In This Broadcast

The most famous person in Washington D.C. that Washington D.C. didn’t understand

In 1886, a Zuni lhamana named We’wha shook hands with President Grover Cleveland, performed a sacred solstice ceremony on the National Mall, and charmed Washington society for six months — and not one person in that city had the vocabulary to understand who they were actually meeting.

In this episode, Dany and Claire explore the life of the most famous lhamana in history. The take a look at the Zuni philosophy of balance and gender, and ask what it means that our culture still struggles to hold identities that other cultures have honored for centuries.