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Sacajawea revisited
BY SHAWN WHITE WOLF - IR Staff Writer - 06/05/03
More than 70 people packed into a small room at the University of Montana last week to hear Rose Ann Abrahamson present a Shoshone cultural perspective on myths that surround Sacajawea's life.
"Feel their spirit as you travel through their country," Abrahamson invited the audience to visit Lemhi Shoshone Indian country in Idaho.
Abrahamson learned that she was a descendent of Sacajawea at a very young age, and, despite negative feelings expressed by other American Indians and tribes she heard while growing up towards the impact of the Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery, Abrahamson said she was proud to be Sacajawea's ancestor.
Today, Abrahamson, now an adult Lemhi Shoshone woman, doesn't have to defend her famous ancestor from ridicule; rather she said she hopes to protect Sacajawea's legacy from being unintentionally misinterpreted by both American Indians and non-Indians. She plans to tackle the misinterpretation with the same skill and effort it took her to become a traditional dance champion in Arlee five-years in a row.
Sacajawea? Sakakawea? Sacagawea?
Abrahamson maintains that despite all the hype surrounding the way Sacajawea is pronounced and spelled, the correct version is well known— Sacajawea. In addition, the Abrahamson said that Sacajawea also means "to carry a burden" instead of "bird woman," as translated by the Hidatsas. She believes this is more accurate because of what she has learned about the Shoshone language.
However, Abrahamson recognizes that Sacajawea's name may have been changed by her captives to fit their languages.
Still, the Mandan-Hidatsas and some non-Indians continue to spell and pronounce Sacajawea as either Sacagawea or Sakakawea.
Amy Mossett, a tourism director for the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara tribes, said that North Dakota's linguistic scholars spell the Shoshone woman's name as Sakakawea. And the spelling Sakakawea was constructed from two words, one being "bird" and the other being "woman" from the Mandan-Hidatsa language.
"The Hidatsa spell it Sacagawea, which is pronounced the same way you say Sakakawea," said Mossett.
Still, Nicholas Biddle, a classical scholar who never met Sacajawea, opted to spell her name Sacagawea because the Mandan-Hidatsa's do not have a "j" sound in their language.
Biddle is said to have worked from the captains' original longhand journal entries, correcting spelling and grammar, and substantially abridging many daily entries, according to the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation. Interestingly enough, the explorers' spelling is questionable because of the numerous ways that they would spell the same thing in the English language.
In the end, does it come down to what side of the grasslands an individual was raised on? Contemporary American Indians have said that now is the time to correct distorted history by non-Indian and American Indian historians — during the non-Indians' bicentennial celebrations — a huge opportunity for American Indians.
American Indian political science scholars, such as David Wilkins, an enrolled member of the Lumbee tribe in North Carolina, said that American Indians need to establish their identity in the dominant society where tribal identity has been distorted or misunderstood.
Traces of motherhood
"Why would you trade a beloved daughter with someone not of your race and known to be abusive?" Abrahamson asked, concerning the Hidatsa's intentions behind their sale of Sacajawea to a French-Canadian man named Toussaint Charbonneau.
"Instead, why wasn't she traded to a Mandan warrior?" she said.
Abrahamson said she thought the reason Sacajawea was sold to Charbonneau was because the Hidatsas believed she cried too much.
Abrahamson said that Sacajawea cried so much because she was homesick. The homesickness she felt is probably very similar to the homesickness many American Indians who leave the reservation or their families feel today, she said.
Abrahamson said that today no one really has any idea what Sacajawea may have experienced, but the question that haunts her is, "Why did she cry all the time?"
"Why would a woman with a brand new baby track across the country on foot?" Abrahamson asked the audience.
She believes that Sacajawea wanted to do what her Shoshone ancestors have always done and that was to wash her baby in her homeland.
"An opportunity for her to come home and to have her baby painted by the earth in her homeland," said Abrahamson. Washing and painting a baby by the earth is a Shoshone ceremony conducted for Shoshone babies.
Abrahamson pointed out that a person doesn't lose their identity in five years. She said that even Lewis and Clark knew that Sacajawea's knowledge of Shoshone language, traditional teachings, and culture would help them in their journey.
Throughout her presentation, Abrahamson questioned the authenticity of today's stories regarding the treatment of Sacajawea from the Hidatsas and Charbonneau. She said that in one of the journals, it was recorded that two days prior to the expedition arriving home Charbonneau beat Sacajawea three times. In addition, she said that Charbonneau was noted in one of the journals as telling Sacajawea, "Don't think about staying there (Shoshone country)."
Abrahamson brought tears to some people in the audience by demonstrating how it would look to see a 12- year-old, dark-skinned Shoshone girl and a white male in his early thirties who was abusive married to each other.
Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law. Full copyright retained by the original publication.
See Fair use HTM for details
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