she walks for days inside a thousand eyes: a two-spirited story
by Sharron Proulx-Turner
Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-88801-326-2, 183 pp., $17.95 paper.

Because they could see both sides of a dispute, they often acted as counsellors. They encountered prejudice and yet were respected and honoured in their cultures for their courage and their vision.

They are the two-spirited, man-woman, woman-man, which occupied one body. In our society we would name them lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender. Beyond the labels pressed upon them, the two-spirited held specific roles; they were healers, conveyors of oral traditions and songs, warriors, visionaries.

I had read of the two-spirited or the "other," as they were sometimes called in novels, but they were strange and shadowy figures. It was not until I read this book that I understood the meaning of the two-spirits and the extent of their power.

Proulx-Turner took eleven years to bring this work to fruition. The book is divided into eight parts and if you read the titles to each section, you will see that the words become a sentence and it is an explanation of her whole book.

In each section, Proulx-Turner addresses her grandmother and introduces young crow, small spotted eagle and gopher, who take us into the story, the story of the two-spirited. The author speaks of "still learning my role, there are so many/ diversions along the way to keep us from our true role in life, our/ obligation to grow into the elders we're meant to be." (5)

In a frank and passionate voice, she tells of those who went before, of the balance in being two-spirited, the balance between he and she; "as pronouns, once these are balanced, a person is balanced." (25) And once balanced, the two-spirits can be "singers, seers, interpreters of dreams/ mediators, healers/ to see/ as she/ as he/ to be/ as he/ as she." (35)

She recollects the warriors and visionaries from the past and paints such intriguing and authentic personalities that the two-spirited grow in our imagination and we come to know that they lived, that they do live. She writes of shirley bear of the maliseet, pine leaf of an'aninin, of co'pak, klamath woman, thanadelthur of the dene suline, a "slave woman in the hudson bay books." (68)

These two-spirits and many more existed and braved the scorn of their communities to follow the path of their beliefs, "to remind me to listen and remember that this, the/first day of my fast, I'm here to watch and to listen. to pray and/ to sing." (73)

This is a powerful work and the author lays a solid foundation for the duality existing in humans; it is one not to be ignored. The poem is also a reminder that "in indigenous cultures, we don't do things alone. the two-spirit women/ in our communities . . . will open those/ doors and out will come the most amazing stories." (178)

Proulx-Turner also mentions that in mother earth there are many things; "remember,"she writes, "all stones in your path/ are alive/ they are my backbone given/ by the grandmothers and grandfathers." (180) The two-spirited are among these stones.

The poem acts as a vehicle for the richness the two-spirited bring to the community. The poem is full of wisdom and revelation; it is well crafted and Proulx-Turner's voice is as compelling as the beating of a drum.

Mary Barnes is a writer living in Wasaga Beach, Ontario.

Buy this book at McNally-Robinson Booksellers.


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