Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  Then Captain Lewis’s laugh burst like a war whoop. In an open area milled a party of sixty warriors armed with bows and arrows. Some of the men had a feather or two in their hair. Others had thongs twisted around the sides of their long black hair. Their horses were large and fine-looking. They had been alerted by the man Captain Lewis had seen earlier with the two women and many dogs on the large flat rock.

  The old woman stepped back to Drouillard, and her hands moved in front of him, nimble, swift, hardly seeming to touch one another or be encumbered by the gifts under her left arm. Her face was not twisted and frightened now, but suffused with interest and curiosity. She told Drouillard that the warriors thought they were meeting a Blackfeet war party who had defeated them in a fight not long ago.

  Leaving his rifle behind with Drouillard, Captain Lewis went toward the chief and two others who were a little ahead of the main party. He carried the small American flag tied to a pole. Lewis’s three men and the three women followed him.

  The chief, still on his horse, spoke quietly to the three women, who proudly showed him their gifts and red-painted foreheads. He was reassured—no war party ever went about giving presents to women.

  Two important men of the tribe dropped from their horse and one after another threw their left arm over Captain Lewis’s shoulder, pressing their greasy painted cheeks against his, saying, “Ah-hi-ee, ah-hi-ee!” Their bodies had been rubbed with grease, making their flesh glisten. They had drawn designs on their faces, chests, and backs with red, yellow, and white paints. Their personal war medicines were bound in their hair or tied around their necks. Brightly painted shields caught the light. From time to time a man would dash up and hug the captain, repeating, “Ah-hi-ee, ah-hi-ee!”

  “I believe that means ‘We are delighted with you,’” said Drouillard after a very large fellow had just given him the national hug.

  Then the chief dismounted. Captain Lewis put a little vermilion paint on his forehead, and this started the hugging all over again. Lewis was caressed and smeared with grease and paint and soon was heartily tired of this Shoshoni hug.

  Slowly he motioned for his sack and brought out his long calumet of red pipestone. He filled it with tobacco and lighted it, instructed McNeal to plant the pole with the flag, and suddenly the Indians were seated in a circle around the pole and had pulled off their moccasins. Drouillard leaned toward Lewis and whispered, “Take your moccasins off. These birds are waiting for us to finalize their sacred act. This here indicates their wish that if they are ever treacherous or insincere with their friends, they might ever after go barefoot.”

  After the men had passed the pipe around the circle several times, Captain Lewis passed out more presents. They liked the blue beads and vermilion paint best.

  Then the chief lit his pipe at the fire and gave a short speech, pointing the long stem to the four cardinal points of the heavens, beginning at the east and ending at the north. His pipe was made in an oval shape from the transparent green jade of the Bannock Mountains, highly polished. After he smoked, he passed the pipe to Captain Lewis and then to each of the white men. When this smoking was finished, Lewis gave the remainder of his gifts to the women and children who sat outside the men’s circle.

  The chief, called Cameâhwait, had eyes sharp and black as a hawk’s and lank jaws. He told the white men by hand signs that his people had very little food, but the newcomers were welcome to what they had. That evening’s meal was cakes of serviceberries and choke-cherries that had been dried in the sun. While eating, Lewis looked at the chief and thought perhaps he was twenty-five; then he thought, maybe even forty-five—it was hard to tell. There was a timeless, enduring quality about him, as of old, long-used leather. His face was bony, high-bridged, beginning to wrinkle around his eyes where the skin was loose. His nose was thin and straight, and his eyes deep-set. His expression was unchanging, neither harsh nor pleasant. Lewis could read nothing in his face, and yet he perceived—without knowing how—an unshakable pride, similar to that possessed by Sacajawea.

  Chief Cameâhwait wore a vest decorated with dried porcupine quills, and leggings that were once whitened buckskin but now shiny with grease on the knees and legs. His moccasins were old and decorated with yellow quills, molded roughly to the bones of his feet. His hair was in two long strands, the right wrapped with strips of thin leather, the left decorated with a band of four eagle feathers dangling down in front, and a hoop wound with rawhide held one red feather near his ear. He had beside him a lance, some nine feet long, worked with white puma claws. It was tipped with a long point of the moss-green jade found high in the mountains, and tailed with the wing feather of a hawk. As Lewis watched, the chief turned suddenly from the business of eating and extended his hands to Drouillard, the interpreter. Pausing until Drouillard put down the serviceberry cake, he made a quick series of signs.

