Sacajawea (135 page)

Once Jerk Meat and some of the braves—on a spring trip to trade robes to Mexicans for shawls and silver and a rusty harmonica—witnessed the strange procession of white men stripped to their waist marching through the street of the small village called Santa Cruzde la Canada. Jerk Meat gave the harmonica to Sacajawea and asked her to play for him. When she finished, they discussed the strange parade far into the night. He’d seen men pulling large
carretas
with immovable wheels, the harnesses, made of horsehair, galling and painful. The men all wore caps and black masks and whipped themselves until the blood ran down their backs and covered the yucca-fiber whips. One man walked alongside the whippers playing a
pito,
a homemade flute, and close by him another twirled a
matraca
, or noise-maker. They sang short songs continuously. He told her of the strange, cruel thing done to one of the white men who was pinned to two crossed poles and carried up a small hill. The man’s hands and shoulders were bleeding, and a headband made from the thornbush was pushed low on his forehead. The man was slapped and spat upon, until finally his head sagged on his shoulders and the life passed from him. Then there was a great moaning and wailing as the
matraca
made thunderous noises.

“Why?” he asked, puzzled.

“It is hard to say why men are cruel to one another,” she answered, and thought of the Mandan Okeepa, the Torture Dance. Some men lived and some died during that ceremony. “The Mandans were as cruel when leather thongs were threaded into the muscle sinew of a man’s chest and back. The man was made to walk around crossed poles in the center of the Medicine Lodge.” She told Jerk Meat how Fast Arrow was chosen by Four Bears to take part in the Okeepa Ceremony. “It was a long time before he recovered from that ordeal. It is strange that both the white men and the Mandans used the headband of thorns and the crossed poles.”

“Huh,” sighed Jerk Meat, “that is the strange thing. In many ways men are similar, no matter where they live or what tribe they belong to.”

“I believe, now, that it is far better to be gentle with each other,” said Sacajawea. “I am certain the Great Spirit does not wish us to harm ourselves for foolish reasons. It is like killing more antelope than we can eat and then throwing away what spoils.”

“You talk like a squaw,” chided Jerk Meat. “I think it is not good to have an able-bodied man laid low because of self-inflicted wounds. What if the enemy chose that time to make a big raid on his horses? That man is not good to anyone. What if this torture ceremony left him crippled, without the use of an arm or leg?”

“The Mandans believe it is the way to show bravery. I have often wondered why other nations did not use such ceremonies.”

“Woman, they do other things. If they had thought of this torture ceremony, they would try it. Men are that way.”

By spring, Sacajawea knew she was pregnant. The thoughts that had disturbed her through the winter did not rise to the surface for a long time. A child to raise, to hold close to her breast, to sing for, to teach, enjoy, laugh with, and watch grow—this engulfed all her thoughts—and in good conscience she put off thoughts of her hunt for her grown son.

One morning when Jerk Meat was out hunting, she walked toward the river with a digging stick and her grass basket. She looked for wild roots. She stopped suddenly and bent down. She had found a cache, empty now, but exactly like the ones made years ago by the white soldiers under the direction of Chief Red Hair. She looked more carefully, her thoughts carrying her back to the time she had carried Pomp on her back. She easily lowered herself inside. At the cool bottom she scraped the soft dirt floor and found a metal awl, rusty but usable. She scraped again and found another. The thoughts and memories of her firstborn engulfed her. She found small seashells and blue and red beads and silver ear plugs. Climbing out with no difficulty, because of moss growing along the sides which made the footing easy, she put her find in her upturned skirt. She carried her treasures secretly back to the camp.

The next morning, she said to Spring, “Come with your digging stick and basket. I will show you something new.” Spring took Wild Plum to Big Badger, who was teaching him to spin wooden tops.

The women found two more caches and scratched in them for half the afternoon. At times Sacajawea hardly listened to Spring, but lived in the past. “I wanted to come back alone,” admitted Sacajawea.

“Oh, you must not be out alone now,” said Spring. “Your time is near. Someone should be with you.” She bent for red beads and found a granite drinking cup. They left the pits and dug roots. All at once, Spring called, “Look, there is snow!”

“Foolish one, this is summer,” laughed Sacajawea.

