A Queer Celebration of Chinese New Year!

Happy New Year! Chinese New Year, that is!

A Lesbian Lip-Lock in Tiananmen Square!

London's Chinatown all decorated!

Look at all the Red things for sale in Taiwan!

It's The Year of the Rat, and to celebrate (in addition to that Queer Kiss photo above - I'm so PROUD of those women - I don't know if I would be that brave!), here are three intellectual fireworks for you to enjoy:

Mythology behind the Holiday (from wikipedia):

According to legend, in ancient China, the Nián (年) was a man-eating beast from the mountains (in other versions from under the sea), which came out every 12 months somewhere close to winter to prey on humans. The people later believed that the Nian was sensitive to loud noises and the colour red, so they scared it away with explosions, fireworks and the liberal use of the colour red. These customs led to the first New Year celebrations. Guò nián (simplified Chinese: 过年; traditional Chinese: 過年), which means to celebrate the new year, literally means the passover of the Nian.

I didn't know that - and that's really cool, an explanation of the use of the color red and the loud fireworks!

Here's the next flower of light, to delight: There was a play about lesbian love, written and performed in China in the 1600s!

Li Yu's play, Lian xiang ban or "Pitying the Fragrant Companion." It is a story about two women (one of them married) who love each other so much that they perform a wedding ceremony for themselves. The married woman conspires successfully to have her husband accept her lover as a concubine and the two women live together happily ever after. That the play later became closely identified with the lesbian experience is unmistakable; for example, in the autobiographical work on Shen Fu (1763-?) Six Chapters of a Floating Life, we find him teasing his wife about her infatuation with a singsong girl, "Are you trying to imitate Li-weng's 'Pitying the Fragrant Companion'?"

And the third fabulous celebration of Chinese Gay Soul this New Years is:

From the Chronicles, too, we know about the affection between Duke Ling of Wei and his minister, Ni Xia. Once, when the two men were taking a stroll in an orchard, Ni picked a peach off one of the trees and took a bite off it. The fruit was so delicious that he offered the rest of it to the duke; a common euphemism for male homosexual love, fen tao zhi ai (literally, "the love of the shared peach"), is derived from this account.

Juicy, isn't it?

Here's hoping YOUR Chinese New Year Celebration is as Brave, Peachy, Fragrant, Dressed in Red and LOUD!

Namaste,

Lee

quote #2 is from pg. 85 of the essay "Homosexuality and the State in Late Imperial China" by Viven W. Ng, as in "Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past" edited by Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus and George Chauncey, Jr. quote #3 is from pg. 77 of the same essay.

Native American Lesbian Marriage Ceremonies, Serpent Mound, and the KOSKALAKA's special powers

There was SO much more on Native American Lesbian sexuality that I found fascinating, I had to do another post on this!

The dyke (we might also call her a "ceremonial lesbian") was likely to have been a medicine woman in a special sense. She probably was a participant in the Spirit (intelligence, force field) of an Entity or Deity who was particularly close to earth during the Goddess period (though that Deity is still present in the lives of some American Indian women who practice Her ceremonies and participate actively and knowingly in Her reality.)

Signs of this Deity remain scattered all over the continent: Snake Mound in Ohio is probably one.

(It's also called Serpent Mound, and it's the biggest ancient Native American Ceremonial Structure, and the largest effigy mound in the world!)



Here's another view, from a map published in 1890:



And get this: The oval-to-head area of the serpent is aligned to the summer solstice sunset and the snake’s coils align with the winter solstice sunrise, the autumnal and spring equinox sunrises, and the summer solstice sunrise!

Take a close look at the map - see the circle by the Serpent's mouth? No one knows what that is or was - some historians think it might have been a platform for ceremonies to take place.

A dyke's initiation takes the same course as a male's: She is required to pass grueling physical tests, to lose her mundane persona, and to transform her soul and mind into other forms.

The Lakota have a word for some of these women, koskalaka, which is translated as "young man" or "woman who doesn't want to marry," in our terms, "dyke." These women are said to be the daughters (the followers/practitioners) of a Spirit/Divinity who links two women together making them one in Her power.

They do a dance in which a rope is twined between them and coiled to form a "rope baby."

The exact purpose or result of this dance is not mentioned, but its significance is clear. In a culture that values children and women because they bear them, two women who don't want to marry (a man) become united by the power of the Diety and their union is validated by the creation of a rope baby. That is, the rope baby signifies the potency of their union in terms that are comprehensible to their society, which therefore legitimizes it.

