Indian Country Traveler & Photographer

Will The Real Sacajawea Please Stand Up

             

Years before and during the Lewis & Clark Bi-Centennial, I was very involved with photographing significant locations along this historic trail. Many tribes that were listed in the Lewis & Clark journals such as the Nez Perce, Shoshone, Mandan and Chinook homelands were visited, photographed and oral histories were heard. These handed-down stories of ancestors meeting a large group of strange white men with hair who carried magical firing sticks (rifles) and the young Indian woman who carried her baby the whole journey. Her name is also spelled three different ways ie: Sacajawea, Sakakawea and Sacagawea. Although reliable historic information about this woman is extremely limited, she is the most famous woman in American history. There is really not too much known about her in the history books yet her story is orally told within tribal communities where you will find three different versions, depending on which tribe shares with you her legacy. 'Sacajawea A' story tells of a Shoshone woman kidnapped at a very young age and who is traded by the Mandan to a trader named Charbonneau. After the Corps of Discovery's return she lived only a few more years until a putrid fever caused her death in 1812 at Fort Manuel Trading Post, South Dakota. Sacajawea B has her leaqving her husband and crossing the Plains to be with her people the Lemhi-Shoshone, raising more children, living close to the age of 100 years and passing away in 1884 on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Last but not least is Sacajawea C who's story is that this woman was actually of the Hidatsa (aka Minnetari) who contently remained among her people in the large trading village of earth lodges along the Missouri River in North Dakota until her death, where her body was hidden in the surrounding hills on a traditional burial platform. Although each of these three stories end up uniquely different and have been handed-down from generation to generation for 200 years, I choose to accept all three versions. There are no remains left of Sacajawea and any markers or memorials that have been erected are just that. Merely reminders of this amazing Indian woman's endurance with hardships and survival. Honoring her legacy and acccomplishments is important. The controversy surrounding Sacagawea's life is good because it keeps people interested in her.

   
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Indians Discovered Columbus

For high school students, it's a day to sleep in. For some Americans, it means a parade. But for American Indians Columbus Day is a time to mourn their losses.

The holiday "Columbus Day" celebrates the explorer who first came to the New World on October 12, 1492. However, archaeological proof shows that the Vikings and Chinese were actually the first "tourists" to visit America decades before Columbus. Maybe the Europeans thought the world flat but the Islamic and Asian scholars knew centuries beforehand that our earth was indeed round. President Franklin Roosevelt set aside October 12th as Columbus Day in 1937. Later, President Richard Nixon declared Columbus Day a national holiday to be celebrated on the second Monday in October.

A national holiday to celebrate genocide, slavery and blood-shed for millions of American Indians? American Indians feel that to celebrate the day when one culture uprooted another is disgraceful. Since the 70's this holiday has been rejected by many people who want the holiday known as "Native America Day" or "Indigenous People Day". Latin American countries call it Dia de la Raza - Day of the Race.

We need a solution of this day's recognition so that the U.S. might move forward from the division and bitterness of the past to a future of mutual respect and historical integrity.

Photo by: Nativestock Pictures

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