“Lost Woman, I swear it,” said Spring, “come with me and see.” She ran through the buffalo grass pointing all the while to the field of brilliant, sparkling white. Sacajawea sucked in her breath and wiped the sweat from her forehead. “How can this be?”

They knelt on the light crust, and it cracked through. It was not cold, but hot as the sun beat upon it. Sacajawea said, “My sister, this is salt. Salt of the highest quality, not brown like the blown salt we have dug from sand. Beautiful, beautiful salt.”

The women filled their baskets with the clean salt. Their meat would taste good this winter. Other women were sent to gather salt. This find of a prized preservative was one more reason for the Quohadas to look upon Sacajawea as something uncommon, different. When the hunters brought in buffalo, she showed a few women how to salt-cure meat, using the same method the soldiers had used at Fort Clatsop. The anticipation of the salty, smoke-cured meat made her mouth water and occupied her thoughts so thoroughly that she scarcely felt the first twinges of her labor pains.

She did not have a difficult time delivering her son. Hides Well and several others who were proficient in midwifery came to assist. She clung to the birth posts as they bathed her loins with water containing herbs. They were about to give her yucca leaves mashed with salt to help the birth, but she pushed down deep within herself and gave a guttural moan as the child was delivered. Her face was glassy and wet, but she had not cried in pain. She lay down exhausted and fell into a soothing sleep, not knowing if the child were boy or girl, knowing only that Hides Well would take care of her small one. Later she became aware that someone was near. “Can I tell Jerk Meat he has a son?” It was Spring kneeling beside her, holding the healthy baby. Pronghorn had taken Jerk Meat for a long walk intothe sandstone bluffs, since fathers never stayed around while their women were giving birth.

“Quick, send Big Badger to tell Jerk Meat the papoose is here,” said Sacajawea.
“Ai,
tell Big Badger just to say, ‘The papoose is healthy and cries as loud as a cougar. The mother is well.’ Jerk Meat will guess whether it is a boy or girl all the way back.”

The monotonous songs of the women immediately changed to rejoicing and some exuberant laughs. Not to tell the new father the sex of the papoose was the sort of joke that the women thoroughly enjoyed.

The umbilical cord was cut and Hides Well wrapped it in a square of soft doe’s skin and then hung it in the elderberry bush behind the lying-in lodge.
²

The papoose was bathed and oiled and wrapped in soft skins. Sacajawea was fed thin broth; she was not allowed to eat meat because it made blood and could cause a hemorrhage.

Jerk Meat was at the birth shelter in minutes. It was as if he had put scrapings from deer hooves on his moccasins to give him swiftness.

Sacajawea opened her eyes as she heard someone saying loudly, “Today we have a new Quohada.”

She saw a glimpse of Jerk Meat and was sure that he jumped into the air so far the weasel tails dragging at the back of his moccasins just barely touched the ground. A woman brought the small bundle in soft doeskin quickly past him, then placed it across Sacajawea’s breast. “Old Grandmother, is he a boy or girl?” stammered Jerk Meat.

“This is a healthy child,” answered the woman with eyes twinkling. “See the good color, like a sun-dried strawberry.”

Propriety forced Jerk Meat to leave the birth shelter until his woman could come home under her own power. Still he did not know his child was the son he had dreamed about.

The Medicine Man, Kicking Horse, came to make certain the papoose was not deformed or diseased in any way that he could tell. If he found that the papoose was unfit, he would leave it out on the plains to die.
³
He nodded when he found that Sacajawea’s papoose was well and healthy. He kept his eyes averted from Sacajawea. Before he left he painted a large black spot with charcoal on the outside of the lying-in tepee door to show that the new Quohada was a future warrior and his presence would strengthen the band.

For the first few days the papoose lay in soft hides and a rabbit-fur robe beside Sacajawea, where Hides Well could give him constant attention. When Sacajawea could get up, she bathed herself in the fast water of the creek. She felt weak, but noticed her belly was folded up, becoming flat again, and happiness filled her mind. The next day she took her time cleaning the papoose, greasing and powdering him with dry-rot dust from a cottonwood tree, packing him with soft, dry moss, wrapping him in one of the thin hides and placing him in the basket she had made of rawhide stitched to a flat, angular board.
⁴
She was ready to go to her own tepee.

