For the most part, the history of the American West is populated with the heroics of adventuresome men. While we know little about her, one woman stands out in near mythic proportion. Her name was Sacajewea and the legacy she leaves is as an intrepid guide and proficient translator on the Corps of Discovery Expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
As a young girl and forced bride, along with her husband, a French-Canadian trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau, she joined the expedition in 1804 at Fort Mandan in North Dakota.
Heartbreaking yet Hopeful
We do know that, as a young child, she was kidnapped from her Lemhi Shoshone village by a raiding tribe and her parents were killed. Then her fate was gambled away, along with her sister’s, to Charbonneau. The arrival of Lewis and Clark’s expedition then catapulted her into stranger territory as she headed west, now with an infant son, Jean Baptiste.
Sacajewea has solidified her spot in history, but what of her life beyond the few facts that are available?
Native American author Debra Magpie Earling, in “The Lost Journals of Sacajewea,” has given readers a unique take on the life of this young heroine of history.
A Fascinating Format
She does this in a unique way structurally, which may be a stumbling block for some readers. The text is lyrical, but I wouldn’t describe it as poetry. It’s lyrical if you listen to it. So how does that happen with printed text?
Earling takes great liberties with punctuation. She describes this at the beginning of the book so that it isn’t a surprise; don’t look for the usual periods and commas. And some of the letters and words are purposely capitalized and sometimes faded. Think of what learning a new language would sound like. It has its own cadence and rhythm.
This is what Earling hopes to achieve in her visually different text structure and format. She wants us to hear (from reading the printed word) a Native American voice: the voice of Sacajewea.
Flow with it. The story emerges in breathless beauty told by a child who is nurtured by her father (Appe) and her mother (Bia). Her early world is ripe with connections to nature from her observances of wildlife and fauna to the mysteries of forests and wild rivers. The sun, moon, and stars are her mentors and guideposts.
Readers will shiver when the snow falls on naked shoulders and bask in the heat of a sunbaked rock.
Readers will feel Sacajewea’s fear and trepidation when her village is raided, and she is bundled and thrown across a horse. Her senses are alert and alive as she digests what is happening and, above all, how she will survive. She has much to learn and the lessons are often brutal and harsh.
Earling’s writings seem to literally jump off the page in their intensity and revelatory content. Her images are often dreamlike as Sacajewea relies on the spirit world for sustenance and strength.
Earling’s vision and imaginings for Sacajewea are not sugar coated. Don’t look for glorified scenes of native bliss and compassionate strangers. Her world is often dark but, on the other hand, never without light, and that light, which often shines brightly, is her own.
In Earling’s reshaping of the English language to suit her intent, readers will be presented with a young woman with a powerful, persevering, and poignant voice. Navigating a world where she has to break through numerous language barriers from other Indian tribes to her French-speaking husband to the newly arrived Americans, Sacajewea manages to triumph over trauma time after time.
Earling has breathed new life into Sacajewea. She has shattered the rules of convention and created her own masterpiece―one that may initially upset how readers are used to reading, but one that opens up an opportunity to appreciate and more fully understand the heart, soul, and spirit of a Native American woman whose life is forever disrupted.
This is the story of an Indigenous woman whom we know to have existed and traveled with the Lewis and Clark expedition. It is a moving reimagining of the thoughts and aspirations of a young girl caught in a challenging and complex world not of her choosing. Readers will meet Sacajewea in a new way thanks to Earling’s creative approach to giving her a resonating voice.
Hear her.
