Sacajawea

“ She had been captured by the Minitaree Indians when a small child, from the Shoshone Indians far up in the Rocky Mountain region, held by them as a slave, and sold to the Frenchman who made her his wife. Sacajawea was delighted with the prospect of again journeying toward her old home, but continued to do the menial work for the company, [17] as is customary for Indian women. Captains Lewis and Clark, before many weeks upon their journey, saw that their real guide and interpreter was not Chabonneau, but Sacajawea, his wife. ”

“ The heroic explorers of a century ago richly earned the honors they are now to receive, and wherever and whenever the names of Lewis and Clark are spoken or written in honor there also should be the name of Sacajawea, the Indian girl of the wilderness.
Thus the crowning success of the great expedition which gave the United States its second strong legal claim to the whole grand Oregon country was shared by the brave, true, diplomatic Sacajawea ("the bird-woman") . ”

“ Sacajawea was an object of supreme curiosity to the Chinook Indian women, among whom they now stayed. She had a white man for a husband, a little half- breed boy, Toussant, for a son, and acted as guide for a large band of white men. ”

“ Sacajawea, our Indian woman, informs us that we are encamped on the precise spot where her countrymen, the Snake Indians, had their huts five years ago, when the Minnetarees came upon them, killed most of the party, and carried her away prisoner. [Pg 93] She does not, however, show any distress at these recollections, nor any joy at the prospect of being restored to her country; for she seems to possess the folly, or the philosophy, of not suffering her feelings to extend beyond the anxiety of having plenty to eat, and trinkets to wear. ”

“ Sacajawea, the Birdwoman
INTERWOVEN with the history of all people there is a golden thread of romance, but in the annals of no other uncivilized race, perhaps, does this shine so vividly as among the American Indians. This romance, blended with the picturesque figures of chieftains, orators, leaders, heroes, presents a living picture which throws a peculiar charm over the history and the scenes of the exploits of these natives of the Americas.
Among the many about whom is a halo of romance none commands a more intense interest or admiration than the Birdwoman of the Mandans. ”

“ Thus Sahwah was in her element paddling up this lonely river winding through unfamiliar forests, and in her vivid imagination she was Sacajawea, accompanying Lewis and Clark on their famous exploring expedition; and the gentle Onawanda turned into the mighty rolling Columbia, and the friendly pine woods with its border of willows became the trackless forest of the unknown northwest.
Late in the afternoon Jo Severance suddenly cried out, "Here we are!" and called out to the paddlers to head the canoes toward the shore. ”

“ She has no lodge; she does not belong to any man.’ They must not say that of Sacajawea—she is a good woman. Those are [Pg 276] not the things your ears should hear. Now I shall tell the Great Father that, but for Sacajawea we should all have been lost; that we should never have come back again. His heart will be open to those words. He will send gifts to you. Sometime, I believe, the Great Father’s sons will build a picture of you in iron, out yonder at the parting of the rivers. It will show you pointing on ahead to show the way to the white men. ”

“ Sacajawea had been contracted in this way before she was taken prisoner, and when we brought her back, her betrothed was still living. Although he was double the age of Sacajawea, and had two other wives, he claimed her, but on finding that she had a child by her new husband, Chaboneau, he relinquished his pretensions and said he did not want her.
The chastity of the women does not appear to be held in much estimation. The husband will for a trifling present lend his wife for a night to a stranger, and the loan may be protracted by increasing the value of the present. ”

“ Two women only were present—the wife of Jussaume, the squaw man, and Sacajawea, the girl wife of Charbonneau, the interpreter of the Mandans. These two had many presents.
The face of Sacajawea was wreathed in smiles. Always her eyes followed the tall form of Meriwether Lewis wherever he went. Her own husband was but her husband, and already she had elected Meriwether Lewis as her deity. When her husband thrashed her, always he thrashed her husband. ”

