ABSTRACT
Ethnographic literature has perpetuated some misconceptions about the cross-gender role. Inform ants frequently describe the institution in negative terms, stating that berdache were despised and ridiculed. But ethnographers collected much of the data in this century; it is based on inform ants’ memories of the mid-to late 1800s. During this period the cross-gender institution was disappearing rapidly. Thus, twentiethcentury inform ants do not accurately represent the institution in the precontact period. Alfred Kroeber found that “while the [berdache] institution was in full bloom, the Caucasian attitude was one of repug nance and condemnation. This attitude . . . made subsequent personality inquiry difficult, the later berdache leading repressed or disguised lives.”4 Inform ants’ statements to later ethnographers or hostile white officials were far different from the actual attitude toward the role that prevailed in the precolonial period. An analysis of the cross-gender role in its
proper historical context brings to light the integral nature o f its rela tionship to the larger community.
