Everyday Life

Puberty was about the time frame by which clothing choices were made to physically display gender choice. The dress of Two-Spirit-Individuals is usually a mixture of traditionally male and traditionally female articles. They have distinct gender and social roles in their tribes. Accepted in everydays life as "one of the girls", the two-spirit male took on female roles such as cooking and other domestic responsibilities. But they also could go to war and had access to male activities such as sweat lodges. Many of them were active as healers or medicine persons, gravediggers, conveyers of oral traditions and songs, foretold the future, arranged marriages, and much more. In some tribes female-bodied two-spirits typically took on roles such as chief, council, trader, hunter, trapper, fisher or vision quests.