“ Sacajawea told him about the white men.
She said they wanted to go across the Rocky Mountains to the Big Water
in the West.
She did not know the way across the mountains.
The Indians could help them.
They could sell them horses and show them the way across the steep
mountain tops.
Ca me ah wa it kind
Sacajawea said the white men had many things the Indians would like.
If they found a good way over the mountains, the white men would send
these things to the Indians each summer.
Sacajawea said the white men were kind to her and her baby. ”

“ Her husband was the interpreter whom Lewis and Clark took along to talk to the Indians for them, and Sacajawea went with the expedition too, to act as guide, because she knew the Shoshone country. She traveled the whole five thousand miles with them and carried her baby on her back all the while. Lewis and Clark both said afterwards that if it hadn't been for her they wouldn't have been able to make the journey. When there wasn't any meat to eat she knew enough to dig in the prairie dogs' holes for the artichokes which they'd stored up for the winter ”

“ From this time on, Sacajawea and her baby were a help to the soldiers.
When the Indians saw a woman and a baby with the men, they knew it was
not a war party.
Indians would not take a woman and baby to war. ”

“ The boats were reloaded and the party began to ascend the Jefferson on July 30, to its head in the Bitter Root Mountains. At noon they camped for dinner.
"And here was I captured!" cried Sacajawea. "I was made a prisoner. We were too few to fight the Minnetarees. They pursued us. Our men mounted their horses and fled to the mountains. The women and children hid. I ran. I was crossing this river. They caught me and carried me away."
What a realistic glimpse of daily terror! Fighting, hunting, wandering, famishing, in the land of anarchy. Formerly the Shoshones were Indians of the plains. ”

“ Our fathers lived without their goods.
We can live without them.
We will go off to-night and leave them.
They will meet death in the mountains.
In the Spring we can come back and get their goods."
Sacajawea went to Captain Lewis. ”

“ Toward the last of April Lewis went ahead to the mouth of the Rochejaune, the Yellow Rock, or Yellowstone River, passing through herds of elk, antelope, and buffalo, so tame they would scarce move out of his way. Beautiful dun deer snorted and pawed the leaves, then half trusting, half timorous, slipped into the thicket. No one but Sacajawea had ever before been over this road.
In May they reached the land where even the beaver were gentle, for they had never been hunted. No white man, so far as they knew, had ever trodden these wilds. ”

“ This man’s wife, Sacajawea, whose Indian name was translated “Bird Woman,” had been captured from the Snake Indians and sold to Chaboneau, who married her. She was “a good creature, of a mild and gentle disposition, greatly attached to the whites.” In the expedition she proved herself more valuable to the explorers than her husband, and Lewis and Clark always speak of her in terms of respect and admiration.
It should not be understood that all the interpreters employed by white men on such expeditions wholly knew the spoken language of the tribes among whom they travelled. ”

“ The Montana Daughters American Revolution, have a movement on foot to secure a statue, and the Sacajawea Chapter, D. A. R. of Olympia, Washington, are also preparing to raise a monument in her memory. There is also talk of a statue in Idaho, where Sacajawea is supposed to have been born. Other statues have resulted from "The Conquest," among them a fountain to Chief Paducah, by Lorado Taft, erected by the women of the Kentucky town, Paducah, after consulting with Mrs. Dye concerning that notable Indian mentioned in "The Conquest;" ”

“ Moreover, Charboneau was a polygamist with several wives to cook his food and carry his wood and water. But he had been kind to the captive Indian girl, and her heart clung to the easy-going Frenchman as her best friend. The worst white man was better than an Indian husband.
Captured in battle as a child five years before, Sacajawea had been brought to the land of the Dakotas and sold to Charboneau. Now barely sixteen, in that February at the Mandan fort she became a mother. Most of the men were away on a great hunting trip ”

“ A large cottonwood, the only one of the proper diameter within miles, was felled for the purpose of sawing from its trunk wheels with which to make a carriage for transporting the canoes. Sacajawea had been seriously ill since leaving Maria's River and it was fortunate for the party that she recovered, a happy event largely assisted by draughts from some sulphur springs found here. Here too she, together with Captain Clark, his negro, and her husband, was nearly lost by the flood from a cloudburst, having encamped in a deep, dry ravine. ”

