ABSTRACT
The berdache tradition in American Indian culture has been discussed since the earliest Spanish and French explorers confronted aboriginal societies. Frontiersmen and early ethnographers also described it, and a few even interviewed berdaches as late as the 1930s (Stevenson 1901-2; Hill, 1935). Nevertheless, most of the first-hand writings on the subject were based upon statements by non-berdache Indians or by whites who may have had only fleeting contact with a berdache. Some of these white observers approached the subject in a neutral manner, but the majority (including some anthropologists) expressed condemnatory attitudes reflective of western prejudices. Most reports devoted only a paragraph or two to the berdaches, preferring to focus on less "disagreeable" topics.
