Sacajawea (28 page)

That wayward something in her mind continued the argument: That is what the Great Spirit is—a faith in something unseen, as a tent peg under the earth. But it is ceremonies and rituals also. That is why men offered smoke in six directions for a successful hunt, or a woman set out a prayer stick for the recovery of a sick child. That is why she was now dancing a prayer into the earth for the safe return of Fast Arrow’s soul. It depended on what was believed.

She shuffled around the fire. The terror that possessed her now was immeasurably greater than that which she had felt as, smiling, she had sent her beloved ones toward the Mandans asking if Fast Arrow was afraid. That night, it was she, not Fast Arrow, who had a monster to wrestle with. The monster was her inborn mother-love that needed to protect her family from any harm or unpleasantness.

It was midmorning on the way to the Rooptahee village when the sign appeared to them. And according to the nature of such events, it came while everything seemed safe and serene and the thought of such a thing was far away.

Engrossed in talk, the little party did not see the squall line come up over the hill ahead of them. The wind began to blow and the rain beat in their faces. The four of them climbed from the horses and stood beneath a tall pine until the rain stopped. Wet sage filled their noses, and they felt an anticipation of excitement as they mounted to cross the river. The sun was not yet out from behind the clouds, but the sky was pink. Suddenly Sacajawea pointed in awe to the rainbow hanging in the sky. It was suspended with neither foot touching Mother Earth, and the center was filled with crimson-colored clouds.

“My people believed that to be a symbol of strength and peace,” said Sacajawea, breaking the silence.

“You have no people but us,” said Redpipe sharply. “Look, my daughter, this is not usual. The colors do not touch the earth. The Great Spirit cannot touch his feet to the ground when he rides in such a canoe.” Now his face wore a forbidding look and his voice became hard as flint. “It is a sign to us.”

“The sky shows that one of us will rise to great heights,” offered Fast Arrow in a hushed, confidential tone.

“Ai”
—Redpipe’s words sounded cold and distant— “that must be the meaning, and it must be you, my son. You are beginning your rise to power with the Okeepa Ceremony. My life is going downhill; it surely is not I.” He deliberately did not mention the women, as they were of no concern in such great events as a sign from the heavens. However, he thought of his friend Four Bears and then remembered how they had agreed that his adopted daughter was unusual. And now this omen. Was it all something that should be put together, connected?

The suspended rainbow began fading. The horses shuffled their feet, anxious to be moving. “Come,” said Fast Arrow. “We can think on this sign another day. We must get to Rooptahee before the sun is under the earth.”

Toward midafternoon they reached the village of Rooptahee. They saw two men dressed only in breech-clouts come plodding up a hill with a log between themon their shoulders. Then two more men brought up another the same size. They disappeared into the Medicine Lodge. Sacajawea heard thumps as the logs were dropped, and then the
chuk
of bone axes and the noise of digging. She saw in front of the Medicine Lodge three sacrifices offered in behalf of the village for the Okeepa Ceremony. There were long swathes of blue and black cloth, each purchased by the white man, Jussome. The cloth had been folded to resemble human figures, with eagle feathers on their heads and masks on their faces. According to Four Bears, this was the first time Jus-some had made any contribution to the ceremony, although he had lived among them for many winters. “I think he is after something,” said Four Bears to Red-pipe.

Hanging beside these figures, which had been erected about thirty feet over the door of the Medicine Lodge, was the skin of a white buffalo. It was the first white buffalo Sacajawea had ever seen. She stood quite still, looking at it.

“The white buffalo is extremely valuable. In all the herds there is maybe one in five million,” Four Bears explained to her, making the count by sifting earth through his fingers to show thousands upon thousands. “The hide is so scarce that it is possessed only as tribal medicine.”

Nothing seemed to absorb the Mandans’ interest so deeply as the legendry of the past, which was interwoven with the Okeepa rites.

No one but the medicine man knew the exact date when the ceremony was to commence. It was the day when the willow leaves became full-grown, for according to tradition, the twig that the bird brought in across the Great Flood was a willow bough and it had full-grown leaves upon it. In the Mandans’ version of the story of the Great Flood, the bird was the mourning dove, and this bird was never disturbed or harmed in any way by these people.

