The American naturalist William Healey Dall made substantial contributions to the cultural anthropology of the Inuit. In 1897, he documented the following observation, "Sometimes we find females who refuse to accept husbands, preferring to adopt masculine manners, following the deer on the mountains, trapping and fishing for themselves."
Dall documented a noteworthy case, which is described in Otis T. Mason's (1894, p. 211) Woman's Share in Primitive Culture:
A young Eskimo woman, fine looking and of remarkably good physique and mental capacity, held herself aloof from the young men. She said she was as strong as any of them, as they could testify. She could shoot and hunt deer as well as the men, and set snares and nets. She had her own gun, bought from the proceeds of her trapping. She did not desire to do the work of a wife, preferring that which custom allots to the men. When winter came, having made a convert in a smaller, less athletic damsel, the two erected their own house, and here lived and traded in defiance of public sentiment. When on one occasion they were off on a deer hunt "outraged public opinion combined in a mob which reduced their winter quarters to a shapeless ruin. The next year they gave up the unequal contest and returned to the ways of the world."*
* From Dall, Am Nat, Philadelphia, 1878, vol. xii, pp. 4-6, 17.
The full excerpt from Dall (1878, pp. 5-6):
A young woman, really quite fine-looking, and of remarkably good physique and mental capacity, was observed to hold herself aloof from the young men of the tribe in an unusual manner. Inquiry, first of others, afterward of herself, developed the following reasons for the eccentricity: In effect she said that she was as strong as any of the young men; no one of them had ever been able to conquer her in wrestling or other athletic exercises, though it had more than once been tried, sometimes by surprise and with odds against her. She could shoot and hunt deer as well as any of them, and make and set snares and nets. She had her own gun, bought from the proceeds of her trapping. She did not desire to do the work of a wife, she preferred the work which custom among the Eskimo allots to men*. She despised marriage; held she had the right to bestow favors where, when, and to whom she pleased, as fancy prompted, or not at all.
When winter came, having made a convert in a smaller and less athletic damsel, the two set to work with walrus-tusk picks and dug the excavation in which they erected their own house, which was of the usual type of Eskimo houses, walled and roofed with drift wood covered with turf. It was, however, as additional defence against unwished for prowling males, divided into two rooms with very small and narrow door between them, next which lay some handy billets of wood to crack the sconce of a possible intruder. Here our two Amazons lived, traded and carried on their affairs in defiance of communal bonds and public sentiment.
The latter seemed to be composed half of disapprobation and half of envious admiration; while all the young fellows in the village busied themselves in concocting plans against the enterprising pair. These were too fully on the alert to be surprised, and all efforts against their peace were fruitless. They did not issue a "Weekly," dabble in stocks or propose to run for office, but in other respects their conduct formed a tolerably close parallel with some that has been observed near home.
When the deer-hunting season came, the ladies were off to the mountains, and no sooner had they departed than disappointed lovers and an "outraged public sentiment" combined in a mob which reduced their winter quarters to a shapeless ruin. So far as my information goes, the following year they returned to the ordinary ways of the world, and gave up the unequal contest against a tyrannical public opinion, so far as their life of isolation was concerned.
Commenting on this case, Lang (1998) writes: "The Inuit woman who hunted only for herself and her woman life companion, on the other hand, had her house destroyed by the community (O. T. Mason 1895:211), and both women “returned to the ways of the world”—which meant the conventional feminine role."
Previously, I erred in describing these women as "lesbians". There are parallels between this case and the mistreatment of the Mohave hwame, the Samoan fa'atama, and black lesbians of Zimbabwe (Aarmo, 1999). However, it is unclear whether the two Inuit women were involved in a sexual relationship or if they were merely co-habiting. While it is possible the masculine woman was gynephilic, there is not enough detail to assume this had to be true. The two women could have simply been friends who tried to escape the gender roles imposed on women in their culture.Related Blog Posts
References
Aarmo, M. (1999). How homosexuality became "Un-African": The Case of Zimbabwe. Same-sex relations and female desires: Transgender practices across cultures, 255-280.
Lang, S. (1998). Men as women, women as men: Changing gender in Native American cultures. University of Texas Press.
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