Path to the Pacific by Lohnes Frazier Neta;

Author:Lohnes Frazier, Neta;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quarto Publishing Group USA

A Nespilim woman, head covered with wool cloth.

Leaping-Fish Woman! After all these years! The two cling together while the rest of the women gather around them, the white men forgotten in the outpouring of love and joy. Their Grass Woman, Bo-i-naiv, has come back to them. Immediately, the two captains feel the change in the attitude of the Indians. Fear and suspicion give way to surprise, joy and welcome. But there is more to come. Wonderful as this is, Sacagawea’s heroic role has still the punch line to deliver:

While Sacagawea was renewing among the women the friendships of former days, Captain Clark went on and was received by Captain Lewis and the chief . . . the moccasins of the whole party were then taken off and after much ceremony the smoking began. After this the conference was to be opened, and glad of an opportunity of being able to converse more intelligibly, Sacagawea was sent for; she came into the tent, sat down, and was beginning to interpret, when in the person of Cameahwait she recognized her brother. she instantly jumped up, and ran and embraced him, throwing over him her blanket and weeping profusely; the chief was himself moved, though not in the same degree. After some conversation between them she resumed her seat, and attempted to interpret for us, but her new situation seemed to overpower her, and she was frequently interrupted by her tears. After the council was finished, the unfortunate woman learnt that all her family were dead except two brothers, one of whom was absent, and a son of her eldest sister, a small boy, who was immediately adopted by her.

So the great moment passes into history, but as yet not one of the actors is aware that the drama has reached its climax or even that this is a drama, with world significance. Only later, when historians have had time to study it, will its values be understood. It will then be possible to estimate the importance of the episode, not only to the Lewis and Clark expedition, but to the whole further history of the United States.

At the moment when all the carefully laid plans of President Jefferson and all the tremendous efforts of his able captains hang in the balance, it is the Indian girl who tips the scale. And by no other means than simple identity. By the incredible coincidence that she is the sister of the chief, a coincidence no fiction writer would have dared use, she establishes confidence in both the white men and the Indians.

Without her presence, the Shoshones might yet refuse to sell horses to the captains; the expedition might still fail, even though Clark has appeared as Lewis promised. It is for this moment, and one other still to come, that Sacagawea rates historical importance wherever the names of Lewis and Clark are mentioned. But, like the others, at the moment when it happens, she is unaware of any importance at all.

What matters to her is that she has been returned to her own people and has found some who know her.

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