Catlin's "Dance to the Berdashe", 1832-39

Artist George Catlin's Letters and Notes on the Customs and Conditions of the North American Indians, written during his eight years of travel among the Native Americans (1832-39), contains engravings from Catlin's original paintings, accompanied by his comments on the scenes depicted. Of the Sioux, Sacs, and Foxes' "Dance to the Berdashe" Catlin writes:

Dance to the Berdashe ... is a very funny and amusing scene, which happens once a year or oftener, as they choose, when a feast is given to the "Berdashe," as he is called in French, (or l-coo-coo-a. in their own language), who is a man dressed in woman's clothes, as he is known to be all his life, and for extraordinary privileges which he is known to possess, he is driven to the most servile and degrading duties, which he is not allowed to escape; and he being the only one of the tribe submitting to this disgraceful degradation, is looked upon as medicine and sacred, and a feast is given to him annually; and initiatory to it, a dance by those few young men of the tribe who' can, as in the sketch, dance forward and publicly make their boast (without the denial of the Berdashe), that Ahg-whi-eechoos-cum-me hi-anh-dwax-cumme-ke on-daig-nun-ehow ixt. Che-ne-a'hkt ah-pexian I-coo-coo-a wi-an-gurotst whow-itcht-ne-axt-ar-rah, ne-axt-gun-he h'dow-k'sdow-on-daig-o-ewhicht non-go-was-see.

Such, and such only, are allowed to enter the dance and partake of the feast, and as there are but a precious few in the tribe who have legitimately gained this singular privilege, or willing to make a public confession of it, it will be seen that the society consists of quite a limited number of "odd fellows."

This is one of the most unaccountable and disgusting customs, that I∑ have ever met in the Indian country, and so far as I have been able to learn, belongs only to the Sioux and Sacs and Foxes-perhaps it is practiced by other tribes, but I did not meet with it; and for further account of it I am constrained to refer the reader to the country where it is practiced, and where I should wish that it might be extinguished before it be more fully recorded.