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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.

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