Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  “Boinaiv, Grass Child, you have come home to the People.”

  Sacajawea’s arms closed convulsively about the woman, and she could not keep her tears back. “Willow Bud, it is you!” Between tears she laughed and no longer noticed the others around her. “So—these are the People, my people?”

  “Ai. The scouts have been watching the white men. None said you were with them. It is hard to believe. And a baby, too. Where is his father?”

  Sacajawea pointed to Charbonneau, who had a wide grin on his face as he watched the Shoshonis dance for these newcomers.

  “A white man! Hai-hai-ee! And your papoose, he is beautiful.”

  Questions tumbled out, but there was no pause for them to be answered. Sacajawea put her finger on her lips for the sign of silence, and both women laughed and clung to each other again; then Willow Bud took Pomp and walked to a spot that was shaded by tall pines and sat cross-legged, holding the baby close to her heart. Pomp tried to free himself as she smelled him and ran her hands over his face and plump body. She rocked him gently back and forth as a tear slipped down her chin.

  “The papoose that was mine did not live through the Month of Howling Wind. She was so tiny. Her mouth opened like a baby bird’s, and I had no milk for her. There was no other nursing woman who could spare extra milk. Food was scarce. Stomach cramps were everywhere. She lived eight moons. We laid her tiny body behind the white rocks by the gurgling stream. My man sat there with no food, only the icy water, for one moon. He said the morning sun makes the white rocks glisten like water going over a high falls, so we shall always know where our papoose sleeps—in the glistening stones. He put many stones over her body before he came back to the tepee. It will always be hidden from wolves or buzzards.”

  Inpulsively Sacajawea slipped her blue-beaded moccasins from her feet and pressed them toward Willow Bud, thinking of them not as a possession, or gift, but as a word, a phrase of sympathy spoken by the gesture. The meaning was clear and understood. For the moment there were only the two of them with the child between, an awareness of each other, a communication felt as palpably as a touch of the hand.

  Sacajawea slipped her feet into the worn moccasins cast aside by Willow Bud. She looked back over the years and saw Willow Bud, a beautiful, self-reliant child with fat, brown cheeks and a straight, sturdy body. Now she was hollow-eyed, slightly bent, thin and haggard, her toes turned in even more than most squaws’. She was probably about fifteen or sixteen summers old, but her thin face looked much older. Winters of near-starvation had done that.

  Willow Bud hunched herself to her feet. “Come along. We will go to my tepee and do nothing but talk. Yellow Neck, the one who is my man, is with his brother. They have gone to see the white men you have brought to our village.”

  Inside the summer lodge a smell of leather and sage enveloped them. Sacajawea’s sight cleared to the darkness, and she stepped closer to the small center fire. It was hot inside, and the air was thick with the smell of musty roots simmering in a tightly woven grass container. The walls were hung with bows, arrows, quilled bags, painted rawhide parfleches, herbs, dried roots. The floor was hard-packed, clean-swept clay.

  For a moment Sacajawea could not speak. Her mind took her back to a day when dawn came in a mirroring of light, a springing wash of color. The cottonwoods, aspens, and willows flared from the mist and darkness along the creek, leaves bright green against pale trunks. The whole camp was astir as children swirled among the tepees, shouting, waving their arms, dogs barked, women worked by the fires or brought wood and water to their tepees. Near the camp she imagined she saw the horse herd, red, yellow, black, white—pinto, piebald, spotted—bright flares against the green short grass. The camp was preparing to move to a summer home in the cool shade of the mountains. She could see her grandmother and her mother packing the household goods. Her father sat before the lodge, dignified, smoking in the sun. The day brightened and she was brought from her reverie when the tent flap was pushed aside by women.

  Sacajawea searched their faces as they crowded inside the hot tepee. They had come out of curiosity and respect to see and make welcome this member of their tribe who, by some magic, had led many friendly white men to the Agaidüka camp. One old squaw remarked it was like seeing a person come back from the dead to see this grown woman who had left them as a child. They were curious about the baby, made by a white man. They passed Pomp back and forth, examining him more thoroughly than a white man’s doctor. Pomp did not cry out; he seemed to enjoy the attention and squealed with laughter when they looked at his fat feet and counted his toes. Sacajawea smiled at them as they fingered his clothes and nodded approval at the way she had made them soft and white from thin doeskin.

