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Historically, Twin Spirits are individuals often viewed as having two spirits occupying one body. Two-spirited individuals perform specific social functions in their communities. In some tribes male-bodied two-spirits were active as healers or medicine persons, conveyers of oral traditions and songs, nurses during war expeditions, foretold the future, conferred lucky names on children or adults, wove, made pottery, made beadwork and quillwork, arranged marriages, made feather regalia for dances, special skills in games of chance, and fulfilled special functions in connection with the setting up of the central post for the Sun Dance. In some tribes female-bodied two-spirits typically took on roles such as chief, council, trader, hunter, trapper, fisher, warfare, raider, guides, peace missions, vision quests, prophets, and medicine persons.

There are descriptions of two-spirited individuals having strong mystical powers. In one account, soldiers of a rival tribe begin to attack a group of women when they perceive that one of the women does not run away. They halt their attack and retreat after the two-spirit counters them, determining that the two-spirit will have great power which they will not be able to overcome.

Native people have often been perceived as "warriors," and with the acknowledgment of two-spirit people that romanticized identity becomes broken. Since two-spirit people lost masculine power socially, they took on female social roles to climb back up the social ladder within the tribe.

-Some sections taken from Wikipedia