The range is empty and the trail is blind, And I don't seem but half myself today. I wait to hear him riding up behind And feel his knee rub mine the good old way.

Stuart Henry, a chronicler of the West, once described James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok thus:

"His looks surprise one. That softly rounded contour, that rather angelic countenance, were quite opposite of the thin, rawboned Texan model."

Henry also remarks on Hickok's "feminine looks and bearing," his hermaphroditism" and "epicene pattern."

The nineteenth century saw a clash between cultures as an influx of white Europeans began to push towards the Pacific from the eastern seaboard of the United States. Some of those who travelled west, however, decided to go native. Many wanted to escape the restrictions put upon them by a rigid moral code and puritanical society.

Kinsey discussed the occurrence of male homosexuality in rural areas in 1948:

'.... there is a fair amount of sexual contact among the older males in Western rural areas. It is a type of homosexuality which was probably common among pioneers and outdoor men in general. Today it is found among ranchmen, cattle men, prospectors, lumbermen, and farming groups in general - among groups that are virile, physically active.... This type of rural homosexuality contradicts the theory that homosexuality in itself is an urban product.'

It is doubtful if much had changed in a century. In Tex by Clarence Mulford, author of the Hopalong Cassidy series, a Western novel from 1922, he describes a scene which must have been common in the male-dominated West:

'A roar of laughter came from the celebrating miners and all eyes turned their way. Sinful and Hank were dancing to the music of a jew's-harp and the time set by stamping, hob-nailed boots. They parted, bowed, joined again, parted, curtsied and went on, hand in hand, turning and ducking, backing and filing, the dust flying and the perspiration streaming down.'

Walter Williams posits the theory in his The Spirit and the Flesh that one of the attractions for men who migrated west was that they would, by and large, encounter a largely all-male society and because sodomy was associated with the Indians. "This is not to suggest that most men went west with these more or less conscious notions," he writes. "But it does suggest that those historians who do not consider this motivation ignore an important facet of frontier life."

For anthropologists in the field, however, it was far harder to ignore the realities of cross-dressing and same-sex relationships within native American society.

In 1886, We'wha, a Zuni Indian, was invited to Washington DC as a guest of Matilda Coxe Stevenson, who had befriended We'wha in New Mexico. We'wha stayed in the capital, meeting President Grover Cleveland, and the rest of Washington society, was probably unaware of the fact that this statuesque Indian was a berdache.

Berdaches were mainly men who opted to dress, work and live as women. Stevenson, who was ignorant of her friend's gender at first, still referred to We'wha as 'she' even years after discovering that 'she' was actually a he. Berdaches were common to many tribes, even the Apaches. It is believed that one of Crazy Horse's wives of Crazy Horse was a berdache.

Due to the incursion of Eastern civilisation, especially the missionary influence, the berdache tradition died out, even amongst the Navajos, where they were highly revered. It is only recently that gay and lesbian native Americans have being rediscovering this vital aspect of their own culture.

Early in the century, an Oklahoma cowboy recalled how his trail boss encouraged his charges to pair up with their fellows. In one letter he wrote: "At first pairing they'd solace each other gingerly and, as bashfulness waned, manually. As trust in mutual good will matured, they'd graduate to the ecstatically comforting 69... Folk know not how cock-hungry men get."

In Reminiscences of a Ranchman by Edgar Beecher Bronson, he describes the antics of a "six-foot-two blond giant" called Jake DePuyster at a dance in 1882 at The Cowboys' Rest in Ogallala, Nebraska, which was the northern terminus for the famous Texas trail. Due to there not been "enough gals around," he decides to take matters in hand.

Cocked jauntily over his right eye he wore a bright red toque with a faded wreath of pale blue flowers, from which a bedraggled feather drooped wearily over his left ear; about his waist wrinkled a broad pink sash, tied in a great double-knot set squarely in front, while fastened also about his waist, pendent no more than mid-way of his long thighs, hung a garment white of colour, filmy of fabric, bifurcated of form, richly ruffled of extremity....

The bearded Jake sidles up to Buck, a fellow cowboy, and asks gamely for the privilege of the next dance. Initially hesitant, Buck accepts. The author, further, observes:

While there were better dancers and prettier, that first quadrille made "Miss DePuyster" the belle of the ball for the rest of the day and night, and not a few serious affrays over disputes for an early chance of a "round" or a "square" with her were narrowly avoided.

In the summer of 1878, Mrs Nash, the company laundress for General George Armstrong Custer's Seventh US Cavalry, died at Fort Meade, Dakota Territory. Always heavily veiled, she had been with the regiment for ten years, she had been married to one soldier-husband after another. The corporal, with whom she had been cohabiting with at the time, was away fighting Indians on an extended campaign. The women of the garrison, whilst preparing her body for burial, made a surprising discovery: Mrs Nash had been a man! On his return, word soon got around and the corporal, after becoming the butt of endless ridicule, finally took, what was then, the honourable way out and committed suicide.

What a contrast to the native Americans who not only tolerated effeminate behaviour in men but also masculine tendencies within females. As evidenced by that of Woman Chief, a ten-year-old Gros Ventre girl when she was taken prisoner by a Crow raiding party. She grew up to become a formidable warrior and hunter, never wearing male attire and acquiring four wives.

(c) Howard Watson 2000