interpreter of dreams. . . . The Koe'kcuc wore women's clothes, did women's work, and were in the position of wives or concubines."
Elsewhere, Westermarck says: "There is no indication that the North American aborigines attached any opprobrium to men who had intercourse with those members of their own sex who had assumed the dress and habits of women. In Kadiak such a companion was, on the contrary, regarded as a great acquisition; and the effeminate men, far from being despised were held in repute by the people, most of them being wizards."
In the South Sea Islands, in 1796-98, Captain James Wilson found men there who were dressed like women and enjoyed certain honors. He expressed surprise that "even their women do not despise these fellows, but form friendships with them." Another traveler in these islands, William Ellis, a missionary, reported that the natives not only enjoyed the sanction of the priests, but even became the direct examples of their divinities.
China and Japan, as well as Malaysia, offer many examples of Buddhist priests, or Bonzes, who have boys attached to the service of the temples. It is the duty of each priest to educate a novice to follow him in the ceremonies, and it is known that the relations between the two are often intimate physically. As long ago as 1549, Francis Xavier, then traveling in Japan, refers to this. He states that the Bonzes admitted the nature of their relations with the youths, but asserted it was no sin. They said, however, that intercourse with women was for
