Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  From The Beaver Men. Copyright 1964 by Marie Sandoz, Hasting House, Publishers, Inc., pp. 15-21.

  Before sunup the next morning, the tum-tum of hide drums was heard coming from the center of the village. The Moon of the Trading Fair, June, had begun. During the night the Hidatsa scouts discovered the Yankton Sioux setting up a camp close by. As soon as their presence was announced, others hurried out to welcome them back and to offer hospitality during their stay. Within the next few days a large group of Oglala Sioux came. The Hidatsa women began preparing meats and fresh cactus with the spines cut off and young, succulent thistle leaves for the thousands of visitors who were on their way to the enormous trade fair gathering in the area of the five villages of the Upper Missouri. The Hidatsa men prepared flat prairie area for various games of skill and chance and a wide, long track for horse racing.

  For years, tribes from as far away as northern Canada and the southern plains had come to these sedentary villages to trade. The French-Canadians from around Hudson’s Bay came on horseback, trailing ponies loaded with wool blankets, capotes, and long colored sashes. Ojibwas came with axes and awls of bone and arrowheads of copper and baskets of wild rice. The Kiowas brought bone knives and mallets, along with baskets of yucca pods. The Utes brought beautifully cured skins of mountain goats and goat horns filled with white quartz for beadmaking. The Crees’ horses were loaded with rice, snowshoes, and packs of marten and mountain lion fur. The Teton Sioux brought skins of mountain sheep. The Apaches came with leather sacks of obsidian for spear points. Others brought seashells and walrus ivory from trade centers west of the Rocky Mountains. Some came with red pipestone, reindeer horn, and caribou skins. Many had leather boxes and woven containers filled with herbs: sassafras, peyote, cascara, foxglove, bergamot, sage, thorn apple, poke-root, mullein, wild cherry bark, anise seeds, and cone-flower root.

  After bartering, these tribes took home dried corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, gourds, tobacco, dried currants, rosehips, skunkberries, glass beads, and deerskins and buffalo robes embroidered with dyed porcupine quills.1

  The visiting young boys were full of pranks, often stealing meat from the women’s drying racks, then dashing off for a good laugh and a feast together.

  All loved the games of chance. A Ute gambled away all of his property, even his wife. However, she told her husband she would not go anywhere, and sat on the ground refusing to budge; he was disgraced because she would not honor the gamble. In the end she hit him in the stomach with a heavy leather bag and he sprawled in the dirt, discredited. The winner, an Apache, took a good look at the couple and decided he would be better off leaving them together. He gave the humiliated Ute a kick in the back and stalked away, saying, “This bet is off!”

  A group of laughing women played the game of hands with a pair of small sticks. One stick was marked with a string around the middle and the guesser had to point to the opponent’s hand that held the unmarked stick. Some Yankton women were playing shinny against some Teton women with a buckskin ball, throwing it against a goal indicated by blankets on the ground. The Crow introduced their favorite hoop-and-pole game. Two players rolled a hoop on a level course and threw darts at it, and the way the darts struck the hoop determined the count. The French-Canadian traders held foot races while the Ojibwas and Kiowas held archery and horse racing contests. Often there were heated discussions and fistfights over who won these games. It was a time to collect and store memories of fresh stories to be told and savored during the coming snowy months.

  Before sunrise on the morning of the fifth day after the death of the dog, Old Grandfather wakened Sacajawea. She was still wearing mourning ashes on her face, and although she had resumed her chores, she would not speak to Catches Two, and had been seen at night near the willow brake—looking for the spirit of the dog, some neighbors said.

  “Fix your hair in two braids. Put the red stripe down your center part and put red inside your ears. Washyour face, paint yellow rings under your eyes, and join me at the front of the council lodge,” Old Grandfather told her. “If you have any valuables or trinkets you treasure, put them in a bag and hide them in your tunic. You are going to the fair with me.” He nodded his head toward her sleeping couch as if knowing where she kept her most treasured possession, the sky-blue stone of her ancestors.

