I refer to Debra Magpie Earling's "The Lost Journals of Sacajewea," a fictional imagining of how this Lemhi Shoshone child experienced a life of violence, cruelty, rape by Charbonneau, and pregnant with Jean Baptiste as she provided translation and guidance to Lewis and Clark from the Agaidika (salmon eater) Shoshone lands along the Snake River to the Columbia. The retelling doesn't always jibe with what little we know of the timeline of Sacajewea's life, but then we don't know much (born 1787, died 1812). What has amazed and enlightened me was experiencing an Indian way of seeing, the way of thinking about oneself as a member of a tribal community, and in both practical and spiritual relation with the natural world. The book is a bit trying to start until you get a sense of who the narrator is and how she thinks. There is no glossary, so you will have to figure out for yourself Shoshone words like Bia, mother; Appe, father; Debai, sun; Agai, salmon; Weta, the bear -- silent, wise observer/protector. I promise you will never forget having read this novel, or glimpsing an alternative narrative of the Corps of Discovery.
