Dux Femina Facti "
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''Dux Femina Facti " Sacajawea Statue Association Oregon, Washing'ton, Idaho, Mon• tana, Dakota, Nebraska, UtaH, Colorado "Dux Femina Facti" TEN REASONS WHY THE WOMEN OP ( "A woman led the deed"—VIRGIL) THE NORTHWEST SHOULD ERECT A STATUE TO SAC A J AWE A: Sacajawea Statue Association 1. Sacajawea was the only woman to ac• OFFICERS. company the Lewis and Clark expedition. President—Mrs. Eva Emery Dye, Oregon 2. She was their guide and interpreter. City. First Vice-President—Mrs. C. M. Cart- 3. She protected them when threatened by wright, Portland. hostile Indians. Second Vice-President—Mrs. M. A. Dalton, 4. She procured for them food and horses Portland. when destitute of both. Third Vice-President—Mrs. J. B. Mont• 5. She saved their journals and valuables gomery, Portland. papers at the risk of her own life. Secretary—Mrs. Sarah A. Evans, Oswego, 6. She was the only one of the party who Oregon. received no pecuniary compensation for her Treasurer—Mrs. A. H. Breyman, Portland. services. 7. While enduring hardships and suffer• Honorary President—Mrs. S. A. Duniway. ing, she administered to the necessities of Honorary Vice-Pr -sident—Mrs. A. C. Gibbs. others. DIRECTORS. 8. She welcomed with intelligent appreci• ation the civilization of the white race. Mrs. E. W. Bingnam, Portland; Mrs. H. McArthur, Portland; Mrs. Jno. McRoberts, 9. Over a million dollars will be spent in Portland, Mrs. S. L. M. Farmer, Portland; honoring the memory of the heroes of the Mrs. Geo. Harding, Oregon City. Lewis and Clark party and not a cent of it has been appropriated to the only heroine. For further particulars, address the Sec• retary. 10. She was the first pioneer mother to cross the Rocky mountains and carry her baby into the Oregon country. Membership Fee ^ Fifty Cents What Dr. James K. Hosmer Says. The following beautiful tribute is from the pen of Dr. James K. Hosmer, of Minne• apolis, the noted editor of the Lewis and Clark journals: "Now that the centenary of the first cross• ing of our continent is close at hand, Lewis and Clark the heroes, who accomplished it, come into our minds, and a revival is taking place of interest in their story. Especially MANN & BEACH PRINTERS will the world turn to that noble and pic• 92 Second Street turesque book, 'The Conquest,' by Mrs. Eva PORTLAND, OREGON Emery Dye, in which with admirable power that story is made vivid. One may see some• times at a May festival, a rough cord trans• formed into a thing of beauty, by being in• tertwined with ivy and smilax and set off with daisies and roses. In like fashion the plain thread of history furnished by the stout explorers, unwinding day by day as they marched, taken in hand by a writer of genius, has become a thing of beauty, while losing nothing of its truth. Her mind is well stored with the traditions belonging to the period; her eyes have beheld the scenes described; her imagination is quick and fruitful. She imparts life to a tale which it is well worth while to make thoroughly vital. "Readers of the 'Conquest' will find not only the heroes but their followers made dis- 5 tinct and attractive, and it will be strange were included—the degenerate Frenchman, indeed if the world does not wake up to an and his poor little slave-wife, who, although admiration for one among these followers she carried strapped to her back her pa• whose desert has not been appreciated.. But poose, born so lately as the preceding Feb• one woman, a young squaw, plays a part in ruary, had no choice but to follow her lord. the story of Lewis and Clark. Her doing, however, was of such a character as to make Engaged the White Man. it quite right to claim for her a high place among heroines; in the whole line of Indian "From the first, however, the Bird-woman heroines, indeed, from Pocahontas to Ra• won upon the Captains and their men by ni on a, not one can be named whose title to mild and engaging qualities; and as they honored remembrance is any better than worked their canoes up the Upper Missouri, hers. Here is the outline of the story: she showed extraordinary efficiency. Though burdened with her babe, she labored with the men, with paddle and tow-rope, and soon The Bird Woman. rendered an important service. A canoe loaded with the most valuable belonging of "Sacajawea, the Bird-woman, belonged to the expedition, the journals of the Captains, the Shoshone, or Snake Indians, a mountain their scientific instruments, and their medi• tribe which, in the days of Lewis and Clark, cines, was