The wife of Twisted Horn was first to come to see the new papoose. She brought a gift of black crow feathers to tie on the basket to keep away evil spirits. It was customary for the new papoose’s father to give the first visitor a gift of some value in return. Jerk Meat gave the Twisted Horn family a black-and-white Mexican blanket. A week later Sacajawea was ready to go on an antelope hunt with Jerk Meat and help him butcher his kill and pack it on the extra horse. Before they left, Big Badger tied a stuffed bat to a corner of the basket so that the papoose would have even more protection from any unseen evil forces.

There was no set time for giving a papoose a formal name. Generally a person of distinction was invited to name the papoose.

“You will not ask Kicking Horse to name our papoose. I do not believe anything he would come up with can give him a longer or more useful life,” said Sacajawea as they rode along.

“Ai,
he could give him a name that would cause some injury or sickness. So, then, wait until we think of something special.”

“I’ll call him Summer Snow. He almost came to us at the salt find. I think the salt drew him out.”

“Ai.” He grinned broadly. “You call him that for now. I’ll name him later. Listen to Big Badger.”

“He has never been on a hunt since I’ve been with the Quohadas.”

“That is true. Listen.”

Big Badger’s deep voice seemed to come from the bottom of his moccasins, pulsing strongly on the longheld notes, then trailing to the ground at the end.

Sacajawea rode up to him.

“What are you singing, Big Badger?”

“There are no words to this song. It is singing for my happiness and your happiness. The song belonged to my uncle. I paid him three pack dogs for it. That was before we had many horses.” He sang more, then said, “This is the first time in many summers I’ve felt like singing. I dreamed last night of my youth and of how it felt to do those high-spirited things. Then I saw Wild Plum and Summer Snow and I knew I would teach them to be men with high spirits and always be laughing with happy hearts.”

They set up the temporary camp late in the afternoon below some wild currants and pecan trees near a spring. The women went to find the trees to cut and trim into lodgepoles.

In the morning, the men ate early and set out looking for the herd of antelope the scouts found. The women put water on the new-cut poles and turned them in the sunshine so they would become seasoned without splitting.

Gray Bone walked past. Her hair was shaggy, and her stare arrogant. She patted Sacajawea’s baby on his cheek. Sacajawea felt her spine tingle as she readjusted the cradleboard on her back.

“He seems small and puny to me,” Gray Bone said. “Maybe his mother has thin milk.” She pointed a finger at Sacajawea. “Look at your insignificant breasts. You are hardly a squaw.”

At that moment the sound of the wing-bone whistle was heard, and the women in camp knew the men had found the herd. The taunting stopped and Gray Bone moved on.

“Think nothing of what she said,” advised a young woman. “That old Gray Bone is jealous of anyone who is more intelligent and more beautiful than she. Which is almost everyone in the band. She is the most quarrelsome squaw in the camp. Not many follow her. Most pay her no attention.”

Big Badger held Wild Plum as he climbed to the top of a small bluff where they watched the hunters. A scout dressed as an antelope crawled out of the brush on all fours.

Care was taken to come in toward the wind. The hunters moved slowly into position to kill as many antelope as possible before the rest of the herd realized that they were in danger. A curious old buck moved toward the scout, several younger animals followed. Suddenly they all stopped to stare and sniff. The scout pretended to chew grass. He knew curiosity was a strong trait in antelope.

The old buck moved and the younger ones followed still closer to the disguised scout who moved into tall grass near a slough. The scout pretended to drink. The old buck moved up and drank. Soon the other antelope had crowded in, their hooves making a sucking in the mud.

Wild Plum nudged Jerk Meat and each nocked an arrow and drew his bowstring taut. The other hunters also chose targets as the herd moved unsuspectingly into the waiting semicircle of motionless men on horseback hidden in the high marsh grass.

The scout, on hands and knees, moved away from the gathering herd, through the muck and grass, to the opposite side of the slough. The hunters let their arrows fly. The old buck sprang up and raced back across the meadow. The rest of the herd followed, moving into the hunters’ flying arrows.