Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  “And the white traders?”

  Grasshopper shrugged. “They do not know better. They believe Kakoakis is a mighty chief, and they do not turn aside his hospitality, especially when the chief will furnish them with the furs and hides they come after. But I am not trying to hold back secrets. And I do not try to frighten, but to warn you, my daughter. Everyone knows the time Kakoakis entered an Assiniboin village alone, by night, with no disguise except a blanket drawn over his head. Catching a young squaw alone in a lodge, he silently forced himself inside her, and while he was doing that, he killed her and scalped her. Then he withdrew safely and told of his exploit with a pleasant sense of duty done.’28 It was an enemy; but what if the Assiniboins start doing the same? This man makes sport of young women. He plays games with them. I know he made my Sweet Clover drink crazy-water and he played animal with her while she was bound. When her front side was worn out, he forced himself many times on her back side. Then he invited the white men to take their turns. Sweet Clover’s mind slipped away from her body, and the spirits came in its place. They have never left.”

  A tear slid down Grasshopper’s chin. She was silent, still rocking Sacajawea in her lap. Sacajawea’s mind went over the tragedy of Sweet Clover. She looked carefully around the warm, clean lodge.

  “Sweet Clover is my sister,” she said in a voice barely audible. “I will show her kindness.”

  “The Great Spirit has favored us. If anyone asks who you are, say you are the youngest daughter of Grasshopper. I am your mother. I will make you a new dress with elk’s teeth on the yoke and dainty shells on your moccasins and a fringed drag. Come,” she said, releasing Sacajawea from her arms. “I will feed you.”

  “So—I have already eaten.”

  Soon Sacajawea was working with the other Metaharta women. She went with the berry-pickers and herb-gatherers and garden-hoers. She was pleased with her new clothes and her new home in Fast Arrow’s lodge. She liked the embroidery work on her tunics, and the shells on her moccasins, like tiny bells, and the fringes dragging along behind them. Evenings she joined the water-carriers, shy with the boys and young men who seemed so ordinary during the day and so strange in the twilight. In no time at all, she was known in the village as the inquisitive daughter of Grasshopper and Redpipe. She asked questions incessantly.

  She asked the small children to show her how to shoot their small bows. She asked why a woman always carried the small skinning knife in her belt. Soon she could hit her mark with an arrow, and she carried a woman’s skinning knife in her belt, ready for digging roots or for defense if it were needed against enemies or any who would molest her.

  Among the people of the Upper Missouri any woman who was not a slave had the duty of defending herself at all costs against attack, against any who would violate the chastity rope of soft doeskin she always wore when away from the lodge. Such violations were very rare before the whiskey days. Even after those days, the guilty man never made another attempt, for the stab with the skinning knife was automatic in a woman from earliest childhood. When this happened, the man was not driven out of the village, but he lived alone in a hut outside the lodge circle, with none to speak to him.

  However, if Chief Kakoakis asked a maiden to honor him in his lodge, none could refuse, for there would becertain death for her or a member of her family. That grand chief was all-powerful and very cruel.

  It was not many weeks before Sacajawea discovered it was her time to go to the women’s retreating lodge; thereafter, she would go periodically to be separated from the men for seven suns. When she returned from her first visit, a crier went around the village calling everybody to a feast for the one who had now become a woman.

  Grasshopper loved this little Shoshoni girl as her own child. She called her friends to help with the fine garments and the preparation of food. This was the time to show off a daughter in handsome new clothes and moccasins, long shell bands hanging from her hair, a demure beauty in the paint of a woman.

  While Sacajawea was at the women’s retreating lodge, she listened to the gossip of the other women. They spoke of the bearded ones—the white men—who lived at the edge of their village. They spoke of the fine presents these men brought their women after a trip to the north—blankets, combs, hard candy. One man, whom the men called Chief of the Little Village, had come from Assiniboin country recently, bringing his Mandan woman a beaded leather belt and another woman to help around the lodge. The other woman was no more than a child. She had been bought from sickly Blackfeet who had starved during the winter and were glad to be rid of her. She was not of their nation, but a Shoshoni.29 They made the sign of weaving in and out, like the weaving of a Shoshoni grass summer hut.

