European accounts depict Timucua two-spirits with typical male anatomy, as strong and muscular as the men. It is possible that some Timucua with female and intersex biology may also have been two-spirits; this is common among other Native American peoples, and Laudonniere describes one of the two-spirits he met as “an Indian woman of tall stature, who was a hermaphrodite.” Two-spirits had their own distinctive clothing, as did men and women. Women and two-spirits wore skirts of hide or Spanish moss and kept their long hair down, while men wore breechcloths and kept their hair in a topknot. Each gender wore distinctive colors of feathers.
In Timucua society many duties were divided by gender. Women’s roles included tending the crops, gathering shellfish and berries, making pottery, and certain religious duties. Men hunted, fished, went to war, and typically oversaw politics, though women often rose to serve as chief and other important positions. Two-spirits also fulfilled political roles. Laudonniere recounted a two-spirit emissary serving as part of a delegation of Chief Utina.
Timucua two-spirits had a number of important duties specific to them. Because of their great physical strength, they handled much of the hardest physical labor. Laudonniere recounted that a two-spirit carried a large vessel of water to his men when they became fatigued from a march in the Florida heat, and one of de Bry’s engravings show two-spirits carrying huge baskets of crops harvested by the women. In times of war, two-spirits carried supplies and weapons for the men, and bore and treated the injured.
Some of the two-spirits’ roles had a substantial spiritual dimension. In Timucua culture, two-spirits bridged boundaries – between men and women, between this world and the sacred worlds, and between life and death. According to Timucua beliefs about the supernatural origin of disease, only two-spirits, priests, and healers could safely interact with the ill. When someone became sick, two-spirits bore them to a separate space, lit them their own fire, and fed them until they were well. They also performed these duties for women who had just given birth or were menstruating, as the Timucua believed men could not withstand women’s spiritual power in these times.
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