  The old squaw fingered the mosquito netting that was folded in his blanket. Sacajawea explained that the white men used this to keep the biting insects off.

  “Is it better than bear’s oil?”

  “Ai, better,” she answered, and they crowded closer, eager to hear stories of the white men. Some left and returned with food so that they could stay longer and listen to Sacajawea tell about the round mud lodges food that was planted in spring and harvested in fall metal horns, men who did women’s work, a scratch that would keep away the smallpox.

  “Unlikely. Her tongue is crooked,” laughed an old woman feeling the blue-headed belt at Sacajawea’s waist. Then she looked at Willow Bud’s new moccasins with the beads on top. These women had never before seen glass beads. Their bone needles could never pierce the tiny holes; nor could their cordage—even the finest made from the fibers of the false nettle—go through the tiny beads.

  Sacajawea showed them the pewter mirror that Chief Red Hair had given her.

  “Like carrying a part of a water pool in your pocket,” said an old squaw who made delightful faces in the mirror and smiled a wide, toothless grin and grabbed Sacajawea by the arm.

  “My daughter,” she said. “I clearly remember your family. You are the true shadow of your mother. We are pleased to have her image back among us.” Again she smiled, and then she was gone. In a moment she returned with a small quilled fawnskin robe, which she held out silently. Sacajawea accepted it and waited until the old woman was ready to explain.

  “The mother of this woman,” she whispered almost inaudibly, choked with emotion, “made the robe for my firstborn son. I thought it too beautiful to use. Later I thought it was a mistake not to have used it, but now I know why it had to be kept. For the son of the woman we call Boinaiv.”

  There were many wet eyes in the tepee. Sacajawea moved back, making room where she could spread out the blanket for all to see. The designs around the edge were beautifully intricate, intimate circles, suns, and triangular birds. Again she felt it hard to catch a breath as the past enveloped her. This thing of beauty had been made by the hands of her own mother. Suddenly she thought of her sister and brothers. She opened her mouth to ask about them just as Charbonneau poked his shaggy head inside the tepee and yelled, “Little Bird, you must come. Les capitaines say you be in their council.”

  “What did he say?” asked the old squaw with the mirror close to her face.

  Sacajawea made the sign for a meeting. “There is a powwow between the white men and the chiefs. They asked me to come.”

  “Awww,” the old squaw said. “You are asked to the council where there are only men?”

  A tittering rose among the women. Shoshonis would never permit a woman in their councils. Willow Bud’s eyes were wide with curiosity.

  “Are you something special to these white men that they cannot powwow without a woman sitting among them?” asked Willow Bud. Again the squaws tittered.

  Sacajawea folded the precious robe over her arm and tried to explain. “It is not because I am a squaw and they are braves. It is because I can speak the Shoshoni tongue and the white men cannot. I can speak for you to them.”

  The women slowly nodded. “Ai, ai, we understand that.” And with a clucking noise made with their teeth a
nd tongue they showed that they approved of this and she should go at once.

  Willow Bud followed at a little distance, then, getting up courage, asked, “May I care for him?” She held her arms out for Pomp.

  Sacajawea handed the sleeping baby to her girlhood friend, kissing him first.

  “What is that?” asked Willow Bud, making a smacking noise with her lips.

  “It is a sign for love.” Sacajawea crossed her arms over her breast in the manner of a woman greeting her man when he returns from a hunt or war. “See?” And then Sacajawea kissed the startled Willow Bud on her cheek.

  Captain Clark was formally seated on a white robe in the Council Lodge improvised with willow boughs, his face still smudged with vermilion paint, an ermine collar clasped closely about his neck. Captain Lewis sat beside the chief, who was tall and sat with his back straight and proud, his black eyes looking intently into the faces of the strange white men, reading what he could of their intentions here among his people.

