Wearin’ a Dress

   Fred Astaire is one of the most acclaimed dancers in American history. Ginger Rogers, too, but she never earned the fame Astaire did. I heard Ginger Rogers said, “I did everything Fred did, only I had to do it backward, in high heels, wearing a dress.

           And yet Astaire was the big star. 

           And that brings me to Sacajawea. Yes, there is going to be something about the west in this, it’s NOT about ballroom dancing.

This teenager, age estimated at 17-years-old, accompanied this group of rugged soldiers all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Saved their lives more than once, probably had to do all the cooking (oh, maybe not) and she did it with a baby strapped on her back wearin’ a dress.

            But do they call it the Sacajawea Expedition? No-o-o-o-o-o!

            I couldn’t even find for sure how to spell her name because Lewis and Clark kept journals and spelled it differently, phonetically I suppose. Sacajawea didn’t speak English. How could she tell them how to spell her own name? She wouldn’t have known where to begin spelling it.

           I read the book Sacajawea by Anna L. Waldo years ago and I just loved that story of the young woman, sold into slavery, one of two wives to this…by most accounts, abusive drunken French fur trader, Charbonneau, leading Lewis and Clark through the Rocky Mountains.

           Man, I think I’ve got it hard when my car’s air conditioning goes on the fritz.

           The Lewis and Clark expedition recruited Sacagawea’s husband, to accompany them westward, expecting to make use of Sacagawea’s ability to speak to the Shoshone. The expedition expected that they would need to trade with the Shoshone for horses. Sacagawea spoke no English, but she could translate to Hidatsa to Charbonneau, who could translate to French for Francois Labiche, a member of the expedition, who could translate into English for Lewis and Clark. It had to be like a multi-cultural game of Telephone, passing the words back and forth through those translations.

             They really wanted Sacagawea, even more than Charbonneau, yet he got hired, and you know he got the money.

             Accompanied by her infant son, Sacagawea set out with the expedition for the west.

             This reminds me of an episode of Walker Texas Ranger.

              Have you ever noticed that when someone is insanely tough, the writers have to weaken him before they bring the enemy in. Superman and Kryptonite? John Wayne with a bullet lodged in his spine. Walker and oh, say, an army with automatic weapons.

Walker’s been bitten by one hundred scorpions. He shakes that off and saves the day, then collapses near death afterward. If he’s not weakened (and Sacagawea doesn’t have a baby strapped on her back and wearin’ a dress) it’s just not a fair fight.

Her memory of Shoshone trails proved valuable, according to some sources; according to others, she did not serve as a guide to the trails so much as to find useful foods and medicines along the way. Her presence as an Indian woman with a baby helped to convince Indians that this party of whites was friendly. And her translation skills, however indirect from Shoshone to English, were also invaluable at several key points.

The only woman on the trip, she also cooked, foraged for food, and sewed, mended and cleaned the clothes of the men. Yes, the expedition members hunted for food, too. But that means mainly they shot deer. Once they were crossing the Rockies in treacherous winter weather, her knowledge of edible plants saved the day. To their credit, Lewis and Clark treated Sacagawea as a valuable member of the party, even giving her and York, Clark’s enslaved black servant, a full vote in deciding where to spend the winter of 1805-6. It would be more than a century later when women were given the right to vote. 

So she fed them, sheltered them from hostile Indians and led them through the

Rockies. And she did all this with a baby on her back, wearin’ a dress, just to make it fair.

In recent years more has been written about Sacagawea and the dollar coin honoring her helped everyone see her contribution.

I’ve thought it would be an interesting series of books to write about the women who were standing right beside the men making history.

           Daniel Boone was married, Davy Crocket, too, and Kit Carson. Who were these women? What were their lives like? Often they got left behind, but even so, many were left in unsettled places. They seem like fertile ground for novels and a part of the largely untold story of taming the west, wearin’ a dress.

              What historical western women, real or fictional, most interest you? Who would make a good character in a novel? How can we get their stories told?

Last month, I wrote about how women through the ages have used a variety of strange and not-so-strange contraceptive methods.  Today, it’s the guys’ turn.

In a word–condoms.

Following are a few fascinating facts about them.  Bear in mind, they came into use more as a way for the man to defend himself against disease than to keep his mate from getting pregnant.  Birth control was mostly considered the woman’s responsibility.

 **Egyptians in the Twelfth Dynasty donned them as protection against insect bites and tropical diseases, as well as for a show of social status and as an amulet to promote fertility.

**In the 1560’s, Gabriel Fallopius (discoverer of–you guessed it!–Fallopian tubes) wrote of men wearing linen sheaths soaked in an herbal concoction to prevent syphilis.

 **Early 18th century condoms were made from oiled silk, fish bladders, and the intestines of goats, lambs and calves.

 **Casanova, the legendary Italian lover, inspected each condom before use by blowing into it balloon-style to make sure it didn’t deflate or burst.  He then went on to moisten each one by dunking it into the canal to ensure a tight fit.

Due to the illegality of contraceptive manufacturing and advertising (remember the Comstock laws I told you about?), condom entrepreneurs set up shop in the kitchens and back rooms of emigrants, women and Jews.  They found their trade lucrative in spite of their lack of professional credibility.

Despite doing a brisk business in their trade, the contraband condoms were far from perfect:

**The skins were often thick and smelly, made worse because they were rinsed, dried, powdered and then reused until they cracked or tore.

**Lower quality skins were hand-stitched, which resulted in uneven and bulky seams that irritated genitalia during use.

**On the other hand, higher-quality condoms were chemically treated, which left skin welts and lesions.

Maybe you didn’t know:

**Early condoms were securied onto their wearers with pink ribbons–probably to appeal to the female.  Rings were also used to hold them in place.

**George Bernard Shaw declared the rubber condom (thanks to the accidental genius of Charles Goodyear in 1839 who discovered how to make rubber elastic and water-proof) as “the greatest invention of the nineteenth century.”  Evidently, he placed lower importance on the invention of the telephone, which occurred about the same time.

**Urban butchers, defying the Comstock laws, provided city-dwellers with intestine casings, of which one animal alone could yield dozens of condoms.

In the 1870’s, the devices were readily available from mail-order houses and first-class druggists through cleverly-worded descriptions to avoid prosecution.  (I always love the terminology from that era.  Where did they come up with these names?)  A few I’ve found:

Male Pouch

Male Shields

Capotes

Machine

Love’s Preservative

And yes, condoms were available in brothels all over the world, from the classiest French parlor house to the primitive cribs on the American frontier.

Speaking of names, and brothels, and the prostitutes who inhabited them, the women took on a variety of nicknames to protect themselves and their families back East from their disreputable occupation.  Here’s a few of the more amusing, and definitely less romantic, ones I’ve read:

Crazy Horse Lil

Big Nose Kate

Squirrel-Tooth Annie

Rowdy Kate

Madame Moustache

Mustang Mae

Rocking Chair Emma

Sorrel Mike

So that wraps up my series of posts on Old West prostitutes.  Are you up to playing a little game?  Let’s name a fictional soiled dove by using your favorite pet’s name and your favorite vegetable.

Winner of the funniest name will receive an autographed copy of Western Winter Wonderland!    Or just drop in and let us know your thoughts!