  “Does this Shoshoni woman come to the retreating lodge?” asked Sacajawea, very curious.

  The women giggled. The Shoshoni squaw was only a papoose, a child, hardly old enough to come to the women’s retreating lodge.

  Sacajawea asked more questions, but she could find out no more. No one seemed to know much about the bearded one called Chief of the Little Village.

  Grasshopper sang over the tunic being prepared for Sacajawea. The symbol for the water bird, for which Sacajawea was named, was set in the center of the outer tunic and made of colored quills, mostly yellow. Underthe bird there was a white bank made of shells. The edge of the skirt had buckskin whangs, which were painted yellow, the color of pollen, for fertility.

  When Sacajawea returned from the women’s retreating lodge, she was bathed by Grasshopper’s squaw friends. They clucked and waved their hands and smiled as they dressed her and seated her in the honored place of the lodge they had set up. This day of the ceremony, Sacajawea presented Grasshopper with a single white eagle feather. From this time on, Sacajawea would call Grasshopper “Umbea, mother,” and Grasshopper would call her “daughter.” They would be close to each other throughout their lives.

  The chief Shaman came in an intricately feathered bonnet and deerskin robe richly decorated with quill-work. He showed much pomp, knowing that only he, with the highest religious authority, could conduct this rite. He had a method of self-induced trance in which he claimed to have direct communication with the Great Spirit, from whom he relayed words of wisdom to the Girl Who Had Become a Woman. His chant began, “It is the beginning of this young girl’s flow that marks her as entering womanhood. This is the beginning of her good life. This woman has wandering moccasins. She will live long. She will see much. What she sees is unbelievable. I do not have words to tell.”

  The Shaman moved into the lodge, indicating that the well-wishers could follow him inside. Sacajawea moved with the well-wishers, receiving congratulations, gifts, and songs of praise and promise. There was an elaborate oration from Redpipe, who outlined the duties of a woman of the Metaharta. First he harangued them concerning the greatness of the village and then about his family and Sacajawea’s duties toward the members of his family. “The honor of the people lies in the moccasin tracks of the women. Walk the good road, daughter, and the buffalo herds, wide and dark as cloud shadows moving over the prairie, will follow you. The spring will be full of the yellow calves, the fall earth shaking with the coming of the fat ones, their robes thick and warm as the sun on the lodge door. Be dutiful, respectful, gentle, and modest, my daughter. And proud walking. If the pride and the virtue of the women arelost, the spring will come, but the buffalo trails will turn to grass. Be strong with the arm, strong heart of the earth. No people goes down until their women are weak and dishonored, or dead upon the ground. Be strong and sing the strength of the Great Spirit within you and all around you.”

  Then Sacajawea did as instructed. She went out and faced the sun. She lifted her arms to the heavens, to the earth, and toward its four corners. To the observers, she was quite lovely, as most young girls are at that age.

  Her face was shaped like the moon, painted soft white with yellow circles under each eye. Her black hair, which fell below her shoulders, moved in the sunlight with blue-b
lack glints. Her ears were red inside. Her lips were full, the corners turned up. Her eyes were dark, widely spaced, her nose straight, her cheekbones high, and her skin silken. Her long bare legs broke through her garments. Her voice was soft and filled with restraint, and her movements were unhurried. None could see the scars that still remained white on her back from the quirt of her former master.

  “You are beautiful, my daughter,” Grasshopper said in a low voice. “Your body is straight and strong. What comes to you from now until the ceremony is ended will be the measure of your life. The things that you feel now in your heart will mark your feelings henceforth. What you like now, you will like until the end of your days. If you eat well now, you will always have plenty to eat. Watch carefully and study yourself, for this is your opportunity to know yourself and what lies within you, in your body and in your heart.”

  Sacajawea held her hands together; her lips quivered. “Ai, my mother,” she whispered.

  “You must not speak overly much because then you will always have a long tongue. You must not laugh because then your face will become old and wrinkled before its time.”

  “Ai, my mother.”