  Besides putting an ermine collar around Captain Clark’s neck, the chief had tied six small white sea-shells in his hair. These ornaments from the Pacific Coast were highly valued among the Shoshonis. The men had removed their moccasins.

  Sacajawea was to translate from Shoshoni to Minnetaree; Charbonneau was to translate from Minnetaree into French if he could not find the English equivalent; then Labiche, nearly as dark as any Shoshoni, would translate into English. It was a very slow way to manage translation, but it was the only way there was so that everyone could understand what was being said.

  Sacajawea left her moccasins by the entrance and sat quietly between Charbonneau and Labiche.

  The chief wore a headband made from eagle feathers and dyed vermilion and yellow; the small white breath feathers came over his cheeks. His shirt was doeskin, as were his leggings, and embroidered with red-and-black porcupine quills. His face was painted with radiating yellow lines, proclaiming the beginning of a new day. A large yellow dot was drawn in the middle of his forehead and encircled in red, indicating friendship and peace. In his hand he held his pipe. He moved into the circle and lighted the pipe by placing a coal from the fire in the green stone bowl. The pipe was longer than the chief was tall, its stem decorated with tufts of horsehair. He held it toward the sun, which stood over a range of hills in the west, and then he gave it to the four directions, finally turning and placing it in the hands of Captain Clark. Clark closed his eyes and blew the smoke from his lips. He held out the pipe to Captain Lewis.

  As Lewis drew on it, he was aware of a murmur among the men seated around him. It was as if a rustle had swept through the watching Shoshonis like a slight breeze through a grove on a hot, still afternoon. The murmur died, and the oppressive silence came again. Friendship, he thought; this means friendship. This is a miraculous thing. We come in here and smoke with them, in their country, and now we’re going to talk some more, and if they wanted, they could wipe us off the earth this day. We are a great people, a fearless people; we go in where angels fear to tread. They cannot want to kill us; or if they do want to, they’re not going to do it without their rituals. They’re going to smoke and talk Lord knows how long, and then maybe they will let us have it. No, the chief is a wise man. We’re worth more to them alive than dead.

  The pipe was gone, and the chief was talking. His voice came from deep within him, from down under the tooth necklace and the yellow slashes on his ribs. He patted and smoothed the white doeskin of his open shirt and made a sign to the earth and to the distance and to the natives around him; and he began to talk, directing his remarks to Sacajawea, waiting as she began to translate his expressions of honor and approval of the white men in the Shoshoni camp.

  The depth of the chiefs voice, the way he held the pipe, the way his black eyes probed into her soul, brought more memories to Sacajawea. The reality before her was mixed with the memories, as in dreams. Suddenly, instead of the gaunt, hollow-eyed chief, she heard her father speaking. She heard him speaking to the People. Her eyes narrowed to see better. A small hoop wound with rawhide suspended one red feather over his left ear. A wave of pulsating excitement flashed over her body.

  “Cameahwait! Never Walks! My own brother!” she cried, jumping up to embrace him. She threw the robe their mother had sewn over this tall, silent chief. She wept profusely. “We are of the same family, my brother!”

  The chief was visibly moved. “Boinaiv, my baby sister! No—I thought it could not be you. We mourned you as dead. But you are here. The Great Spirit has looked upon us today with gladness.”

  Sacajawea tried to control her weeping. Between sobs she asked, “Our sister and brother?”

  The chief, greatly agitated, shifted and blew his nose between his fingers. Finally, more composed, he said, “Gone into the land of the spirits with those who were our father and mother.”

  “Yiiiee, gone!” Again she burst into sobs.

  “My sister, hush. There are strangers present. It is impolite to display emotion with such abandon. Control yourself. There are two that live.”

  “Two? But you said—”

  “Ai, our brother, Spotted Bear, and our sister’s papoose, who is called Shoogan.”

  Chief Cameahwait gently placed a hand on his sister’s arm. “Boinaiv, we shall talk of these things after the council.”

