality. Importantly, the influences of legislative reform and gender are essential links to understanding cultural anxieties. The importance of examining Southeastern nations gender roles, sexual definitions, and marriage constructions is to understand what factors indigenous peoples perceived gender. Ceremonies, taboos, and participation in councils allowed gender dynamics an arena where the contrasting halves interacted and changed through a gendered lens. By examining these developments, Southeastern women are viewed as a momentous role in gender discussions and Native American culture. Women’s labor practices and participation in rituals offer insight into the world of the Southeastern tribe’s women and constructs fresh insight into tradition and history. The Native American voices as primary sources discussing gender- related issues are scarce for early Native-European encounters and have an extreme bias in their views of indigenous cultures and beliefs. Females in indigenous societies were only partially recorded or observed, due to the relationship council leadership that centered on male activities in the market economy, and land ownership became a masculinized interaction. The research that this paper attempts to explain is a starting point. Or, perhaps just one kernel of corn. Selu and Ohoyo Chisba Osh would likely smile at the fact.

 

¹ Sabine Lang. Men as Women, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native American Cultures. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.) Pg. 47.

² Will Roscoe. Living the Spirit. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988). Pg. 45.

³ Clara Sue Kidwell. “What Would Pocahontas Think Now?: Women and Cultural Persistence.” Callaloo 17, no. 1 (1994): 149-59. doi:10.2307/2932084.

⁴ William Bartram. Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws. http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/bartram/bartram.html. (assessed December 1, 2017). Pg. 112.

⁵ Sherry B. Ortner. “Is Female to Male as Culture Is to Society?” Women, Culture, and Society, ed. Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974.) Pg. 67.

⁶ James Mooney. “The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees,” Gutenburg.Org. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24788/24788-h/24788-h.htm#page363. (accessed November 29, 2017).

 

⁷ Charles Hudson. The Southeastern Indians. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976). Pg. 259.

⁸ Ibid. Pg. 312.

⁹ Ibid. Pg. 148.

 

¹⁰ Carolyn Niethammer. Daughters of the Earth. (New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1977). Pg. 49.

¹¹ Theda Perdue. Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998). Pg. 34.

¹² Charles Hudson. The Southeastern Indians. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976). Pg. 319.

¹³ Carolyn Niethammer. Daughters of the Earth. (New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1977). Pg. 50.

¹⁴ Claudio Saunt. A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek Indians, 1733-1816.

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.) Pg. 142.

¹⁵ Amelia Rector Bell. “Separate People: Speaking of Creek Men and Women.” American Anthropologist, New Series, 92, no. 2 (1990): Pg. 335.

¹⁶ Theda Perdue. Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998). Pg. 35.

¹⁷ Ibid. Pg. 26.

¹⁸ Michelene E. Pesantubbee. Choctaw Women in a Chaotic World: The Clash of Cultures in the Colonial Southeast.

(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005.) Pg. 125.

¹⁹ H.B. Cushman. History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Natchez Indians. Ed. Angie Debo. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999). Pg. 216. 

²⁰ Sabine Lang. Men as Women, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native American Cultures. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.) Pg. 303.

²¹ Carolyn Niethammer. Daughters of the Earth. (New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1977.) Pg. 143.

²² Theda Perdue. Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.) Pg. 39.

²³ Ibid. Pg. 38.

²⁴ Michelene E. Pesantubbee. Choctaw Women in a Chaotic World: The Clash of Cultures in the Colonial Southeast.

(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005.) Pg. 29.

²⁵ Greg O’Brien. Choctaws in the Revolutionary Age, 1750-1830. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.) Pg. 30.

²⁶ Carolyn Niethammer. Daughters of the Earth. (New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1977.) Pg. 79. 

³⁰ Kathryn E. Holland Braund. “Guardians of Tradition and Handmaidens to Change: Women’s Roles in Creek Economic and Social Life during the Eighteenth Century.” American Indian Quarterly 14, no. 3 (1990): 239-58. doi:10.2307/1185653.

³¹ Robert Paulett. An Empire of Small Places: Mapping the Southeastern Anglo-Indian Trade, 1732-1795. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2012.) Pg. 162.

³² Michael Morris. “Emerging Gender Roles for Southeastern Indian Women: The Mary Musgrove Story Reconsidered.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 89, no. 1 (2005): 1-24. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40584806.

³³ Joshua Pike. Okfuskee: A Creek Indian Town in Colonial America. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004.) Pg. 166.

³⁴Nancy Shoemaker. “Native-American Women in History.” OAH Magazine of History 9, no. 4 (1995): 10-14. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25163037.

³⁵Felicity Donohoe. “To Beget a Tame Breed of People: Sex, Marriage, Adultery, and Indigenous North American Women.” Early American Studies 10, no. 1 (2012): 101-31. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23546683.

³⁶ James Adair. The History of the American Indians. (New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1968.) Pgs. 145-146.

³⁷ Theda Perdue. Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.) Pg. 56.

³⁸ Angie Debo. The Road to Disappearance: A History of the Creek Indians. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1979.) Pg. 16.

³⁹ H.B. Cushman. History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Natchez Indians. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999.) Pg. 88.

⁴⁰Sandra Slater and Fay A. Yarbrough. ed. Gender and Sexuality in Indigenous North America, 1400-1850. (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2011.) Pg. 126.

⁴¹ Richard White. The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment, and Social Change among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983.) Pg. 127