Brother Van

by Stella Wyatt Brummitt

Besides Lewis and Clark, the party consisted of three sergeants—Ordney, Pryor, and Lloyd—twenty-three privates, two interpreters, and a Negro servant. The interpreters were Charbonneau and his Indian wife, Sacajawea. The Negro, whose name was York, was Clark’s slave and body servant. Many heroes were discovered in that company before it had reached the waters of the Pacific. There is just one heroine, Charbonneau’s wife, Sacajawea, or the Bird Woman. By birth she belonged to the Shoshone tribe. When a little girl she had been taken prisoner in a war between the Minnetarees and Shoshones and sold to a traveling Frenchman, who was a roving hunter and guide. He brought her up as a slave and afterward married her. Sacajawea guided the expedition and acted as interpreter, all the while giving her baby tender and watchful care. She received no gift when the party disbanded, but to-day she lives in the grateful memory of the West as one of its real explorers and a true benefactress. In the citypark in Portland there stands a statue in honor of this brave Indian matron.

A STATUE IN HONOR OF SACAJAWEA IN THE CITY PARK, PORTLAND, OREGON

The romantic episode of the return of this woman guide to her own tribe was one of the strange incidents of the expedition. Over unknown trails the daring scouts went in the untracked wilderness. It is hard to realize the suffering they endured from hunger, sickness, and other dangers. Their advance along the upper Missouri is of particular interest here. One day Captain Lewis, who was traveling on foot in order to lighten the canoes, climbed a high cliff and there before his glad eyes lay the “Land of the Shining Mountains,” for such was the Indian name for the region which was afterward known as Montana. As they pressed on, the roaring of water sounded in the distance, and soon the great falls of the Missouri came into view. Here the river drops over four hundred feet in a ten-mile stretch. The map that Lewis and Clark made of this section is so accurate that in 1892, when William Van Orsdel resided temporarily in the town of Great Falls, it was reproduced in facsimile with the modern improvements added.It was near the falls that Sacajawea recognized the spot where she had been taken prisoner by the Minnetarees.

Just at that point in their progress the expedition was in need of horses for the journey across the mountains, and taking Sacajawea, Captain Clark set out to find her people and to buy horses from them. Captain Lewis went with another detachment on a different course. After much journeying he found Chief Cameahwait and gave him an American flag as an emblem of peace. The chief took them to a leathern lodge, smoky and ancient, and seated them on green pine boughs covered with antelope and buffalo skins. A warrior in splendid attire kindled a fire in the center of the lodge; the chief produced a pipe and tobacco; the warriors took off their moccasins, showing the white men that they were expected to remove their shoes.

When all was in readiness and the circle completed, the chief lit his pipe. He then made a speech, and at its close he indicated the four cardinal points with the stem of his pipe, beginning with the east and ending with thenorth. He handed the pipe to Lewis, who supposed that he was to smoke, but the chief drew the pipe back three times, then pointed to the heavens and to the center of the group. This concluded the ceremony and Lewis was allowed to smoke.

After the foregoing reception Lewis was permitted to tell how he and Captain Clark had separated as they started to find Sacajawea’s people, and how they had agreed to meet at Three Forks but had missed one another. He explained his anxiety concerning the safety of his friend and his party and asked for help. Suddenly some Indians came in crying, “White man! White man!” Eagerly the group seated around the fire left the lodge, as from its entrance they saw that Captain Clark’s party was drawing near. Sacajawea approached the watching Indians sucking her fingers, signifying that they were of her native tribe. As she advanced, a woman darted to meet her and weeping and laughing alternately embraced her. It was then found that they had been childhood friends and now were meeting for the first time since the day on whichthe Minnetarees had taken Sacajawea captive.

Captain Lewis and Captain Clark embraced also in their joy at meeting, and the chief called for the ceremony of smoking. The warriors and the white men arranged themselves in a circle, and the pipe was about to be smoked when Sacajawea was sent for to act as interpreter. She entered modestly and shyly, but when her eyes sought the chief, she suddenly ran to him weeping once more, for the big chief was her own brother, from whose side she had been snatched on the day of the tribal war.

After this meeting Charbonneau and Sacajawea were taken to the camp of the Shoshones. Anything that the white men wanted was easily secured now. Fifty horses were bartered for and delivered to them, so the expedition was able to proceed. Sacajawea was eager to go to the coast to see the “big water” and the “monster fish,” but the time of parting had come. Charbonneau was paid five hundred dollars and thirty-three cents for two years’ service, and the little Bird Woman, Sacajawea, was given nothing but the gratitude and respect of the white man.

The party proceeded with other guides and finished the hard journey through the mountains to the Columbia River and to the Pacific. They brought back to the American public a romantic story of strange animals, of prairies, of rivers, of waterfalls, of mountains, and, above all, of Indians with their weird, barbaric customs, their strength, and their eagerness to learn.