These are the facts about the life and achievement of the remarkable Sakakawea as most historians understand them, but it must be acknowledged that a cloud of uncertainty hangs over virtually every aspect of her life. She has been claimed – genetically as well as culturally – by separate bands of the Shoshones, by the Hidatsas, the Comanches, and even the Dakota Indians. The pronunciation and spelling of her name have been the subject of endless speculation and even controversy. Some have argued that she is to be called Sacajawea, a Shoshone word that means “boat launcher,” or possibly, “she who carries burdens.” Others have argued that her name was Sacagawea or Sakakawea, a Hidatsa word that means Bird Woman. This is how Lewis and Clark saw it. Lewis translated her name as Bird Woman on May 20, 1805. Some believe that she died relatively young at Fort Manuel in 1812, others that she lived a very long and busy life, and died at about the age of ninety-four on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, where indeed a grave marker tells her story. Some (notably James Rhonda, the leading authority on Lewis and Clark’s encounters with native peoples) have granted Sakakawea a severely limited role in the success of the enterprise. Others have elevated her to guide, and at times even savior, of the expedition.
This much is certain. The Sakakawea of American popular culture and mythology is a larger-than-life figure, and she has in two hundred years eclipsed every other member of the expedition with the possible exception of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark themselves. She is by now not so much a historical figure as what is called a cultural construct – a blend of legend, mythology, gender politics, historical fiction, iconography, fantasy, and multicultural embrace. It is hard, almost impossible, to reconstruct the biological Sakakawea – the actual Native American woman who has served as the basis for such extensive non-rigorous historical activity and speculation. It must always be remembered that everything we know about Sakakawea comes through the lenses of early-nineteenth-century men: Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, John Ordway, Patrick Gass, Joseph Whitehouse, and thanks to their work on the official narrative of the expedition – Nicholas Biddle and George Shannon. It is inescapable that the “historical” Sakakawea is the product of patriarchal and indeed Eurocentric sensibilities.