Frontier wedding: a photograph survives the years to bear witness to the love of a cowboy and his two-spirit bride.

When Doug Walberg came across this wedding photo of a cowboy and his male Native American bride--dated June 8, 1895--the collector knew he had his hands on something special. Titled Kiowa Jim & Squaw, Chickasha, Okla., it was the first image of a frontier same-sex union that Walberg had encountered in his 35 years as a vintage photography dealer.

"I've never, ever seen that subject illustrated before," Walberg says excitedly, speaking from his home in Bandon, Ore. "Not in early book on Western history or Indian culture or in any institutional or private collection."

Walberg, who's heterosexual, acquired the photo from a private collector in the early '70s. He says the current debate over same-sex marriage moved him to make Advocate readers aware of the image. [Find info on purchasing prints at http://www.advocate.com/html/issuelinks/issuelinks.asp]

Kiowa Jim's bride is a berdache, or "two-spirit"--a respected figure in Native American culture who embodied the power and energy of both sexes. "Berdaches were seen with reverence and were often encouraged to teach children of the tribe about life," Walberg notes. "Christian missionaries promoted their eradication, and most had been exterminated by the beginning of the 20th century."

Reverence and respect aside, Kiowa Jim's partner would likely have been risking tribal ostracism for love. Berdaches often married men within the tribe, according to Walberg, but interracial marriage was taboo.