One of the articles that made its way to my desk this month is by Wanda Pillow
(Educational Policy Studies, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana), and was published in the Spring 2007 issue of the feminist philosophy journal Hypatia.
Lemhi Pass on the Idaho/Montana border, where the Lewis and Clark expedition first crossed the Continental Divide.
Photo Credit: Bitterroot
Called "Searching for Sacajawea: Whitened reproductions and endarkened representations", the article explores the history of the images of Sacajawea and the background for all the cultural baggage that we've given her. Sacajawea (or Sacagawea), if you'll recall, was the Lemhi Shoshone woman who carried her baby alongside Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery, during 1804-1806 when they explored what is now the northwest quarter of the US.
When I picked up the paper at my local university library, I was expecting a ill-tempered diatribe about cultural (mis)representations of women of color (I like that kind of stuff); but what I found was a thoughtful, informative history of a cultural creation. And I can't think of anything more anthropological than that.
Lemhi Pass on the Idaho/Montana border, where the Lewis and Clark expedition first crossed the Continental Divide.
Photo Credit: Bitterroot
When I picked up the paper at my local university library, I was expecting a ill-tempered diatribe about cultural (mis)representations of women of color (I like that kind of stuff); but what I found was a thoughtful, informative history of a cultural creation. And I can't think of anything more anthropological than that.
- Readings: Searching for Sacajawea, more on Pillow's article in Hypatia
- More Readings, other abstracts of articles that have crossed my desk
- Excavating Lewis and Clark, an article on the archaeological remains of the Corps of Discovery
- Sacagawea, from Jone Johnson Lewis, on Women's History
- Searching for Sacajawea: Whitened Reproductions and Endarkened Representations, the article itself, available on Project Muse
Comments
Searching for Sacajawea: One might search for a correct spelling of her name and never find it.Her name was a Hidatsa name (she having been captured by them). In Hidatsa it is Tsakakawiac. Tsakaka = bird and wiac is a suffix for woman. It is one of those historic ironies that the reservoir which obliterated the Hidatsa (and Mandan and Arikara) homelands is named after the Shoshone Tsakakawiac. North Dakota and the Corps of Engineers however, spell her name Sakakawea.
Ah! I love a good misspelling, but even better–an interesting etymology. Thanks, Mike!
Kris