  While Sacajawea readied herself, Old Grandfather lay himself down with his head in Antelope’s lap. With great rapidity she picked off the vermin that resided in his hair. She smashed the enormous crawlers with her teeth, keeping them in her mouth until there were enough to spit out in the shape of a ball as large as a walnut. Then she stuck his hair together in tufts with pine gum and plastered the whole arrangement with white clay and grease and streaks of red paint.

  Sacajawea was glad Old Grandfather had selected her to carry the trade goods back to the lodge. Perhaps the fair would help lighten her heavy heart. But she wondered why he was taking such pains to look handsome and why he had ordered her to look her best and to bring her treasures.

  She cautiously took the small pouch from under her sleeping couch. Inside was the blue stone on the thin thong. The rusty red round stone, and a dark feather from a Canada goose she had found by the river last fall. It shone green in the sunlight. She had imagined that the goose had been south of the sunset where her People lived. Perhaps he had even seen the village of the People.

  Sacajawea followed Old Grandfather across the camp, heading for the trading ground set up on the prairie. Not too far from the lodge, a quail whistled in the grass, so close to Old Grandfather that it startled them both; a cool whiff of wind rustled through the dew-laden buffalo grass beside them, and then died down. A scattering of gray clouds scudded in from the north. Slowly the lower sky faded into pearl gray; still lower, a faint area of clear, lake-deep green; and below that, a little line of mustard yellow right at the horizon. As she watched the sunrise, Sacajawea was overcome by the tranquillity of the dawn.

  All the fevers of the last few days—death, murder, fear—seemed unreal. She felt suspended in a world without trouble or conflict. The breeze cooled her face; a scent of sage in the air refreshed her; the subdued sounds of the prairie soothed her with their familiarity and at the same time had a new and unaccustomed timbre as the traders began assembling for the day. Chippewas trundled sacks of rice; in every direction Indians carried bundles. And now she could hear shouts of instruction or warning: “Make way!” “Watch the ground!” “Throw out your grain!”—shouts of the counters, shouts of recognition, banter between nations. There were swarms of big-eyed, barefooted children standing about—torrents of laughter—excited eyes gleaming—white teeth in brown faces—lithe brown bodies naked to the waist—wind-tousled hair—movement, energy, hubbub, gaiety.

  Sacajawea walked behind Old Grandfather, following him at the correct distance, until he stopped near a circle of braves who were already set up for trading. Sacajawea moved closer then so she could see inside the circle and watch what interesting things were being exchanged. Old Grandfather inspected the braves, then moved to the side of an Ahnahaway who had a rough face and unkempt hair that was smeared with red clay and tallows. The British called these Ahnahaways, cousins to the Minnetarees, Wetersoons, and the French called them Soulier Noir Indians. Old Grandfather tugged at the Ahnahaway’s shirt and, when he had his attention, pointed to Sacajawea, making suggestive motions with his hands. Sacajawea went numb. The Ahnahaway’s face brightened. He appraised Sacajawea for a moment, then said, “Come, I have something you will like.”

  From a pile of elk skins, the Ahnahaway produced a tightly woven willow cage. Inside was a black crow that rasped “Haw!” in a coarse, jeering way when the Ahnahaway’s finger probed his side.

  There was a sort of wicked gleam in the bird’s canny eye and a world of wile in the sly cant of its head. The Ahnahaway fed the bird bits of dried meat and sunflower seed. Rising voices from the other traders couldbe heard. Sacajawea turned then, as if to move away, but Old Grandfather took
her wrist in his hand.

  “Crows live to be a man’s age,” said the Ahnahaway, looking at the girl. “Can you guess the age of this one?”

  “Seems he is old enough to resign from hunting his own food,” said Old Grandfather. “Will he fly off with his kind in the fall?”

  “Not this bird. He knows a good thing. And besides, he has grown lazy.”

  “Haw!” jeered the captured crow.

  Old Grandfather was pleased with the bird. “My youngest grandson will carry him on his shoulder and be known as Black Crow by his tribe. Perhaps he will teach the crow to talk. This is a day to remember.”