caught in a rapid by a squall, and was in danger of extermination at the hands on the point of being overturned. Chabon• of the Minnetarees, or Blackfeet. She had neau, who with Sacajawea, was on board, been taken captive when a child by these had the steering oar, and struck with fear foes. When Lewis and Clark, coming up the went 'howling to his Gods.' The boat filled Missouri, reached in their first winter the to the gunwale and was saved from an over• Mandans and Minnetarees, Sacajawea, a girl turn only at the last moment, her precious of 16, had shortly before became the slave cargo floating out upon the stream. But and wife of Chabonneau, a French voyageur, the Bird-woman, with her wits all at hand, who, like many a waif of his race, had sunk saved not only herself and baby, but grasp• far towards savagery ana was living with the wild men. Perhaps the best strike the ing right and left at the escaping packages Captains made in preparing for their work rescued what was indispensable. It was the was in engaging Chabonneau and Sacajawea first conspicuous exhibition of her presence to join the expedition. It was believed that of mind and handiness, which later were con• he would be a useful interpreter, and that stantly shown. the Bird-woman, too, might be of some serv• Meeting Her Lost Brother. ice when they reached the mountains from which she had come. When the party started "As the summer waned the party ap• westward in the spring of 1805, these two proached the Gates of the Mountains, where 6 7 the canoes must be forsaken, and the horses The Shoshone women acting as guides and obtained with which it would be possible to intercessors, brought back the warriors. It cross the divide to the head springs of the was the very band of the Bird-woman that Columbia. Thus far since leaving the Man- at last had been reached, and when presently dans, there had been neither sight nor sound at the council she began to interpret the of man; nor as the mountains rose before speech of the chief, lo, it was her own them was there a trace of human beings ex• brother whose words she was translating! cept in camps deserted months before. The A firm friendship was at once established be• Captains ranged far ahead of their men; but tween the party and the Shoshones; the In• though at last glimpses were obtained of In• dian girl had made further progress possible. dians at a distance, these at once hurried away, avoiding all contact. Caution, for those mountain tribes, in fact, was the price Serving as a Guide. of existence. When the case for Lewis and Clark was growing desperate, and the possi• "Henceforth the way was smoothed. Horses bility appeared that the attempt must be and guides were furnished; the friendly Sho• abandoned and the expedition go back, the shones passed the whi.e men on to the Plat- Bird-woman began to dance and sing. She heads and they in turn to the Nez Perces. At was once more among the naunts of her peo• the councils Sacajawea was always the most ple; she recognized the valley into which important one in the line of interpreters. they had penetrated as the place where five The Captains speculated, amused as to what or six years beiore she had been taken cap• kind of representation it was that at last tive. Presently some Indian women were reached the mountain men, when their brought in, who abandoned by the men, had speech, done into French for Chabonneau, been left to fall into the hands of the rendered by him into Minnetaree for Saca• strangers. As the poor creatures cowered jawea, filtered on from her Shoshone into before their captors, bending their heads to Chopunnish, Ootlashoot or whatever barbaric receive their deathblow, suddenly a young dialect might be at hand. But some mes• girl, catching sight of Sacajawea, rushed sage was conveyed, and through the Indian toward her. She was a tribeswoman, who girl those remotest wilds first heard of the having been captured at the same time with greatness of Uncle Sam and the good things the Bird-woman, had for a time undergone *^ he meditated for his newly gained children with her the pains of bondage. Escaping, of the forest. Nor was it solely as an inter• however, the friend had found her people preter that she was useful. As the party again. Now a second time losing her free• passed from tribe to tribe, who were always dom, as she supposed, she descried among timorous at the first encounter, disposed to the newcomers no other than her old com• fly like frightened deer, the sight of Saca• panion. The two squaws embraced tenderly.