  “You must listen to what the singer tells you and believe him. If you do not believe in your heart what he says, it will be of no benefit. You must not becomeangry or use bad language, for if you do, such will be your nature for the rest of your life.”

  Grasshopper placed her hands upon the girl’s head and said, “Now I must ask you this. No man has entered you and made you unchaste?”

  “Mother,” replied Sacajawea, trembling, “I did not know you would ask me that.”

  “Has any man of the Metaharta tribe touched you?”

  Sacajawea’s knees became water, then froze again. She felt she was now to be a disgrace, not only to her new family but to herself in front of all of Grasshopper’s friends. “No, no one from this tribal village, but I was a captured slave of the—”

  “You are ready, then,” Grasshopper said quickly, so that Sacajawea need not go on with the whole truth, and took her to sit on a skin in front of the lodge to the south of where the Shaman supervised the raising of the ceremonial wickiup, singing with the singer as the poles were placed so the tips inclined until they met in a point at the top. “Plant a thought, harvest an act,” they sang. “Plant an act, harvest a habit; plant a habit, harvest a character; plant a character, harvest a destiny.”30

  From the cooking wickiup nearby, women emerged with clay trays lined with arrowhead leaves and watercress, with fresh chokeberries, wild plums, and grapes. There was a kettle of soup with horn spoons, hump and rib roasts on wooden platters, and bowls of corn, squash, and pumpkin. All were welcome to come to eat, while the father, Redpipe, and his friends sat in a little circle smoking—as they would for birth, for death, for a son returning from his dreaming, so they did for the daughter today.

  “So—here you are!” a voice shouted from a group of strange bearded ones who suddenly appeared at the festivities. Sacajawea had never seen these men in the village, yet she was sure they were the white traders that the women had spoken about in the retreating lodge. Her heart jumped to her mouth—maybe one of these men had the Shoshoni girl!

  The man who had spoken was not a white trader. He glared with one yellowish brown eye as he moved to the food trays. The guests silently moved around him.

  Sacajawea thought him the most violent-looking person she had ever seen. He was more than six feet tall, with a head that seemed large even for his gigantic body and a nose that hooked inward like an eagle’s beak. His face was pitted with smallpox scars and the right eye was covered with a white opaque membrane, half-concealed by a drooping eyelid. A vivid scarlet scar ran from that drooping eyelid across his cheekbone to his earlobe. The earlobe on both ears had been slashed so that he could run a yellow strip of rawhide through, knotted in the back, with copper wire wound around the dangling rawhide in front. He stood slightly bent forward so that his neck seemed to be placed more toward the chest than back. His elbows and knees were flexed, and he looked as if he would attack anyone who disagreed with him.

  Suddenly the huge man left the food and came close to Sacajawea. He wore only a breechclout, and around his bare neck was a circlet of black-tipped weasel tails.

  “I wish to make a gift to the daughter of Redpipe.” His voice boomed.

  Before Sacajawea could respond, Rosebud stepped up. “I will take your gift on behalf of Redpipe and his daughter,” she said, her face almost as white as the white pigment decoration circling her eyes.

  “No, no, the young daughter of Redpipe must accept this,” he said. “You are not the one. Where is the other? Where?” he demanded.

  “Ho, Le Borgne knows where to pick the pretty flowers!” shouted one of the bearded men in broken Minnetaree.

  “Hey, Chief, you think they’ll come entertain us?” called another, stamping his feet and swinging his arms.

  “Quiet,” the huge man said, and his anger seemed to rise and boil within him. “You, then, take this to the one called Sweet Clover.” Rosebud gasped as he handed her the weasel collar from around his neck. ‘Tell the one called Sweet Clover that Chief Kakoakis sends this gift”

  Grasshopper drew in her breath.

  Chief Kakoakis turned toward Grasshopper and blinked his one good eye at her. “I was not aware of this youngest daughter of yours. I see she is now ripeenough to be a woman. Send her to my lodge, and you will have a grand present. You do like presents, Old Mother?”

  “There are enough gifts this day to satisfy the heart,” spat out Grasshopper, moving to block Kakoakis from both Sacajawea and Rosebud.

