I’ve never seen much about how primitive, pre-literate societies integrated homosexuals into the cultural mix. Assuming they did not kill or ostracize them at the first sign of same sex attraction, how were people with a same sex orientation sucessfully integrated into the tribal structure?
That may well be an unwarranted assumption.
Indeed. astro, you may be interested by this thread, in which a great deal of evidence was presented that showed that so-called “primitive” tribes were far more enlightened about homosexuality than you give them credit for.
It’s the primitive tribes known as the Judaeo-Christians that innovated the repression, apparently.
Little Big Man, anyone?
Perhaps they made a place for themselves in the time-honored way; by kissing up to the powerful. 
I read the thread and it was mostly about Indian cultures (which is good information). How did the early pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon/Druidic and and nordic proto-Viking cultures deal with homosexuality? Is there any good information due to the lack of records?
Also, based on the Indian examples did the modern concept of someone being “homosexual” even exist in pre-literate cultures. In reading the Indian examples the notion of a personal sexual identiity seems less binary and more fluid.
Additionally assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that non-Judeo Christian cultures were a lot more tolerant, what aspect of life in the ancient middle east made Judeo Christian cultures so intolerant of homosexuality that they would codify this into into their bible. Was it a reaction to acceptance of homosexuality by the ancient Egyptians (if they did) that allowed them to differentiate themselves?
Sorry for all the derivative questions.
It’s hard to say, just because we don’t have a lot of information, and people tend to shape what we do know to fit their prejudices, but there seems to be some evidence of homosexual parings among some Germanic and Norse warrior bands, and at least one Greek author said that homosexuality was common among the Celts, but it’s possible that was said to be insulting. (Homosexuality between adult males was frowned upon in a lot of Greece).
One thing to keep in mind is that people most likely did not define themselves (or other people) in sexual terms to the extent that we do now. I doubt that people were any less interested in sex in olden times, but we probably intellectualize and conceptualize and obsess about sex in mental & categorical ways a lot more than people tended to in previous eras, if only because we have more access to such a wide range of information on variations and exceptions and statistics and norms and whatnot.
So rather than “homosexuals”, you may have had “Ptando, who did after much drinking of ale clasp Varsil and mate with him that time you remember”. Will they do it again? Had Ptando done it previously? Does Varsil mate with females? Prefer males? Is it highly unusual? Was it the ale? Who the hell knows?!? Including Ptando and Varsil, who didn’t grow up with the concept of “gay” let along “coming out”, you know.
I suspect it was known of by the sophisticated, but was conceptualized as a behavior, not as a “way that a person is”.
Astro, While it does not directly address your question, The Experience of Homosexuality in the Middle Ages is an interesting read. More importantly, the attached bibliography may direct you to other resources.
Personally I think that homosexuality would have/could have been acceptable under the “beneficent uncle/artistic sibling” type of scenario. Someone that adds value to the tribe but does NOT drain resources by adding children could have been a valued member. JMHO
Then I am confused historically. I would have thought ancient Greece was the one society, above all others, was the most accepting and tolerant of male-male homosexual relationships per the whole assumption that Greeks like Socrates, Plato etc. were gay and did not suffer for it (being gay that is) .
Ancient Greek society, inasmuch as such a thing existed, accepted pairing between young men or boys and older men; a practice we now call “child molesting.” Pairing between adult men was not accepted, and a male “bottom” was subject to some derision.
Didn’t the Greeks believe homosexual love was the perfect love?
What Nametag said. Some Greek societies, especially Athens, accepted the idea of men having sex with boys, or slaves, so long as they took the active part, but not homosexuality between equals. A noted exception to this seems to have been Thebes, which had the “sacred band”…this warrior brotherhood that seems to have been made up of pairs of lovers, but this was considered unusual even by Greek standards, and possibly looked down upon, if you can rely on Plutarch’s claim of what Phillip of Macedon said.
To follow up on BrotherCadfael’s post, I am currently reading Little Big Man by Thomas Berger. A Cheyenne named Little Horse, Jack Crabb’s “younger brother” in the family into which he is accepted, is a heemaneh; an effiminate homosexual who takes the submissive role in sexual relations. Everyone in the tribe accepts his behavior, including his cross-dressing, and he and his fellows perform as dancers whenever there is a conference of the tribes.
Little Horse becomes one of the two wives of a warrior in the tribe. The other is a captive white woman. Interestingly, it appears there is apparently no special name given to this other man’s role, and he is regarded as a heterosexual who happens to also like sex with men. While everyone is tolerant of Little Horse, his mate is occasionally subjected to mild ridicule for being married to a man.
Anthropologist Marvin Harris has argued that homophobia is most prevalent among desert societies, and prevails in western society as a carryover of the Judaic heritage.
In the case of lesbianism, it may not have been so much disapproved of as ignored. As in:
“But Dad, I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of sex with a man!”
“Who asked you? He paid five cows and two festal garments for you - shut up and think about something else until after you have produced ten or twelve children, so we have someone to work the fields.”
Marriage was considered more a business or economic contract, designed to produce members of the labor force and manage inheritance, not a joining of two souls in bliss. “Close your eyes and think of England” is a rephrasing of what I expect was a very old piece of advice to both sexes.
Regards,
Shodan
An Anthropology prof. I had in college (early 1990s) who did his fieldwork among the Herrero people of Africa told us that this sort of activity was the norm in that culture–the boys would spend time with the adult males, would service them, then would later become adult members of the tribe, marry women, and then host the next generation of boys.
Pretty much the same thing happens in Afghanistan. The Taliban put an end to it butr as soon as they were defeated men went back to having their young boys.
I cannot cite this, so it is of little value I admit, but around 10 years ago in college I read an article in a journal that described the case of a homosexual man in a settled hunter-gatherer community in South America. He lived as a woman and was accepted as such - in that community each woman had a basket, used for storing food, and this man made himself a basket and worked with the women instead of with the other men.
The anthropologist wondered who were the sexual partners of this man, and on inquiry discovered that only his brothers, who were not themselves predominantly homosexual, who had sex with him.
Slightly broader that the OP, but David Greenberg’s The Construction of Homosexuality surveys attitudes about homosexuals and homosexual behaviors, to what extent we can, in societies from ancient meso-America on up. He predominantly deals with men, of course, but there is some info about females.
Hefty book, but interesting- huge differences between various cultures; i.e., male/male ritual sex as rite of passage, males taking on female roles (including having husbands), sex slaves kept by rulers, etc.