Sacajawea

by Anna Lee Waldo

  Indian Agent Irwin at Fort Washakie planned for months with Finn Burnett, the Government Agricultural Agent, to have on some particular issue day a special feast and some horse racing to build a better feeling between the government employees and their Indian charges.

  It was midmorning, and Shoogan walked with his family toward the large gathering of people in the open area north of Jakie’s store. Shoogan was old and withered with a face like a sick hawk’s. He limped and half hopped along on his bad leg. He grunted through closed lips, sending a small quiver through a sprout of turkey feathers he wore on his head. The others, held up, waited for him. Only their eyes stirred, looking here and there. Dancing Leaf walked proudly beside him, older and heavier, pulling her blanket tightly around her up to her neck. His other woman, Devoted, shuffled along behind. Andrew Bazil, squatty, wearing a white man’s hat, came next with his woman and children. The children darted around Nancy Bazil, her braids swinging as her face turned. She had put a red line down her center hair part. Her man had ambled off for a cup of coffee laced heavily with sugar.

  Out past Jakie’s store a dance had started. They walked toward the beat of drums and the chants of the dancers. “This is some new dance,” said Dancing Leaf. “I do not recognize the beat.”

  Some of the more forward young men had come to Sacajawea’s tepee not more than a week before and asked her about the Sun Dance of the Sioux. They wondered why the Shoshoni never had such a dance.

  “What?” she asked, scraping flesh from a horse hide she had bought with that week’s rations. “You want to perform the dance of our enemies?” She shouted, after a look at their faces, “You are certain you could do such a thing?”

  One of the young men said, “But, Grandmother, we just want to try it.”

  “Can you not see I am busy making this hide soft for moccasins?”

  “We want to see for ourselves if we like this dance.”

  “It would not be in good taste for a Shoshoni to adopt a ceremony from his enemy.”

  “Tell us how it is done.”

  A broad-faced youth, knife-scarred from eye to jaw, growled words and stepped toward her.

  She regarded the young men for a moment with a crinkled look of amusement about her eyes. “Grandsons, you are in a hurry,” she said. “Can you not wait for the story?”

  Her thoughts came slowly—the remembrances of the Mandan torture rites, from which the Sioux had taken a small part and called it their Sun Dance. Then it had traveled to the Cheyennes and Arapahos, so that now it was well known that the Plains Indians had used the Sun Dance to prove manhood. She clearly remembered the voices of the women who had had men performing the torture ceremony. The sounds of their voices carried their own indisputable meaning; they were proud and frightened. Here in this different place it was true again. These youths with no deep understanding of the older ways were demanding that she tell them about the rites. How could she do that without making certain they understood the whole reasoning behind the rituals, the feelings of the families and friends, the pride and honor the ceremony brought, the anticipation and concern and worry? The voices of the youths were crass and disrespectful.

  With fumbling fingers Sacajawea put down her hide scraper and pushed aside the pile of hair and tissue. “Keep your ears uncovered while I talk,” she said. “You chop weeds and sell it for grass. You stir up the dirt and grow corn. You build fences and pen up cattle. And so, the men who danced the old time Sun Dance did not do these things.” Then she held out her pipe to the broad-faced youth. “Please, fill it. My hands shake. I waste half my good tobacco.” Then she told, as best she could, the story of the Mandan Okeepa. After a few moments the boys settled down, their eyes fastened on Sacajawea’s expressive old face.

  Shoogan’s son, Andrew, said the issue day festivities planned by Dr. James Irwin were to persuade the foolish families who lived poorly off the reservation to come and live with the loafers who lived badly on the reservation. “One senseless brave told me he would rather eat dung than be corralled on a reservation,” Andrew said to his father.

  The fort’s soldiers made huge amounts of coffee in five-gallon lard buckets. Most Shoshoni brought their tin cups already prepared with sugar in the bottom.

