Page 387 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1688 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

special ceremonial or religious roles, just as celibate of human decisions but of divine mandate or the “laws of
priests, monks, and nuns did and do in Christianity and nature.” The sexual practices of other cultures are thus
Buddhism. In south Sulawesi (part of Indonesia), indi- made to fit into the existing scheme, and if they cannot,
viduals termed bissu carried out special rituals thought to they are judged unnatural or deviant, and may serve as a
enhance and preserve the power and fertility of the justification for conquest. “Unnatural” sexual practices
rulers, which was conceptualized as “white blood,” a became a standard feature of groups other than one’s own,
supernatural fluid that flowed in royal bodies.The bissu a sign that they were radically “other.” Ancient Athenians
were linked to the androgynous creator deity; they could told about the Amazons, who lived free of men except for
be women, but were more often men dressed in women’s brief encounters for purposes of procreation. Early modern
clothing and performing women’s tasks. In northern western Europeans saw Turks, especially the sultan and his
India, divine androgyny is replicated in the human world nobles, as sexually lascivious, lolling around in a harem
by religious ascetics termed hijra, impotent or castrated surrounded by beautiful young women.Nineteenth-century
men dedicated to the goddess Bahuchara Mata; they are British officials regarded Bengali men, who were thinner
regarded as having the power to grant fertility and so per- and had less body hair than they did, as effeminate.
form blessings at marriages and the births of male chil-
dren. In Polynesian societies, mahus perform certain Premodern Sexuality
female-identified rituals, do women’s work, and have sex Despite the centrality of sexual issues to cultural tradi-
with men, as do the xanith in Oman, though this status tions and encounters between groups, until the 1980s the
is temporary and these men eventually marry women. study of sexuality was often trivialized, and seen as a
The best-known example of third-sex categorization is questionable or marginal area of scholarly inquiry. The
found among certain Native American groups. Euro- history of sexuality has since become a booming aca-
peans who first encountered them thought they were demic field, but certain areas and periods have received
homosexuals and called them “berdaches,” from an Ara- more attention than others.
bic word for male prostitute.This term can still be found One of these is ancient Athens, which has traditionally
in older scholarly literature, but the preferred term today been regarded as a foundation of Western culture and has
is “two-spirit people.” Though Europeans focused on left many sources, particularly about attitudes toward sex-
their sexuality, two-spirit people (who were usually, uality among the educated male elite. Plato and Aristotle,
though not always, morphologically male) were distin- the two most important philosophers of ancient Athens,
guished from other men more by their clothing, work, were both suspicious of the power of sexual passion,
and religious roles than their sexual activities. Among warning that it distracted men from reason and the
many groups two-spirit people are actually thought of as search for knowledge. Both men praised a love that was
a third gender, so that sexual relations between a two- intellectualized and nonsexual, the type of attachment
spirit person and a man may have not been understood still termed “platonic.” (Neither Plato nor Aristotle was
as “same-sex” in any case.Two-spirit people were regarded concerned about what sex does to women except as this
as having both a male and female spirit, so they could affects men.) Plato developed a dualistic view of both
mediate between the male and female, as well as the humans and the world, arguing that the unseen realm of
divine and human worlds. ideas was far superior to the visible material world, and
Europeans’ categorization of two-spirit people as that the human mind or soul was trapped in a material
homosexual—the description actually used was “sodomite” body.This mind/body split was a gendered concept, with
—highlights a common issue in cultural encounters. Sex- men associated more with the mind and women with the
ual categories and norms within a culture are often so body. Women’s bodies were also viewed as more influ-
deeply ingrained that they appear “natural,” the result not enced by their sexual and reproductive organs than