Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Manlike Woman the Indian prophetess of the Upper Columbia River

 This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep. -- BD2412 talk 04:17, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Manlike Woman the Indian prophetess of the Upper Columbia River
Nominating for deletion because it's non-notable. While doing a Google litmus test, I actually happened upon the blog of the article's author, where she said she wrote the article in order to increase the notability of the Manlike Woman, who she says "barely qualifies as a footnote in history." -D. Wu 01:12, 14 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Speedy delete. Does this qualify as some form of vanity? Good work, Uppland. Now this is how to convince the community to keep seemingly pointless articles. A lesson to all you inclusionists. / Peter Isotalo 02:29, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, nn. -- BD2412 talk 03:26, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * Vote withdrawn per excellent research by Uppland. -- BD2412 talk 16:20, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete . Kaúxuma Núpika, the name mentioned in the author's blog, got 14 google hits, and the title a whopping 38.  It is interesting though, the amount of info gathered on someone's whose only claim is being a transexual, and being mentioned by afew tribes people to be considered a prophetess.  Maybe a sentence mentioned somewhere in a related topic about that time and area would be fitting.   &rarr;ub&#949;r n&#949;mo &rarr;  lóquï 03:29, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * Change vote to keep due to evidence of notability.  &rarr;ub&#949;r n&#949;mo &rarr;  lóquï 20:06, August 14, 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep. Verifiable and interesting. Wikipedia is not paper. Pburka 03:50, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * Its both of those things, but still not notable.  &rarr;ub&#949;r n&#949;mo &rarr;  lóquï 05:11, August 14, 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep, clearly, but move to Kaúxuma Núpika. Transexual Native American prophet(ess) influential in the native population of British Columbia in the early 19th century. How many of those do we have? Would I be wrong to assume that a verifiable transexual prophetess influential in the white population in Massachusetts at the same time would have been kept without discussion? Google hits are a help, not a definite measurement of significance, and it is expected that fewer written sources exist for native American topics. She is apparently mentioned in this book on Amazon, the Biographical Dictionary of American Indian History to 1900. A JSTOR search results in a couple of articles mentioning her, one of which, "'The Natives Were Strong to Live': Reinterpreting Early-Nineteenth-Century Prophetic Movements in the Columbia Plateau", by Elizabeth Vibert, in Ethnohistory 1995, does so quite extensively, citing the same sources our article here does. Uppland 05:22, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Addendum: It seems using Western terms such as transexual is less appropriate, as this was not an entirely unusual type of gender role in Native American cultures, and there is a Wikipedia article on the topic: Two-Spirit; it has been refered to as "berdache" by some academics, although that is apparently considered offensive. Two-Spirit lists among its references another journal paper, which turns out to be entirely devoted to this woman: Claude E. Schaeffer, "The Kutenai Female Berdache: Courier, Guide, Prophetess, and Warrior", in Ethnohistory 1965, pp 193-236. Schaeffer writes among other things that she is "mentioned in the writings of Gabriel Franchère, Alexander Ross, Washington Irving, David Thompson, John Work, Sir John Franklin, the explorer, and W. H. Gray, the missionary. All of these men, except Irving and Franklin, knew her personally. Several modern students of Northwest history, who noted references to the Kutenai berdache in the literary accounts, have assempled data on certain events of her unusual career." He goes on to cite a number of 20th century authors who have written about her. Uppland 07:51, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * It would be important to identify just how Kutenai construct sexuality and what westerners would call transsexuality/transgenderism. Every Native group does so differently. "Berdache" (being a western term, anyway) and "two-spirit" (a term used by one particular group whose name escapes me and since generalized) probably don't cut it particularly well and the tribe's own designation would be preferable. - Montr&eacute;alais 15:33, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree, but I am not really familiar with the subject areas, neither with gender studies nor with Native American cultures; it would obviously be preferably if somebody who had at least half a clue would look at the articles I mentioned above (and possibly others I haven't found in my quick raid on JSTOR) and do something with this article. BTW, we have a three-and-a-half line article on Kootenai (tribe) and a two-line article on the Kootenai language - not exactly one of Wikipedia's stronger points... --Uppland 16:35, 14 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep, cleanup and rename as per Uppland. Well done to him for his research. Capitalistroadster 10:28, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, cleanup and rename. A. J. Luxton 11:40, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, as per Uppland. --Apyule 11:47, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep and move as per Uppland. Double Blue  (Talk) 15:37, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep as per Uppland --Mysidia (talk) 19:32, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Nice research job. Needs major cleanup and a title move, but keep. Bearcat 22:08, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete —Being unusual is not the same as being notable. This is an obscure historical figure of no importance to history. I might even agree that she "deserves to be more than a footnote in history" but she's not, and an enclopedia is not the place to start changing that. "Would I be wrong to assume that a verifiable transexual prophetess influential in the white population in Massachusetts at the same time would have been kept without discussion?" Probably so, because only three of the men and women executed as witches in Massachusetts at the same time have their own articles, and everyone knows about them. Moreover, the whole point of the article is that she was not influential. She was disliked, mistrusted, sent packing, and not mourned when she died; if you want to right those wrongs, write a book. --Tysto 23:28, 2005 August 14 (UTC)
 * Screw it. keep her. I just looked at my list of Dumbest Articles on Wikipedia, and this doesn't even scratch the surface of those dozens of idiotic cartoon robot Gundam articles. --Tysto 23:39, 2005 August 14 (UTC)
 * Keep. &mdash; BRIAN 0918 &bull; 2005-08-15 02:41
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.