  There was a line of women with their yards of government-issue domestic cotton wrapped around themselves blanket-style. They laughed and chatted as they filed by various clerks who marked their cards and gave them their allotment of cornmeal, sugar, salt, coffee, and soap. The People were most eager for the coffee and sugar, but the cornmeal they fed to their horses.2

  In front of the agency corral, the men, stripped to the waist, waited on horseback for the beef to be issued on the hoof. The cattle were soon turned loose in the field behind the agency. The men kiyi-ed and dug their heels into the horses’ sides and pretended they were on an old-time buffalo hunt. They fired pistols to bring down the animals. When all the cattle were killed the women and children ran out to help the men skin and butcher the cows. Several heated arguments took place, as more than one family owned each cow and the choice rump roasts could not always be divided among all the owners. Shoogan passed around pieces of raw liver sprinkled with a few drops of gall. Andrew thought the warm raw liver alone not too bad. It tasted like raw oyster. The women cleaned the cow’s entrails. Then they wound them around green willow sticks and let the squealing children hold the meat in the hot ashes of the roasting trench until the wound-up meat was ready for eating.

  When it was time for the horse racing, the soldiers barricaded the long, level dirt road between the agency buildings with wooden horses and empty barrels. Along the road they laid out a half-mile track where two horses could race at one time. When one race was finished and all bets were paid, another race took place, as long as there were riders and horses to compete. In the nick of time, several frantic mothers pulled their young children from playing in the street. The galloping horses could have run them down. The freight wagons were detoured around the racers or stopped and detained until the show was over. Some of the losers were left without their horses. Some lost money earned from grass leases or hauling jobs. Some lost all the rations they had collected on this issue day. Shoogan watched the man who lost the last race explain to his wife that he had bet her ration of twelve yards of cotton goods. She was obligated to honor the winner. She and her children would go without the dresses and shirts they needed.

  A broad-faced youth ambled toward Shoogan, grinning and pushing his big hat toward the back of his head. “Hi there, Grandfather.”

  “Hello, Son,” said Shoogan, not recognizing the youth.

  “How’s everything going?”

  “Fine.”

  “I’m sure glad to find you. You see over there?” He pointed toward the circle of young people dancing from left to right in a circle. “Some of us have started a real old-time Sun Dance, and we want you to direct us. To be director—master of ceremonies.”

  “But—I’ve never—”

  “Oh, we’ll tell you what to do. We got all the details from old Porivo.”

  Bewildered, Shoogan limped between two young men who pushed him along the inside of the circle. “Now sing—anything,” instructed one. “Stamp your feet a little and hold your face to the south,” said another.

  “But—”

  “Go ahead,” someone said.

  Shoogan glimpsed the shine of a hunting knife clasped in the right hand of the speaker.

  “Grab hands and dance serpentine until you have circled the flagpole,” said Shoogan. “Come on, do as I say if you want a real dance. Where else can you find a straighter pole?” The youth with the knife grabbed his hand. Shoogan bent his head low to the ground and straightened with his head in the air, bent and straightened with each heel-toe step. The ones behind him did the same. They circled the flagpole. For a moment Shoogan watched a hawk caught in a high thermal. It flew above the mountain peaks against the clouds. The clouds were blown away and the hawk was left in a calm against t
he blue sky. Shoogan thought, Hawk, are you still my helper? He pulled from the circle and stood inside. He coughed once to attract attention. “Listen, I know a Shoshoni dance, older than the Sun Dance of the Sioux.” He was not certain what else he was going to say or do.

  “Hey, Grandfather, old Porivo told us about the Mandans’ dance. You know that one? We want a genuine Sun Dance. We will give Porivo credit for telling us about the Sun Dance first. But you be the leader.”3

  “Ai, my dance belongs to our people. Pay attention!” Shoogan looked at the top of the fort’s flagpole, where the stars and stripes snapped brightly next to the sky. “On a long, straight, lodgepole pine, your grandfathers hung their battle scalps. Can you imagine ten, fifteen scalp locks whipping way up there in the wind? What a sight! At sunset when the flag is brought down, we can pretend there are real scalps popping and flapping up there. The bravest man among you will recite about the time he actually counted coup on an enemy or a charging buffalo or moose or grizzly.”