  “Captain, the chief wants you to go with his friend to a lodge where you will be presented with something more for your hearty appetite,” interpreted Drouillard.

  Lewis did not hesitate, but followed an old man who had the habit of leaning with the wind as he walked. Inside the old man’s tepee Lewis was given a small bit of boiled antelope meat and a piece of fresh-roasted salmon. He ate both and wiped his hands on his trousers; then he untied the rawhide string in the back of his hair and combed his fingers through several times before tying his hair back in a queue. This latter show of gratitude for the meat pleased his host so much that Lewis was given another piece of salmon. This was the first salmon Lewis had seen, and he was convinced now that he was at the headwaters of the Pacific Ocean.

  The Shoshonis danced most of the night in celebration of the white men’s presence among them. The next morning, Captain Lewis asked Chief Cameâhwait about the geography of his land. The chief drew rivers on the ground and built mountains with mounds of dust. He told Lewis that the mountains so closely hemmed in the river, which was white with froth, that there was no way to cross. None of his people had been over the mountains, but there was an old man, a day’s march from where they were, who might give Captain Lewis more information about the country to the northwest.

  “Are there any of your men who would go with me tomorrow to the forks in the river to help carry the baggage of another white chief up here to your village?” asked Captain Lewis.

  By signs the chief indicated that his men would do that for these friends.

  “We will stay for some time with you and trade some of our goods for some of your horses and then make ready to go on to the ocean,” said Lewis. “We’re headed as far west as we can go!”

  CHAPTER

  19

  The People

  Saturday August 17th, 1805

  On setting out at seven o’clock, Captain Clarke with Charbonneau and his wife walked on shore, but they had not gone more than a mile before Clarke saw Sacajawea, who was with her husband 100 yards ahead, began to dance and show every mark of the most extravagant joy, turning around him and pointing to several Indians, whom he now saw advancing on horseback, sucking her fingers at the same time to indicate that they were of her native tribe [they had eaten together]. As they advanced, Captain Clarke discovered among them Drewyer [Drouillard] dressed like an Indian, from whom he learnt the situation of the party. While the boats were performing the circuit, he went towards the forks with the Indians, who as they went along, sang aloud with the greatest appearance of delight.

  The party soon drew near to the camp, and just as they approached it a woman made her way through the crowd towards Sacajawea, and recognizing each other, they embraced with the most tender affection. The meeting of these two young women had in it something peculiarly touching, not only in the ardent manner in which their feelings were expressed, but from the real interest of their situation. They had been companions in childhood, in the war with the Minnetarees they had both been taken prisoners in the same battle, they had shared and softened the rigours of their captivity, till one of them had escaped from th
e Minnetarees, with scarce a hope of ever seeing her friend relieved from the hands of her enemies. While Sacajawea was renewing among the women the friendships of former days, Captain Clarke went on, and was received by Captain Lewis and the chief, who after the first embraces and salutations were over, conducted him to a sort of circular tent or shade of willows. Here he was seated on a white robe; and the chief immediately tied in his hair six small shells resembling pearls, an ornament highly valued by these people, who procure them in the course of trade from the sea-coast. The moccasins of the whole party were then taken off, and after much ceremony the smoking began. After this the conference was to be opened, and glad of an opportunity of being able to converse more intelligibly, Sacajawea was sent for; she came into the tent, sat down, and was beginning to interpret, when in the person of Cameâhwait, the chief, she recognized her brother. She instantly jumped up, and ran and embraced him, throwing over him her blanket and weeping profusely. The chief was himself moved, though not in the same degree. After some conversation between them she resumed her seat, and attempted to interpret for us, but her new situation seemed to overpower her, and she was frequently interrupted by tears. After the council was finished the unfortunate woman learnt that all her family were dead except two brothers, one of who was absent, and a son of her eldest sister, a small boy, who was immediately adopted by her.