  “Some of my friends wish to dance,” Kakoakis said, pointing to the bearded men. “I will tell them that you make them welcome.” He turned to leave and was swallowed by the crowd that seemed to surge in behind him.

  Grasshopper’s face was ashen. “Kakoakis!” she spat, her voice shaking. Her mouth bunched up, and she rubbed her hands down her hips. “Give me the weasel tips.” She grabbed them from Rosebud and stepped silently toward the refuse heap. She never took her eyes from Sacajawea as she wadded the fur necklace and threw it on the pile of bones and scraps. No one seemed to look at her, nor did they say anything for fear of bringing on the wrath of their chief.

  When the sun began to set and the men who were to serve as masked dancers had donned their ritual shirts and moccasins, the Shaman rolled a leaf of mild tobacco, puffed smoke to the four directions, and asked the dancers to begin.

  With the drums throbbing, they moved out to the center of the village to the council fire, moving forward and back, then circling. The people talked and joked, and soon the young people joined in, the girls keeping a watchful eye for a hand, perhaps a certain hand, to beckon them into the dancing and song, then to fall back to another, as was proper.

  Sacajawea knew that she was expected to join the dancers, but the sight of Kakoakis and the white men sitting near Redpipe on the far side of the fire filled her with fear, and she watched the activities sitting safely on a blanket.31 At last the festivities were over.

  The return to the lodges from the dance was casual. The young people walked together in small groups, the old women a few steps behind, complaining among themselves about the late hour and the chill of the night.

  When Sacajawea came through the lodge entrance, Grasshopper asked, “Did you enjoy your festivities?”

  “Ai, thank you. It was nice.” She showed Grasshopper her presents: paints, a belt with beaded shells, a scraping knife, a metal awl, several yellowed elk’s teeth.

  “I am relieved Chief Kakoakis did not bother us at the dancing,” sighed Rosebud, “but you did not dance with anyone! You just sat there staring at the fire and the other dancers! You did not dance!”

  “Shhh! My daughter did not wish to dance. She had a moment of bad experience,” said Grasshopper, waddling over to sit beside Sacajawea.

  “Is she my daughter or still a slave girl?” asked Red
-pipe, moving his skinny legs into bed. “It was embarrassing for me to have her sit. Chief Kakoakis asked me about her. When we could not find her dancing, he made a joke, Oh, oh, she is out in the brush with a man already. So—she is aware of the effect she has on men!’ And he slapped me on the back so that I almost coughed up my buffalo steak.”

  “And then you pointed to where she was sitting?” snapped Grasshopper.

  “I did not! One of the bearded white men did that. They had been watching her. These white men are slaves to urges that seem about to consume them. But they did not go near our new daughter. After a time they went home with the women loaned to them by Kakoakis. I think they imagined you beside our daughter and feared your long tongue.”

  Grasshopper whispered, “Great Spirit, help us!” Then in a louder voice she said, “I have noticed that about the whites. They are eaten by the thoughts of one thing—wanting our women. Nobody has taught them to be continent or restrained like our men, by fasting and controlling the body for what it must endure in war or in hunting and trapping.”

  “Mother,” interrupted Rosebud, “the white traders in our village are not so bad. They have lived here for as many as five summers.” She held up the fingers of one hand. “Their women do not complain about them. The women have many presents and do not have to work in the fields. Their men are able to trade for the vegetables from us. It is our chief, Kakoakis, I think, who spreads evil in our village.”

  Redpipe rolled over in his bed. “Women! Hush! Nevermust you speak out loud of your dissatisfaction with our chief. He can bring disaster upon this household anytime he wishes.”

  Instantly Grasshopper remembered the discarded weasel collar and looked about the room thinking who might have seen her put it in the refuse pile and wondering if any would dare tell on her. On an impulse, she left Sacajawea’s side and walked to the back of the lodge where the refuse had been thrown. She stopped, aghast. A squaw was hunting through the pile. It was possible her family did not supply her with enough to keep her sides from rubbing, and Grasshopper called to her, “Come, I will fix you some broth!”