It is clear that the koskalaka are perceived as powerful... When this power is used to determine other's actions, it at least borders on black magic or sorcery.

I can imagine such a Lesbian Marriage Ceremony, on a raised platform in front of the gaping jaws of the Serpent Mound. Two koskalaka, proud, beautiful, in love, dancing with their rope and twining and twisting it to form the image of a child. Their chanting tribe surrounding them, the air swirling with embers of fire, the pounding of drums, and magic!


The quotes are from pgs. 114-115 of Paula Gunn Allen's essay "Lesbians in American Indian Cultures" in "Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past" edited by Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus and George Chauncey, Jr.

Information on the Serpent Mound came from this wikipedia entry.

I also found an interesting article about Native American Lesbians now on Curve magazine's website.

"Woman Chief of the Crows," A Famous Lesbian American Indian

Okay, I knew I wanted Today's Bitchin' Queer Quote to be about Women American Indians - and how they were Spiritual and Queer and Powerful - and in reading a couple of amazing books and essays on the topic, I'm amazed at how, prior to western colonization, there was SO much variety in Native American cultures in terms of gender identity and expression, and in the kind of relationships women had with other women. (And, for that matter, men had with other men - but that's a topic for another day!)

Women were

goddesses,
spirit-women,
mothers,
sisters,
grandmothers,
aunties,
shamans,
healers,
prophets, and
daughters.

and lovers!


The story I'll share today is from the early 1800s. Edward Denig, a white frontiersman who lived with the Crows, knew Woman Chief for 12 years, and wrote about her in 1855.

Born among the Gros Ventre Indians, she was captured at the age of 10 by a raiding party of Crows and adopted by a Crow warrior. She grew to be "a fearless horseback rider and skilled rifle shooter."

When she was still a young woman she "was equal if not superior to any of the men in hunting both on horseback and foot...[She] would spend most of her time in killing deer and bighorn, which she butchered and carried home on her back when hunting on foot. At other times she joined in the surround on horse, could kill four or five buffalo at a race, cut up the animals without assistance, and bring the meat and hides home."

As a successful hunter, she shared her meat freely with others. But it was as a warrior that her fame was made.

She became famous for standing off an attack from Blackfoot Indians, in which she killed three warriors while remaining unharmed herself: "This daring act stamped her character as a brave. It was sung by the rest of the camp, and in time was made known to the whole nation."

A year later she organized her first raid and easily attracted a group of warriors to follow her. She stole seventy horses from a Blackfoot camp, and in the ensuing skirmish killed and scalped two enemies. In every engagement with enemy tribes, including raids on enemy camps, she distinguished herself by her bravery. Crows began to believe she had "a charmed life which, with her daring feats, elevated her to a point of honor and respect not often reached by male warriors." The Crows were proud of her, composing special songs to commemorate her gallantry. When the tribal council was held and all the chiefs assembled, she took her place among them, as the third-highest ranked person in the tribe.

She dressed like other women, and was "taller and stronger than most women - her pursuits no doubt tending to develop strength of nerve and muscle."

She also took a wife!

She went through the usual procedure of giving horses to the parents of her intended spouse. A few years later, she took three more wives. This plurality of women added also to her prestige as chief.

Denig called his friend a "singular and resolute woman... She had fame, standing, honor, riches, and as much influence over the band as anyone except two or three leading chiefs... For 20 years she conducted herself well in all things."

In 1854 Woman Chief led a Crow peacekeeping mission to her native Gros Ventre tribe. Resentful because of her previous raids against them, some Gros Ventres trapped her and killed her.

Stories passed down have made her a hero "in the classic Plains mode. Even her death, at enemy hands, was typical of the pattern for the honored male warrior."


An excellent background on the context of the different roles women took on in Native American Cultures is the essay "Lesbians in American Indian Cultures," by Paula Gunn Allen, in "Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past" Edited by Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus and George Chauncey, Jr. The first quote above is from page 113.

The true story of "Woman Chief of the Crows" came from pgs. 244-246 of "The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Cultures" by Walter L. Williams, much of which was taken from Edwin Thompson Denig's "Five Tribes of the Upper Missouri," ed. John Ewers, pg. 195-200

The image above is from the website on Jim Beckwourth, an African American Explorer whose autobiography told of his time with the Crow and his infatuation with the woman war chief, who he said was first called "Pine Leaf." Interestingly, there's no mention of Pine Leaf's marriage to women in the tribe on this or many of the other sites I browsed.

But there is here at "I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell do I Read?"