  Sacajawea tried to control her emotion, but the situation was overpowering. She had no strength to stop. She felt helpless, powerless, exposed, and naked in her deep emotion before all the People, yet she did not see anyone but her own flesh brother. She was seized by dizziness and a shivering weakness. A thunderous wind seemed to surge within her; the earth itself rocked and swayed under its power. She clung to Charbonneau for support until the dizziness passed. She heard Chief Red Hair saying, “It’s all right, Janey. You need not feel guilty about your tears. Your homecoming has moved many to the edge of tears. I saw Captain Lewis rub his eyes, and Labiche has blown his nose more often than any of us.”

  Charbonneau surprised everyone by standing up and extending his right hand toward the chief. “How do, my brother-in-law,” he said, with a swagger of his shoulders. When he sat again, he adjusted the kerchief about his neck and eyed the ermine collar worn by Captain Clark. He thought he would get his ermine collar out and wear it around camp. The chief would then know that he was somebody, all right.

  Captain Lewis rose. “Tell Chief Cameahwait that we come in peace, and that we go across the mountains to the salt sea to open the way for white traders. We must go swiftly ahead of the snow, and we have brought tobacco and bags of corn as presents. Others will follow, to trade kettles, awls, hatchets, axes, guns and powder, for the Shoshonis’ beaver, otter, and ermine.”

  Chief Cameahwait looked pleased. Guns and powder, this was what his people needed to keep them better supplied with game. He rose, dignified and in full control of himself. “I understand, and I am pleased. But why would our enemies, the Sioux and Blackfeet, not capture the white traders and their goods before reaching here? I think they would.”

  Captain Lewis rose and told the chief about the Great White Father in Washington who wanted all the Indian nations to live in peace. “You are now children of the Great White Father, and it is he who sent us here. And it will be he who sends traders to you.”’

  Chief Cameahwait was astonished. “Can this Great White Father send my sister to lead so many men to our nation? Can he keep peace among nations who have warred for years?”

  Captain Clark rose. “He sent us to tell the Indian nations to lay down their weapons and be peaceful and trade with each other so that each may live better. We brought Janey—Sacajawea—with us so that she could speak to you, so that you might understand what we had to say. She is a wise young woman.”

  Sacajawea tried desperately to control her tears.

  “Stop sniffling, you squaw,” ordered Charbonneau. “You delay the powwow.”

  Sacajawea bit her bottom lip and clenched her hands into fists. She was bewildered. Th
e sudden joyous shock of it all still shook her, and the responsibility of the translating now included having to pass on a compliment about herself.

  “My brother, these white chiefs—Chief Red Hair and Chief Captain Lewis—are strong leaders. They keep their word. They—” Once more, sobs shook her.

  Charbonneau was impatient and fuming. “I ordered you to stop that bawling.”

  Captain Clark touched Charbonneau on the shoulder and shook his head, saying, “Don’t. She can’t help it. Can’t you see she is greatly moved to find some of her family still living? Family ties are strong with these Shoshonis.” He motioned to Captain Lewis.

  “We think it proper that this council continue tomorrow after one of our interpreters has had time to talk with her brother and meet more with her own people. We’ll begin tomorrow when our men arrive with the canoes and supplies.”

  The Council Lodge was immediately cleared; however, Captain Clark had to drag Charbonneau out by his shirt. The métis was protesting, “He is my brother-in-law. My family. I want to stay and talk with him.”

  Alone with her brother, Sacajawea suddenly found herself tongue-tied. She watched him remove his headband of feathers. He motioned for her to sit on the white robe, watching her. She seemed more beautiful than the memory of his mother, yet she was so similar. All her movements were rhythmical. Her eyes were red and swollen, but by tomorrow they would shine again. He noticed the fine stitching on her tunic, her wide belt of blue beads. He saw that her hair was neat and she was clean, and that her beauty came from health; she was not half-starved as were many of the women in the tribe. She was also a stranger to him, a woman with a white man, a swaggering, wind-blowing kind of man. She could speak several tongues, and she was treated as an equal by the two white chiefs.

  Sacajawea felt a great pride rise within her. This brother had followed in the footsteps of their father. He had earned the office of chief, the respect of the Agaidükas. He was someone to be pleased with.