  “Ai, he is a wise bird and could easily learn to speak,” said the Ahnahaway.

  “It is a bargain, then,” said Old Grandfather. “This Shoshoni slave girl is yours, and the bird is mine.”

  “I cannot go with this brave,” Sacajawea said, trembling. “I live in your lodge. What will Catches Two say?”

  Old Grandfather looked like a dog that had been whipped. “He and Old Mother will say plenty.”

  Sacajawea regarded him impassively for a moment. “What about Antelope and Talking Goose?”

  “They will get along. You must go with him.”

  “Are you displeased with my work?”

  “No, it is not that. Old Mother made the decision. Catches Two was to carry it out by evening today. One who mourns the death of a wild dog as if it were a relative is taboo. There is too much talk in the village. It is final. If you return with me today to the lodge of Catches Two, you will sleep forever beside your dog.” With an explicit gesture he sliced his finger across his throat.

  For a long moment Sacajawea did not reply. Her legs felt weak. “All I know about the Ahnahaways is that they eat worms.”

  “Not like Hidatsas, who eat each other,” said Old Grandfather. Sacajawea suddenly noticed the dark circles of sleeplessness under his eyes, and his reddened lids.

  “I will expect her to treat me with respect,” said the Ahnahaway.

  “Ah, she is not criticizing you,” replied Old Grandfather, looking down his nose and grunting. “You’d better get her out of here before I change my mind about the trade.” He picked up the bird in the cage, and without another word he turned around and trotted off.

  Sacajawea watched as he was swallowed by the crowd.

  “Come along,” said the Ahnahaway.

  “Are you taking me to your village?”

  “Ai, but not now. I came here for a good time. I want to try some games. There is plenty of time for talking. Get the elk skins and follow me.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  He scowled and pinched his lips, indicating there should be no more talking.

  Soon they were watching a game of arrows. A small tingle of excitement crept through her as she watched men shoot arrows as fast as they could into the air, seeing who put the most skyward before the first fell to the ground. Frequently as many as five arrows were up before the first struck the earth.

  The Ahnahaway yelled, “Ho! Ho!” several times to show his approval of the contestants.

  Sacajawea cried, “Oooo, good!”

  The Ahnahaway frowned at her.

  Someone yelled, “Winner take all,” and four prize arrows were put into a ring marked out in the dirt. When an Ojibwa brave placed a parfleche of kinnikin-nick mixed with tallow, his tobacco, and a gleaming, long-bladed copper knife inside the ring, the Ahnahaway could not contain himself.

  “Put the skins in the ring,” he said.

  “All of them?” asked Sacajawea.

  “Ai, and sit on the pile,” he said.

  “Why? It will not walk away,” she said.

  “You talk more than any woman I have ever met,” he said. “I like women who open their mouth only for eating, and then not too wide.”

  There were boisterous cheers from the players and onlookers when Sacajawea did as she was told. The Ahnahaway swaggered around a bit, then quickly he took the bow and put seven arrows into the air with a fast whirring. It was the best performance. He let the other contestants gather the arrows. He put the knifein his belt, and the four beautiful arrows in his leather quiver, and he told Sacajawea to come along with the remainder of his loot.

  “Are we leaving for your village now?” she asked.

  “Ho! A moment!” called a man with great hollows under his eyes and loose skin in the dark planes of his face. The newcomer placed two prize weasel tails in the center ring and told the Ahnahaway to replace the wicked-looking copper knife and the skins with the girl. The game was not over. The newcomer picked up the bow, feeling the tautness of its string several times. He carried ten arrows in a quiver on his back. Then he placed his feet slightly apart and flexed his knees. The crowd became quiet as, faster almost than the eye could see, he released the arrows—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine—and then plew! the first hit the ground. The newcomer looked around for anyone to take the bow from him and top his record. No one moved. The man with hollows under his eyes picked up his weasel tails and lifted them high to the heavens then down to the earth and slowly to the east, west, north, and south. Then he laughed and the hollows in his cheeks seemed to fill.