  “You mean like the time Joe Ptarmigan struck a marshal in Rock Springs?” called out one of the youths. The others snickered at the old joke of Joe getting liquored up on vanilla extract and punching the territorial marshal.

  “You know what I mean. This is an old-fashioned, time-honored dance. Sing about the buffalo, moose, or grizzly, and dance. I will get my big whip so that it will all be really authentic. Someone else get a drummer. Clap and move back and forth until I get back!”

  Shoogan slipped from the circle of youths and walked as fast as he could, limping behind the agency buildings through the brilliant red paintbrush and orange gaillardia to the barren, red dirt path to Sacajawea’s tepee. He wiped perspiration from his face with a faded red kerchief.

  She had heard the clapping of hands and stamping of dancing feet. She could not make out the words of the leader, but knew it was old Shoogan. She sat in front of her door feeling the warmth of the sun on her head. She thought of boys and girls dancing in two circles, the girls on the outside. It was a relic of the past. But even then they enjoyed the flirting. Then she heard Shoogan’s uneven footsteps.

  “Porivo, I have your rations and will bring them later, but now I feel like I am in a box canyon with no way out. Those piercy-eyed boys want me to lead a Sun Dance. They said you told them about the revered Mandans. I cannot do that dance! They cannot do that! I thought about doing a Shoshoni Round or Scalp Dance with the big whip. I told them I was going to get my whip, but I do not have one.”4

  Sacajawea went into a deep chuckle for a moment, then slowly got to her feet and motioned for Shoogan to follow her into the tepee. Together they rummaged through several old parfleches and leather boxes. They discarded everything until Sacajawea pulled out a big wooden comb with pictures of leaves carved on the back.

  “Ai!” yelled Shoogan, “that’s perfect! See, it is enough like the wooden blade with the serrated edge and the carved scalp symbols on top. Now, how can I put two otter-skin whips on the end of this handle?”

  Sacajawea was pulling the binding off a cracked and peeled leather case. Several good beaver skins were inside. “I recall the Comanche also used the big whip to brag about their bravery,” she said, shaking out a skin and measuring it against the comb handle. “I can make a couple beaver-skin whips and tie them on here. What do those feisty youths know about the old ways? This will be a shabby fake. We both know that. But it will take you out of the box canyon. The dancers will be satisfied, my son.” She cut the strips with her butcher knife and tied them to the end of the big wooden comb.

  Shoogan nodded and smiled his thanks and hurried back with a grin on his face.

  Sacajawea put the parfleches and boxes in their places, picked up her cane, and left her tepee. She shuffled along the dusty flat to the agency grounds, passing the jack pines, mountain ash, harebells, asters, a chipmunk, and several ground squirrels. She smiled when people passed and nodded toward her. She rested on one of the overturned barrels the soldiers had moved to the side of the road after the horse races.

  The mountains behind the agency had changed from blue to purple in the sunset. The bugle was blown and the flag lowered. She stood up and her mouth fell open when she saw the broad-faced youth hand the flag to the soldier. The soldier took it quickly before the trailing end touched the ground. She thought he folded that big bright banner more carefully than a mother would fold her baby’s newest blanket. She moved closer so that she could hear what Shoogan told the youths moving around the flagpole.

  “Anytime during the dance, if I point the big whip at anybody he must stop and tell of some bravery or good hunt, as I said before.”

  The youths nodded in agreement.

  “The story ends with the sun curse, which goes like this: ‘Oh Father Sun, shine on me, draw away all my juices so that I am crisp as a leaf in winter if I speak with a forked tongue about my brave exploits.’”

  The youths nodded again. They understood and for the first time thought it was an honest Sun Dance if the dancers called upon the sun to prove their truthfulness. Most felt it was better than the Sun Dance old Porivo told about. Hers was a violent, grisly affair that was probably made up to frighten them, they thought. The Sioux might subject themselves to hanging by thin thongs from wooden pegs implanted in the chest and shoulder muscles, but only a crazy would also add heavy buffalo skulls to his arms and legs.

