Lost Journals of Sacajewea
Certain stories resonate in history. Specific people become fascinating characters lodged in the minds and hearts of a nation; their feats become a part of culture. Yet, often these fictions fail to realistically reflect the history; over time characterizations and backgrounds shift. This is especially true for famous historical figures who left no written records, many of them women and people of color. Such has certainly been the case with Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery, particularly with regard to the young Shoshone woman who accompanied them for most of their journey. Even the spelling of her name—Sacagawea (derived from Mandan for “Bird Woman”) or Sacajewea (from her native Shoshone meaning “boat-launcher”) is uncertain. And yet, she was a woman with a voice, even if written history fails to capture any of her actual words. Debra Magpie Earling’s The Lost Journals of Sacajewea (May 23, 2023) provides her a voice and a story in a spectacularly crafted novel that fictionalizes Sacajewea’s own journals, an answer of sorts to the famous Journals of Lewis and Clark.
This lyrical fiction, written as a series of journal entries, rewrites the life and perspective of young Sacajewea. It opens in the happy days of her childhood, but even in those early years tension begins to mount. When the first white man appears among her people, she is encouraged to listen and learn. In this early section, Earling relies on many Shoshone words to express Sacajewea’s way of life and her outlook. While this usage may feel unsettling to some readers, Earling brilliantly reflects Sacajewea’s acquisition of other languages into the reading experience; as the novel evolves, so too does the language. This clever crafting, this reflection of reader experience with its protagonist’s, is just one of its many aspects that makes The Lost Journals of Sacajewea so moving.
Make no mistake: Lost Journals of Sacajewea is a powerfully harsh read. It explores the brutality faced by stolen women like Sacajewea. Like Earling’s previous novel, Perma Red, it forces contemporary readers to face the long tradition of stolen, abused, and disappeared Native women. Readers are not in for a gentle story as they read Sacajewea’s journals. Themes including kidnapping, enslavement, sexual and physical violence all arise throughout this short epistolary novel. Through her own words and first-person voice, in Lost Journals, Sacajewea reforms our cultural understanding of her life and the Corps of Discovery more generally.
Like its heroine, this slender novel has traveled a long journey since its inception. On the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 2005, Salish writer Debra Magpie Earling created the Lost Journals of Sacajewea in collaboration with Missoula Art Museum’s native art exhibit: Native Perspectives on the Trail. The writing began as a lyrical poem and has now become a novel (published May 2023) thanks to visionary folks at Milkweed Editions. It is a book I encourage everyone to pick up, spend time absorbing, and in the process give Sacajewea—arguably the most renowned Native woman in American history—a voice, even if it is a fictional one.
The Lost Journals of Sacajewea will particularly interest those with an interest in American history, the Corps of Discovery in particular (although it may challenge some long held thoughts on characters like Meriwether Lewis and William Clark), Native storytelling, and contemporary Native American literature. Ultimately, stories like the one Earling creates in Lost Journals provide voices for those characters whose words have been lost to time, but whose actions continue to captivate us. Fiction, like this, is the only way we might approach the voice of history’s unlettered heroines like Sacajewea. For that reason, and for the eloquence of its craft, I highly recommend this new novel.
Many thanks to Milkweed Editions for providing me this advanced reading copy.
Bibliography:
Earling, Debra Magpie. The Lost Journals of Sacajewea. Milkweed Editions: 2023.