“ They had made friends with the Indians.
They knew where food could be found.
They knew about the animals and plants.
Now other people could find the way from the maps the captains had made.
dol lars vil lage
SACAJAWEA SAYS GOOD-BYE TO THE SOLDIERS. Sacajawea's husband would not go to the captains' home.
He wanted to live with the Mandans.
[Illustration: A MANDAN EARTH LODGE]
So Sacajawea had to say good-bye to the soldiers.
The captains gave her husband five hundred dollars.
They did not give Sacajawea any money.
In those days, people did not think of paying women. ”

“ They bring fire from the sky."
Not until Sacajawea landed with her baby was tranquillity restored.
"No squaw travels with a war party," that must be admitted, and soon they were smoking with great unanimity.
"Tim-m-m-m;—tim-m-m-m!" hummed the Indians at the Falls, at Celilo, poetically imitating the sound of falling waters.
There was salmon at the Falls of the Columbia, stacks of salmon dried, pounded, packed in baskets, salmon heaped in bales, stored in huts and cached in cellars in the sand. Making a portage around the Falls, the boats slid down.
"De rapide! de rapide! ”

“ The Indians sometimes made long journeys, their war parties traveled far, and their captives also; but in all the history of the tribes there is no record of a journey made by any Indian woman equal to that of Sacajawea. ”

“ The success of the expedition in a strange land through the long line of savage tribes was dependent largely upon a good guide and interpreter. Lewis and Clark had secured Toussaint Chabonneau, a Frenchman, who had renounced civilized life, married, and settled among the Indians. He had traveled over wide stretches of country, and had a small knowledge of the language of several tribes. Sacajawea, the wife of Chabonneau, was a handsome Indian girl of seventeen years. ”

“ She stands as erectly poised and there is in her carriage the very air of command which a powerful goddess must ever show.
cow ATTACKED BY MOUNTAIN LIONS. This group teUs its own story. The sculptor is E. C. Potter, of Connecticut, who is famous for his equestrienne statues.
SACAJAWEA,
THE BIRD-WOMAN
Tn memory of Sacajawea, a Shoshone maiden, who was at the head of the Lewis and Clarlt expedition, and whose statue graces the Ex- position, now open, in the City of Portland, Oregon. ”

“ Sacagawea gazed anxiously, right, left, and before. Her heart was troubled. She not only much desired to find her people, for herself, but she desired to help the great captains. "The fate of the whole party" depended upon her—and she was just a slight little Indian woman!
The Snakes did not come down, by this way. It was too far north; it was the haunts of their enemies the Blackfeet and the Minnetarees, of whom they were deathly afraid. They were a timid mountain folk, poorly armed to fight the Sioux, who had obtained guns from traders down the Missouri. ”

“ This tribe are emphatically the Seminoles of the North, consisting originally of individuals who were refugees from the great Odjibwa family. Their origin, as a distinct band, is comparatively recent, dating no farther back than the time of the flight of the Sauks from the district of country which is now, in allusion to them, denominated Saginaw. The principal town of that adventurous and warlike tribe, was, and is still, called by the natives Saukinong (i. e. Sauk-town) , and the Chippewa refugees who succeeded, took their denomination of Saginaws from the term. ”

“ Unconsciously he had cast himself down by the wigwam of the prophet of the tribe. It was the custom of the Indians to build the tent or wigwam of those whose duty it was to watch all omens bearing upon the welfare of the people, in some secluded spot within the sound of great falls, or in proximity to some natural cave or grotto, where they might, undisturbed, exercise their spells and incantations. A hand, cold, and wasted by fastings nearly to the bone, was laid upon the shoulder of the sagamore. ”

“ But he found that no man could get down that torrent, with either boat or pack train. He gave it up. They were nearly starved when they got back at the Indian camp, where Lewis and the other men were trading. Sacágawea had kept all her people from going on east to the buffalo country, though now they none of them had anything to eat but a few berries and choke cherries. If the Indians had left, or if they had been missed by the party, the expedition would have ended there. The Indian girl once more had saved the Northwest for America, very likely. ”