  NICHOLAS BIDDLE, ed., History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clarke, Vol. I. Philadelphia: Bradford and Inskeep, 1814, pp. 381–83.

  On August 16, Captain Clark rose early. He hoped to find Lewis soon. His ankle was nearly healed, and he walked easily. He spotted Sacajawea coming from a backwash in the river where she had bathed and washed her hair. The neat braids were still wet and shining.

  “I’m hungry this new day,” she said, smiling. “I will get the fire going, and surely the other men will be up soon.”

  “First,” said Clark, holding her with his eyes, “I have something for you.” He reached into his trouser pocket and slowly pulled out the blue-beaded belt he had been working on as he recuperated from his carbuncle. The design was lines and crosses made of dark-and light-blue beads; in the center back of the belt were dark-blue flowers with a row of green leaves on either side. Leather thongs at the ends were made for tying the belt around the waist. “See if it fits.”

  “It is for me?” she said, unbelieving. “Chief beads?”

  “Well, sure, who else would wear a belt as fancy as all that? Now put it on. I want to see how it looks after all that sewing I did on it.”

  “Ai, it is the most beautiful color.” For a moment Sacajawea wanted to touch him, but she could not. She must not show her pleasure where people could see. She must have pride. She flushed with happiness.

  Slowly she put the belt on and turned so that Chief Red Hair could see how well it fit around her tunic. She could not believe that he had made this beautiful gift for her. Her heart jumped up and down like a frightened rabbit. She dropped her eyes. “I, the woman called Janey by the Chief Red Hair, is full of thanks,” she said, confused.

  Clark gently put his hand under her chin and smiled into her large brown eyes. Then he let go and looked down. “It is my gift to you because—because a pretty woman ought to have pretty things.”

  Sacajawea looked at him, puzzled. It was incomprehensible to her that a man such as Captain Clark, Chief Red Hair, might think her attractive. Often enough Charbonneau had lamented her lack of flesh, and the want of keeping her mouth closed.

  And then a sudden premonition came to her. This would be the day. This day they would find her people, the Agaidüka Shoshoni.

  While the men loaded the canoes, she bathed Pomp and put on the new shirt she had made for him. In the canoe, she placed the blanket she now used to replace the lost cradleboard at her feet. The morning air was warm.

  All morning she watched the horizon for signs, and when she finally saw movement along the shore, she could not move, could not speak. She could only point westward. Two horsemen were galloping toward them. Captain Clark pulled the canoe to the rocky bank. Then he, along with Francis Labiche, another man good with hand signs, Charbonneau, and Sacajawea, with Pomp swung in the blanket on her back, walked toward the riders.

  “People I have eaten with. They are! They are!” Sacajawea sucked on the fingers of her right hand.

  “Janey, I hope so!” Clark exclaimed. “I sure as hell hope so!”

  “See, Shoshoni dress, Shoshoni horses! Ai, ai, ah-hi-ee!”

  Then, suddenly, one of the riders pulled in his horse and galloped right back toward the west. Sacajawea’s heart dropped to her moccasins.

  Captain Clark waved wildly to the approaching lone horseman and was saluted with a non-Shoshoni, “Hul-loo, strangers!”

  “Drouillard!” cried Clark, his face dark. “You’re dressed like a Shoshoni? If so, that’s a poor joke to play on us!”

  “No joke, Captain,” said Drouillard, adjusting the white ermine-skin cape of the Shoshonis and pointing to the vermilion on his face and down his hair part. About his neck was a necklace of bear’s claws. “We have found ‘em!”

  “You camp with the People?” asked Sacajawea.

  “Oh, you bet, and they dance for us and sing, and invite us to dinner.”

  Questions poured from Sacajawea and then from Captain Clark, so that Drouillard could not answer coherently.

  Charbonneau contemptuously fingered the blue belt at her waist. “Like a white woman,” he said scornfully. “I’ve never heard a woman speak up so much as you. Even the white woman keeps her mouth shut once in a while.”

  Sacajawea trembled. “I am coming to my land,” she said.