The four of them slept in the lodge of Four Bears. The women rose at dawn to work. Sacajawea took an immediate liking to Sahkoka, the Mint, who was short and stocky with gray eyes and graying hair, and Sun

Woman, mother of the papoose Earth Woman, whom she was holding.

“She is named so that as she grows she will remember to see the rocks and trees and mountains and flowers and plains,” Sun Woman said.

“We should let her see the Okeepa for something to remember,” said the Mint with a twinkle in her eye. “Four Bears gives all of his attention to this small one, pretending she is a son.”

On the other side of the lodge, amid the smoke from his pipe, Four Bears gave a loud chuckle. His hands were long and slender. The skin was burned a rich brown, and his hands looked very strong.

His voice came easily to the women’s side of the lodge. “The rocks you can count on to be the same. You can always count on the things of the earth. You know what to expect of them. You can count on the wild dogs. But people are not the same. You can’t count on them.” He glanced up, and the corner of his mouth flickered with a grim little smile as he added, “I went to visit the Hidatsa monument built of bones to honor the spirit of a dog.”

Sacajawea felt one hand closing on the clay floor. Her other hand clasped the cooing papoose more tightly.

“I know what you are talking about!” said Fast Arrow, recalling something the man Charbonneau had said to him about a girl and a dog.

Four Bears stood and smoothed over his breechclout front and back, then stepped up beside Sacajawea. “We all know—but it will not go beyond this lodge door.”

Sacajawea pulled at the soft doeskin blanket that wrapped Earth Woman’s feet. She said in a low voice, “I think I should be angry. You were checking into something that did not concern you.”

“It did concern me,” said Four Bears. “You did not act in the manner that women do. You peered into the sacred ark and asked what the objects were. No woman is that curious. No woman questions a chief, even a subchief. I supposed that day that you had used the name of my old friend Redpipe in some kind of spell, for the story being told is that the Dog Girl is some kind of Shaman.”

“Oh, no!” said Sacajawea, aghast.

“It was something of a joke on me when I found you the true daughter of Redpipe, and only an ordinary woman.” He spread his hand to indicate his lodge. “With women I am at ease.”

Sacajawea was moved by his words.

Fast Arrow addressed himself to Four Bears. ‘The white trader called Charbonneau suspects my sister is the Dog Girl. I told him his words were like birds chirping in the wind. But it is true?”

“True.”

“Well, so. That is gone now, and she is one of us. He cannot bother her. He is only one of those poor white traders. My woman treats her like a sister. She works hard in our lodge. She was unhappy and sickly when she came to us. Now she is singing and her arms are plump. Ai, if I am ever asked, I will not know anything about a Dog Girl.” Fast Arrow’s face puckered in concern.

Sacajawea shut her eyes and covered them with her hands. She did not wish either man to see the emotion there. The feeling ran deep.

The Mint came to fuss with Earth Woman while Sacajawea composed herself. She was smiling and not at all embarrassed by the display of emotion.

Sacajawea raised her eyes to meet Four Bears’s. To her surprise she found she could speak steadily.

“What did you find when you visited the Hidatsas?”

“No one knows what has become of the girl. She has disappeared into the air.” His powerful hands swirled about him, and he chuckled. “They would kill her if she came back because she is more valuable as something to talk about. They have forgotten she was like themselves. They speak mostly of the spirit of the great dog. It is remarkable. So—you can’t foretell the ways of people.” Four Bears’s still face lighted; unsmiling, it seemed to smile.

Sacajawea thought she had never seen a man who gave out such a feeling of quiet strength. He put his arm around the oiled shoulder of Fast Arrow. “Now we shall never refer to this matter again unless one of your family tells me they want to talk about it. It is washed away. That is all.” He smiled briefly at Sacajawea and said as he turned to go with Fast Arrow, “I have respectfor you, but men do not show that they think about women more than they think about a piece of property. So, this talk is ended. That Hidatsa girl is gone.”

Sacajawea sat still. She looked around at the seven wives of Four Bears, busy with their girl-children and smoothing out the sleeping couches, preparing for a new day. She pulled off her headband, made from grasses with a raven’s feather woven into it for good fortune, and tied the headband to Earth Woman’s cradleboard.

