Gender Troubled: European Masculinity and Kaúxuma núpika on the Columbia Plateau
Abstract
Kaúxuma núpika was a Ktunaxa guide, prophet and mediator from the Columbia Plateau in the early 19th century that appears in multiple Euro-American fur trader journals and narratives. He left his community as a young woman, and returned a year later as a man, who gained significant political and spiritual influence across the Plateau. Fur traders that hired Kaúxuma núpika as a translator, mediator and guide interpreted him as a man, and often only discovered that he was born a woman long after they had parted ways. Kaúxuma núpika, knowingly or not, was performing a masculinity entirely legible to these traders—and within their narratives they are constantly trying to remind both themselves, and the reader, that this man is not actually a man.
Authors contributing to the The Corvette agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International license. This licence allows anyone to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear.
Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal right of first publication.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.