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Updated: June 19, 2025
This fall they had gone safely as far as the hewn-timber towns of the Mandan Indians, in central North Dakota; here they wintered, and met the little Bird-woman. Her Indian name was Sa-ca-ga-we-a, from two Minnetaree words meaning "bird" and "woman." But she was not a Minnetaree, who were a division of the Sioux nation, living in North Dakota near the Mandans.
He abruptly drew his chair close, till his knees touched hers, and, leaning forward, quickly but gently prisoned her hands in his resting on her knees. "Don't be alarmed, little bird-woman," he quieted her. "I shall not kiss you. It is a long time since I have. I want to tell you about that affair. But first I want to tell you how proud I am proud of myself. I am proud that I am a lover.
Young Captain Lewis the Long Knife Chief, and stout Captain Clark the Red Head, who with their exploring party wintered among the Mandans in 1804-1805, and enlisted the Snake Bird-woman as guide, were the first white men to write a clear account of the curious Mandans; but they did not tell the half.
Pierce halted, and with bent head was studying the phenomenon, when close above him he heard the rush of a swiftly approaching body; he looked up just in time to behold an apparition utterly unexpected, utterly astounding. Swooping directly down upon him with incredible velocity was what seemed at first glance to be a bird-woman, a valkyr out of the pages of Norse mythology.
It is safe to assert that to the end of her days Sacagawea never forgot these awesome sights. In the spring of 1806 the homeward journey was begun. On the Missouri side of the mountains the Bird-woman was detailed to help Captain Clark find a separate trail, to the Yellowstone River.
Andrew, emerging suddenly from the wings, stood wonder-stricken. "But you are a bird-woman," said he. "I have heard of such, but never seen one." From that moment, the town-bred, town-compelled woman who had thought of bird-life only in terms of sparrows, set about to test her unsuspected powers.
That winter was spent a few miles back from the Pacific, near the mouth of the Columbia River in present Washington. Only once did the Bird-woman complain. The ocean was out of sight from the camp. Chaboneau, her husband, seemed to think that she was made for only work, work, work, cooking and mending and tending baby. "You stay by ze lodge fire. Dat is place for womans," he rebuked.
So, although all the wages went to her husband, she knows that the white people of the great United States remember the loving services of the brave little Bird-woman, who without the promise of pay, helped carry the Flag to the Pacific.
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