Worldwide Indigenous
Science Network
Thunder Dreamer Project
* Coined by indigenous peoples in North America, the term Thunder Dreamers refers to and reveals a source of healing power and way of working. We are using this term instead of social scientific terms such as ‘Berdache’ or ‘Trickster’ as they derive solidly from a Western mindset, are dissociative and serve to further distance and trivialize both the role and practice of Thunder Dreaming. Different tribes around the world will have their own precise terminology, but in English, Thunder Dreamer is the most accurate term to date.
Project Description
The Thunder Dreamers Networking Project is a technology-based international outreach program designed to empower and educate two spirit people about the spiritual traditions of the Thunder Dreamers. Through the creation of a website, online archives, and short online films about these traditions, the Worldwide Indigenous Science Network intends to build relationships of learning and exchange between traditional elders globally who can serve as guides and to provide community and accessible information to two spirit peoples about these traditions.
History
Since ancient times, traditional societies all over the world highly respected, valued, and nurtured people who were born and lived with integrated masculine and feminine energies. Prior to the construction of modern terms such as “gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender”, these people were called by different names in many tribal languages—the winkte of the Lakota, the nadle of the Dine, the minguga of the Omaha, the isangoma of the Zulu, the “gatekeepers” of Dagara in Africa, the hijaras in India, and so forth—and held crucial roles in their societies. Endowed with the gifts of seeing into the future and communicating intimately with the forces of nature, these people were revered as healers and spiritual leaders. They were responsible for mediating between worlds and restoring harmony and balance within their tribes. Often deriving their powers from the forces of lightning and thunder, many of these healers became Thunder Dreamers. It was because of such powers and their centrality to tribal life that these Thunder Dreamers became targeted, marginalized and persecuted worldwide by missionaries at the onset of colonization thereby causing tribal communities and their earth-honoring ways to disintegrate.
Current Issues
The present-day oppression of people who identify as lesbian, bisexual, or transgender can be traced to historical projects, religious biases and mindsets based upon separation. Many today who identify themselves as such are disconnected from pre-colonial cultural histories and life-affirming spiritual traditions that formerly placed two spirit people in roles of great distinction. Because the most powerful healing traditions of indigenous peoples have been distorted, denigrated, and deprecated by the sexualizing of an entire spiritual tradition, the Thunder Dreaming tradition, non-heterosexuals in modernized societies are forced to adopt identities and labels that do not honor the integrity of their whole self. There is a need for accessible information that re-contextualizes, re-sacralizes, and re-roots the roles of the Thunder Dreamers within tribal perspectives that honor all creation. Exposure to the Thunder Dreamer tradition can open up a whole new spiritual identity for non-heterosexuals. The Thunder Dreamer Networking Project can provide non-heterosexuals an avenue to move away from limits imposed by gender identification to one that would allow them to claim, release, exercise and enjoy their spiritual, environmental, and societal power.
The need for The Thunder Dreamer Networking Project arose from an unprecedented international gathering of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirited people at the World Pride and Power Conference in Los Angeles in February 2008—where native elders, academicians, artists, and activists explored the historical and cultural roles of the Thunder Dreamers. This conference uncovered the sacred roles of the Thunder Dreamers, affirmed the importance of restoring these roles and their applications to today’s global challenges, and outlined directions in moving forward. The gathering demonstrated the power of building bridges of learning, exchange and support between contemporary lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirited people of all continents. Women who attended the conference, in particular, spoke of the need for continual dialogue and exchange and the importance of reclaiming the Thunder Dreamer traditions that could bring balance and harmony to the emotional, physical, mental and spiritual lives of two-spirited women today.
Objectives
To reconstruct a traditional two spirit Thunder Dreamer system within a contemporary setting.
To link the WISN international network of elders with two spirits committed to restoring Thunder Dreamer medicine.
To educate Thunder Dreamers about the history and spiritual practices of their various cultures and the implications for reclaiming these practices as parts of living traditions.
To network Thunder Dreamers and maintain WISN’s level of support given to healers worldwide. (To our knowledge, WISN is the only international NGO that maintains ongoing networking and support services for healers globally).