  “Captain Lewis is coming with more than sixty Shoshoni men,” said Drouillard, his horse’s hooves clicking on the rocks. “They will help us.”

  “Ride back and give the others the news,” Captain Clark ordered Drouillard. “Tell them Labiche, Charbonneau, Janey and I are on our way to meet Lewis. We’re walking.”

  With a wild Shoshoni whoop, the half-Shawnee, half-French Drouillard galloped toward the canoes.

  This cannot be a dream, thought Sacajawea. I am with these white men, and they are not in the spirit world. What if these people are not the Agaidüka Shoshoni, but some other tribe? The Agaiüdkas may be farther back in the mountains. I cannot get my hope too high. My heart beats as though it would fly out.

  It was then that memory rose up before her to merge with the familiar landscape: far below, near the river, a great circular enclosure at the foot of a bluff, and above, a fan of gray stones spreading back from the bluff’s edge like wings over the green, undulating hills. The picture spread vividly before her, overlaying the short pines ahead, and she became a girl on a painted horse, looking down from a high hill. White clouds bloomed and grew towering against the sky edge of the world, casting shadows below, islands in the green sea. A band of sheep, a moving cloud shadow, circled, flashing as white as foam on each turn, a promise to the People of warmth and contentment.

  From the white circle of lodges in a green valley, a thread of people on horses moved toward the enclosure, buckskin bright with quillwork, and paint bright on the horses. They stayed silent at the base of the bluff, then went on, upward, separating into lines that moved out along the wings. Beyond the last stones a herd of bighorn sheep grazed, gray-white on the green grass; among them birds rose and circled and dropped. She saw the caller of the sheep in his brown skin robe dancing near the animals to catch their attention; the herd moved toward her, gathering to a white stream, flowing between the converging wings toward the bluff. The leader plunged wildly over, and the stream was solid, flesh of the earth sliding, a fall of meat and robes—life for the People. Dust rose in the stone enclosure, and the vision was gone, fading to the silver forks in the river ahead, the grass changing to dust made by galloping horsemen coming toward them. The dust rose shadowy against the sky. The riders had bright-painted faces; their horses were strong and beautiful,
spotted and decorated with handprints of red, yellow, and white. Bird feathers were tied to their manes and tails.

  The riders were singing as they approached. The song rang in Sacajawea’s ears, feral as the cry of a hunted animal. She caught her breath and recognized the Greeting Song of the Shoshonis.

  Sacajawea scanned each face eagerly, her heart thumping with excitement. One after another passed, but there was not one whom she recognized. She stood still a moment, her head bowed, uncertain, her baby heavy on her back, her heart as heavy as stone. These Shoshonis were all strangers, not her tribe, not the Agaidüka.

  The horsemen wheeled and pranced around her, Captain Clark, Labiche, and Charbonneau. Labiche smiled and kiyi-ed with them. Charbonneau sputtered, “Jésus, them Snakes think we have lots of meat to give them.”

  Sacajawea had a shadowy, unclear feeling of a dream begun, not ended; she was at the edge of awakening. She began to wish she had not put the red circles on her cheeks nor the vermilion down her center hair part.

  The horsemen were leading them to a larger group of Shoshonis. There was a sudden movement among the mass of people, and Sacajawea recognized Captain Lewis through the crowd, with red paint smeared on his face and on the straw-colored wisps of hair that poked wildly from his queue.

  A squaw stared, watching Sacajawea curiously. Her hair was in strings at the sides of her face, and her tunic was unwashed. A tear at the bottom had been mended with thick buckskin. Her straight hair hung as if to hide her sunken cheeks. This unkempt woman began making the sucking motion with her fingers and crying words that came from long ago, a scrap of a familiar song.

  Sacajawea caught the smell of these people, the living earth smell—leather, woodsmoke, mulch odor. The squaw was pressing her way through the crowd, coming toward her. Sacajawea instinctively stepped back, but the squaw was at her side, moving her hands firmly and lightly over her arms, then over the face of Pomp, then over Sacajawea’s face. The woman gave a quick little cry, and then her arms were about Sacajawea; tears were warm on Sacajawea’s cheeks, then cool.