Sun Woman’s eyes shone. “Thank you. It is baby boys who are given gifts. Now 1 can see why Redpipe’s family has such a strong feeling about you. Earth Woman is greatly honored.”

Early the next morning, the sound of a single drum came from the council area.

“So, this is the day,” announced Four Bears. “Are you ready, my son?”

“Ai.”
Fast Arrow’s hand poked out and caught Rosebud by the elbow. “Please make my face paint bright today,” he said.

By afternoon the Mandans had assembled at the Council Lodge, their hair combed neatly, their clothing elegant.

Redpipe and Fast Arrow sat next to Four Bears in the council circle, each painted and dressed magnificently. They were next to Chief Black Cat, who was elegant in his beaded shirt and leggings and headdress of snow-white eagle feathers. Fast Arrow was the son of Black Cat. When Fast Arrow took the woman Rosebud, he left his own family to live with the mother and father of his woman. This was the custom. His woman’s parents were now his parents.

Rosebud and Sacajawea sat in the women’s circle with Sun Woman and the Mint. Suddenly someone yelled, and all eyes were turned to the prairies in the west, where a lone figure made his way toward the village. Sacajawea joined in the excitement, waving her arms and pointing. Along the clear shoulder of the hill, the lone figure climbed the lower slopes, coming toward them now with swift, purposeful strides. Soon all were standing, gazing at the figure and expressing a pretended great alarm. The men strung their bows andtested their elasticity. Horses were caught by the young boys and run into the village. Warriors were blackening their faces, and every preparation was being made, as if for a fight. During all this confusion the lone figure came on. His long legs moved with their knees bent, with the smooth, slouching glide of a woods-runner used to husbanding his strength. He moved as if his legs were circles, and his body rode on them erectly. Easily, effortlessly, his body held itself as straight as a young sapling. His shoulders had a squareness to them, a lean confidence, that gave an air of grace to his loose-fitting white wolfskin robe. In his left hand was a long-stemmed clay pipe, the long diagonal rising behind his head, covered with raven’s wings.

His features were still unclear, but his face was white, almost the color of birchbark, and painted with river clay. The crowd parted as he came into the council circle and touched the hands of the chiefs and men of importance.

“That is really Old Bear, the Medicine Man,” whispered the Mint.

Again the crowd parted. The runner went to the Medicine Lodge and officially opened the door. His robe of four white wolfskins was dropped on the ground; his entire body was a glistening white.

“The First Man, Mumohk-muckanah, Madoc,” chanted the Mandans.

The First Man designated four men to enter and clean the Medicine Lodge. Willow boughs were brought to place on the floor, and wild sage was scattered over the boughs. Buffalo and human skulls and the articles used in the torture rites were positioned. The First Man stood silently, overseeing the work, his body harsh in its whiteness.

After a time, the First Man began to move through the crowd, screeching until all were listening. Then he related the catastrophe that had happened on earth when the waters of the rivers overflowed, saying that he was the only person saved from the calamity. He had landed his big canoe on a high mountain in the west, and had come down to open the Medicine Lodge. For this he demanded a present from each lodge of somesharp cutting instrument as a sacrifice so that the water of the Great Flood would not come again.
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Sacajawea leaned toward Rosebud and the Mint. “The Shoshonis have a story of the waters overflowing,” she whispered. “It was the mightiest buffalo who was saved from the waters, and he was instructed by the Great Spirit to make all the other animals from mud and sticks and give them names. He made two of each and gave them names, and he made the Shoshonis and called them brothers, so that the People and the buffalo have helped each other ever since.”

Rosebud was delighted with the story. “So, our stories are similar. We are indeed sisters.”

The Mandans had shifted their gaze to the Medicine Lodge for the next event, the Bellohck-nahpick, or Bull Dance. This was more elaborate than the Buffalo Dance and was repeated the sacred number of times this day, four.

The next day the Bull Dance was repeated eight times, then twelve times on the third day, and sixteen times on the fourth and final day of the ceremony. Twelve men, the village’s bravest, danced around the sacred wooden ark. For this ritual the ark was called the Big Canoe and represented the boat used to float in the Great Flood. The dancers wore buffalo skins with horns, hooves, and tail. They imitated the movements of the animal, twisting and contorting their bodies.