  Shoogan continued, “When I point my big whip at somebody, he has to come to the center by this tall pole and tell of a coup. If not I give him a sound lashing.” He swung the whips through the air, stopping suddenly so they cracked. “If your coup is not as good as the one I will tell, I can whip you four times.” He pointed at the chest of the young man who had the knife. The man looked around and gave a stifled laugh. He told about stealing watermelon in Riverton and being shot with rock salt in his butt and legs. He pulled up his black woolen pants and showed scars on his legs. “I ran like a cougar, doubled back, and picked up another melon before the night was gone.”

  Someone said, “Good coup.”

  Shoogan growled deep into his throat and looked at the circle of youths. He was amazed to see that a few young girls had joined in the circle and were holding hands with the smiling youths. This made him growl again in disgust. In the old times the females danced behind the braves. He looked through the circle toward the crowd sitting on the dry grass watching. He wondered how many of the old people knew the dance was only a flouting of the real thing, a big sham.

  Sacajawea was sitting in the front row with some of the other grandmothers when the watermelon story was told. She was afraid to look at the others, so great was the feeling of sick distaste. Was this what the youths who had listened to her speak had come away with? Was this all they honestly believed the Sun Dance was? No, it could not be. The young braves were doing this because they could not bring themselves to try a true Sun Dance. Now there was no need for the real thing. So, maybe the youths had kept their ears uncovered, she thought.

  “I tell about counting coup on the enemy and getting one of my legs shorter than the other,” said Shoogan. While he recited, the young men and women circled around him and the steel flagpole, slowly heel-toeing, bending, straightening. As soon as he finished he pointed the big whip to the boy with the knife. “You must stay in the dance until the end,” he said. “Your coup was weak.”

  He did not strike the boy four times with the whip, because he felt it was useless and would only rile him to some unpleasantness. Not thinking straight, he carelessly pointed the whip toward a young woman. She had nothing more to recite than how she fought off an overly passionate brave in the juniper breaks. “You must dance until I announce the end,” he said, feeling shame for his part in this watery imitation of the old ways. Another young woman told how she had licked the whooping cough by regularly eating a little bit of the gray-green, spineless cactus brought in by some traders from the south. “I no longer felt worn out, but instead felt I was a living part of all the tribe. And see, no
w I do not cough.”

  One of the young men told about how he wrapped a thong with sinew, softened it in warm water, and pushed it down the throat of a younger brother who was choking from lung congestion. “That cleared his throat better than my finger,” he bragged. Shoogan indicated they all must continue dancing by cracking his big whip four times above his head.

  When the stars became visible a bonfire flared up in one of the meat-roasting trenches and threw a flickering yellow light in a wide circle on the field behind the agency. The drummer got up and sauntered toward the fire. Then the dancers stopped. One couple followed the drummer, saying they were tired of dancing and wanted some hot coffee with sugar.

  “I did not end the dance!” shouted Shoogan.

  “It is ended, Grandfather,” said the young man with the knife.

  Several of the grandmothers Sacajawea was sitting beside got up and shuffled toward the bonfire. “The dance was a fake,” whispered one.

  “Our young people didn’t seem to notice or care,” said another.

  “The dance is officially over!” announced Shoogan. He knew the momentum was gone and it could not last through the night as the old dances did.

  Sacajawea waited until Shoogan came limping from the flagpole area. She shook her pointing finger at him. “I have been thinking. Maybe this white man’s peace is nothing. On the other hand, when the red man had war there was death. Can there be only two directions?”

  Shoogan ran his kerchief over his face and through his graying hair and grunted. “As I see it, maybe we are all in a box canyon with only game trails marking sides that are steeper than man can climb, and a swift creek running in the narrow gorge that is too treacherous for a canoe and too deep for wading.” He searched for his women and children and found them around the crackling bonfire holding tin mugs of coffee.

  Sacajawea started toward her path home, then noticed a white man, well dressed in dark trousers and a dark coat. On his head he had a black, wide-brimmed hat with a chin strap. His hair and mustache were gray. She knew who he was, but could not recall seeing him more than once or twice before.