  This man was the new owner of Sacajawea.

  He seemed to like the copper knife, and put it in the leather thong that held up his leggings. He put the parfleche of tobacco in the center of a buffalo hide with the four metal-tipped arrows, and all that in the center of the elk skins. Making a large, neat roll, he handed the bundle to Sacajawea.

  The Ahnahaway watched while this was being done. “I heard her Hidatsa owner call her by the name of Sacajawea. And it is a fitting name—she chatters like a bird, a magpie. I wish you health.” Then he disappeared.

  Sacajawea followed her new owner through the groups of traders, past the games of chance, where someone called, “Fast Arrow, come show us how this is done.” He waved his arm but did not stop. They walked past the camp of the Assiniboin and the larger one of the Oglala Sioux. At the next village they stopped to drink at a spring before continuing to walk on soft earth.

  Sacajawea’s face remained expressionless, but herthoughts tumbled upon one another and she was bothered by the flies. They did not seem to bother the Metaharta. Maybe he had a good coat of bear’s grease on him. She would miss Antelope and the children and Talking Goose, who scolded about things but didn’t mean it so much, and Old Mother and Old Grandfather, and even Catches Two. She wondered if the Agaidüka women would hear that she had been traded for a crow, then won by a Metaharta at a game of arrows. Probably not—who was there to tell who knew? Suddenly she realized she was getting farther away from the hope of any rescue by the People. Fast Arrow nudged her, and she awoke from her thoughts.

  The sun was in the middle of the sky when Sacajawea spotted a group of horses staked out beside a village of round earth lodges, similar to those she had just left. There was a pole fence around this village also. Fast Arrow led her through the gate and down a labyrinth of narrow paths between the earth mounds, and then inside a lodge.

  The circular room was dim compared to the outdoor brightness. Three women were working near the little buffalo-chip fire in the center of the floor. There were an old man and several children there, too. The lodge was arranged in the familiar manner, with sleeping couches forming the outer circle around the room against the smoke-stained walls. Each bed was marked by a high post topped with an antelope, deer, or buffalo head. Sacajawea put Fast Arrow’s bundle of winnings down beside him as he took his seat, an elevated one, made from short logs covered with an elk skin.

  The small children ceased their noisemaking, and the adults sat cross-legged around the fire looking toward Fast Arrow. He stood, bared his blue-tattooed chest, made by rubbing ashes into tiny cuts, and puffed on a pipe decorated with many eagle feathers. His smile was boastful, but not cruel or lustful.

  “My mother and great father, my sister, and my woman and children,” he began, “this warrior�
�—pointing to himself—“has brought home a new knife with which my woman can skin the buffalo more easily. I have a robe from a very young buffalo. It is for Sucks His Thumb.” A boy of about three years pulled his headfrom his mother’s lap, stopped sucking his thumb, and toddled to Fast Arrow. The boy carried the robe back to his mother’s lap. “Here is a bag of tobacco. This is for my mother.” A middle-aged squaw reached up with competent, work-hardened hands to catch the bag. One hand stayed on that of her son for a single moment; then she grinned broadly into his face. Her flattened nose, full mouth, and low forehead were pure Meta-harta, but her skin was lightened from dead brown by a copper warmth. White blood ran in her. Many of the Mandan Nation and some Minnetarees had the strain from the seed of French traders, and perhaps from long ago when the Welsh had come to settle.

  “Four arrows with fine metal tips I will keep myself. For shooting nine arrows into the air before the first struck the ground, I have more. These elk skins I give to my sister, who can make moccasins and a dress for herself. And see this girl, who is not of our nation but who is said to be called Sacajawea? I give her to my old father so that she may bring some light into his life. When he has no need of her, she may be shared by my woman, who has much trouble keeping her children at her side.”

  Someone snickered. It was the sister, with her hands covering her face, her body rocking slowly from side to side. Sacajawea looked from the swaying girl to the father, who wiggled in satisfaction and looked toward Sacajawea with an interested stare. She felt dizzy; a sickness in the pit of her belly spread throughout her body.