And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
link provided by Mary M thanks..:)
Sacagawea made Lewis & Clark jaunt
possible
BY JODI RAVE Lincoln Journal Star
http://www.journalstar.com/stories/neb/stox
About 200 years ago, a teen-age Indian mother helped ensure
the success of one of the
most prominent expeditions in U.S. history, by simply being herself.
"We had a matrilineal system," said Gerard Baker, superintendent at the
Chickasaw National
Recreation Area in Oklahoma. "The women were pretty much in
charge of everything. So it's important that we don't exaggerate
Sacagawea's role. She was doing what she was brought up to
do." Summed up Rose Anne Abramson, a Lemhi Shoshone
who lives in Fort Hall, Idaho: "Among our people, we were
trained for everything we needed to know by age 12." Despite
a traditional upbringing, Sacagawea's life was anything but
normal. She was the only woman who accompanied the
1804-1806 Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific Ocean
from North Dakota's Mandan and Hidatsa villages.
On Tuesday, about 300 people will gather in Washington,
D.C., to witness the unveiling of the final version of the new
$1 coin that will bear the image of Sacagawea and her baby.
"The magic of the story was the presence of Sacagawea and
her baby," said David Borlaug, president of the National Lewis
and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation in Bismarck, N.D. The
sight of her with a child on her back, he said, signaled to tribes
that the expedition was not a war party. Additionally, she
found food for the starving expedition and saved the Lewis and
Clark journals as they were floating down the river.
But for all that is known about Sacagawea, much remains
unclear: Was she Shoshone or Hidatsa? How should her name
be spelled? When and where did she die?
"It shouldn't be a controversial issue," said Baker, who is both
Mandan and Hidatsa. "It should be a learning issue." Her story
begins with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in November
1804, when she was about six months pregnant. She was living
with the Hidatsa when the explorers hired her trader husband,
Toussaint Charbonneau, to help them reach the Pacific.
She and her 2-month-old son, Jean Baptiste, became part of
the 31-member Corps of Discovery when it departed from
North Dakota's Fort Mandan on the upper Missouri River
April 27, 1805.
"She had no diapers or no baby food," said Ken Thomasma,
author of a children's book about Sacagawea. "I don't know
how many women in the world would be able to pull that off."
The most common belief about her origins is that she was a
12-year-old Lemhi Shoshone captured by a Hidatsa raiding
party at the Three Forks of the Missouri River west of
present-day Butte, Mont.
She was taken back to North Dakota's Hidatsa villages on the
Missouri River. She was adopted by the tribe. She learned
their ways as she matured into a young woman. She later
became the wife of Charbonneau.
Lewis and Clark hoped Sacagawea would interpret and help
them get horses from her Shoshone relatives. On Aug. 17,
1805, when the expedition met the Lemhi Shoshone,
Sacagawea did indeed meet people she knew.
When the expedition met with a Shoshone party, she later
recognized the Shoshone chief, Cameahwait, who she said was
her brother. When she saw the chief, "she jumped up, ran &
embraced him, & threw her blanket over him and cried
profusely," according to expedition journals.
The Corps of Discovery got their horses.
"She fulfilled the role more than he (Charbonneau) did," said
Esther B. Horne, an Eastern Shoshone who lives in Wahpeton,
N.D. "He left a lot to be desired as an interpreter and a guide."
As for the spelling of her name, there are three variations:
Sacagawea, Sakakawea and Sacajawea.
"The "j' is really a no-no," Borlaug said. "North Dakota pretty
much stands alone with "Sakakawea,' but the world is coming
around to the North Dakota pronunciation. The Hidatsa spell
her name "Sacagawea'. She would have had a Hidatsa name.
Not a Shoshone." As for her death, she reputably is buried in
at least three locations, including Wyoming, North Dakota and
South Dakota.
The one record of her death indicates she died Dec. 20, 1812,
at South Dakota's Fort Manuel. On that day, trader John C.
Luttig wrote: "This evening the wife of Charbonneau, a Snake
(Shoshone) Squaw, died of putrid fever. She was a good and
the best woman in the fort, aged about 25 years."
Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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