Today, our top public schools indoctrinate against Protestant as well as Roman Catholic Christianity. All Christian values are out! Critical Race Theory and teaching the Alphabet of Abominations is in. Respect for religion is for Moslems only. It is the job of the natives to integrate with the newcomers -- not the other way around. It's almost as if the public school system has been taken over by a foreign power, intent on destroying the American Way.
"For many tribes military service was not optional unless you became a transvestite." I'm somewhat taken aback at this statement. To my knowledge, most North American Indian societies did not have compulsory much of anything, including particularly military service. That was why their chiefs had so little real power, and had to lead by nothing more than experience, respectible behavior, gift-giving, and elder status. Of course, most men would be expected to fight for their own immediate communities; that would hardly be a question for any man who wanted to be held in any respect at all. I do recall reading about one Osage transvestite(?), who wore women's clothes normally, but who put on men's garb and proved a respectable warrior whenever there was a battle to be fought.
They certainly did! Typically, I think that would involve some days spent without food or water, and add-ons from there. I'm not sure that going through those initiations was ever mandatory, though. It was just something that boys of a certain adolescent age generally did, with some adult supervision, to crystallize their identities as adults. It was largely a matter of creating a spiritual foundation. The visions they experienced during that ordeal would ground their sense of who they were for the rest of their lives.
Excellent article, and much appreciated!
"For many tribes military service was not optional unless you became a transvestite." I'm somewhat taken aback at this statement. To my knowledge, most North American Indian societies did not have compulsory much of anything, including particularly military service. That was why their chiefs had so little real power, and had to lead by nothing more than experience, respectible behavior, gift-giving, and elder status. Of course, most men would be expected to fight for their own immediate communities; that would hardly be a question for any man who wanted to be held in any respect at all. I do recall reading about one Osage transvestite(?), who wore women's clothes normally, but who put on men's garb and proved a respectable warrior whenever there was a battle to be fought.
I seem to recall that many tribes had some pretty seriously metal initiation rites.
They certainly did! Typically, I think that would involve some days spent without food or water, and add-ons from there. I'm not sure that going through those initiations was ever mandatory, though. It was just something that boys of a certain adolescent age generally did, with some adult supervision, to crystallize their identities as adults. It was largely a matter of creating a spiritual foundation. The visions they experienced during that ordeal would ground their sense of who they were for the rest of their lives.