BEYOND THE BUFFALO HUNT:
Sebrena Forrest on
Living in Four Cultures
Sebrena Forrest is a Mohawk ceremonial singer, oil painter and writer/storyteller navigating four cultures: white, native american, straight and gay. Her art reveals Native American experience as vital and relevant today, not romantic myth or historical relic. In 2000, she led a successful grass-roots effort to protect the Garden of Gods in Colorado Springs—a traditional meeting place of native peoples—from development and distorted historical representation.
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I get tired of paintings of buffalo hunts. I want to show that Native Americans are here today doing much of the same things as the rest of society...we live in suburbia, work at high tech jobs and go to the Tastee Freeze. At the Pow Wow (left), I show modern Indians wearing sunglasses, drinking Cokes and selling their wares under a Martha Stewart canopy. A traditional tipi stands beside a motor home, our modern mode of nomadic travel.
In native culture, I am two-spirited; that is to say, homosexual. It's an Indian belief that we are all both male and female. In the old days, a gay person was considered balanced with spiritual gifts others did not have. Homosexuals served as counselors, teachers and entertainers. Sometimes a chief would have a woman for a wife and a winkte (homosexual male) wife. In many Indian nations, there was no shame in being gay. Then came the Europeans with their new religion, which brought shame and prejudice. As a result of forced Christianity, many Indian youth have adopted the same disdain toward gays as mainstream society.
In the 1970s, I was kicked out of the US Army for being homosexual. (Article 14 - Misconduct or Admitting to Homosexual Acts During Military Service). This wouldn't have come up except I was serving in an Honor Platoon in the Army Security Agency at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, and a wannabe boyfriend from my past was making trouble during my background investigation because I refused his unwanted attentions. Today we have a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy but the prejudice remains that we are not good enough to die for our country; maybe they're doing us a favor, but I still apologize to my parents for what they endured during that time. Continued