More Girls Who Rocked the World

Naya Nuki

1788–? SURVIVOR UNITED STATES

We drew near to the camp, and just as we approached it, a woman made her way through the crowd toward Sacagawea; and recognizing each other, they embraced with most tender affection.

—MERIWETHER LEWIS DESCRIBING THE SURPRISE REUNION OF NAYA NUKI AND SACAGAWEA

Naya Nuki heard it first: the pounding of horse hooves. She and her best friend, Sacagawea, turned to see a scout race past them, shouting, “Attack! Attack!”

“They’re coming!” yelled Sacagawea, her eyes wide with fear. The girls dropped the berries and roots they were collecting and searched frantically for hiding places. Naya Nuki splashed across a stream and dove inside a thick clump of bushes. Just then, the enemy attacked. The war cries and crack of enemy “fire sticks” echoed in her head.

Suddenly, a hand reached into the bushes and tore Naya Nuki from her hiding place. She kicked and screamed, but it was no use. Her captor was a grown man—a warrior—and she was a small girl. He yanked her up onto his horse and galloped off. Through her tears of frustration and fear, Naya Nuki saw another horse and rider following them with another prisoner. She wasn’t sure whether to be happy or sad when she recognized Sacagawea. As the horses rode swiftly east, and their home and people became more and more distant, Naya Nuki vowed that she would escape. Nothing would stop her from returning to her beloved home.

The attack was over in minutes, but those minutes changed the lives of Sacagawea and Naya Nuki forever. It would even change the history of the United States. One of those girls would become world-famous for her heroic deeds but would suffer estrangement from her people. The other would never be famous, but her strength and courage would bring her lasting happiness with her family and friends. As the two eleven-year-olds were carried off to uncertain futures, neither knew what different roads their lives would take.

Like her more famous friend, Naya Nuki was born sometime around 1788 to the Shoshoni (shuh-SHO-nee) people of what is now Idaho. The Shoshoni were a peaceful tribe who struggled to survive the harsh winters of their mountain home. In the fall each year, they had to move from the protective peaks into the vast, open prairies of western Montana to hunt bison. They needed the meat, skin, and bones of the bison for food, shelter, clothing, and tools. Without bison, the Shoshoni could not survive.

But these journeys were extremely dangerous. When white people first arrived in North America decades before, they brought horses and guns to the tribes. The Shoshoni got horses but no guns, so they were vulnerable to attack from their enemies. Many of the more warlike tribes of the prairie—the Crow, Blackfoot, and Hidatsa (hih-DAHT-sah)—knew the Shoshoni would come for bison each year. They sent raiding parties to steal their horses, kill warriors, and kidnap women and children.

When Naya Nuki and Sacagawea were eleven, the Hidatsa attacked their tribe near Three Forks, Montana. When the raid was over and the dust settled, the Shoshoni mourned their losses: many people were killed, and fifteen women and children were kidnapped. Naya Nuki, Sacagawea, and the other captives were marched from western Montana to present-day Mandan, North Dakota (home to the Hidatsa)—over one thousand miles on foot!

There is no written record of their march, but from the journals of Lewis and Clark, who traveled the same route a few years later, we can imagine what it must have been like for the prisoners. They hiked in deerskin moccasins across a land covered in prickly pear cactus. Escape would have been impossible with the Hidatsa watching their every move, the open plains offering few hiding places. Prisoners who tried to escape would’ve been killed on the spot.

Naya Nuki surely knew this, and instead of trying an immediate escape that was sure to fail, she spent her energy memorizing their route. As they followed the Missouri River, she must have noted each turn of the river and the major landmarks, scoping out good hiding places for a later escape. The journey would’ve taken the group more than a month to make. Imagine being forced to march over thirty miles a day, your feet burning and your heart crying in silent frustration. When they arrived at the Hidatsa village, the warriors distributed the prisoners to various families as slaves.

Indian slaves, like African slaves on white plantations in the South, lived their lives at their master’s whim. They were beaten regularly and had to work from dawn until dusk. Friends and relatives were split up forever when slaves were traded to other tribes or even to the white people.

Not long after bringing the Shoshoni prisoners to their village, a few Hidatsa warriors lost a card game with Pierre Charbonneau, a French fur trapper. In order to pay their debt, they offered him eleven-year-old Sacagawea to take as his “wife.” Although Charbonneau already had several other young Indian wives, he accepted their payment. Sacagawea had no choice but to leave for even more distant lands with this white stranger, her new master.

The loss of her best friend undoubtedly panicked Naya Nuki, who realized she, too, could be traded away at any time, making her chances of returning home almost impossible. How she escaped we can only guess, but we do know she was kidnapped in August, so she likely fled that fall. If Naya Nuki merely bolted, with no plan or supplies, she would never have made it back to Idaho. To survive the long, difficult journey, she needed the courage to not only escape her captors but also to steal what she would need to make it home: warm clothing, something to hunt with, and a supply of food to last until she was far away from the Hidatsa village.

Naya Nuki must have been terrified when she sneaked away—she would have been killed if she was caught. And yet the dangers were only beginning. When Lewis and Clark covered the same ground a few years later with more than a dozen armed men, they barely survived. Naya Nuki had to be on constant alert for other Indians who might enslave her again and for wolves, grizzly bears, stampeding bison, snowstorms, and even mosquitos, which carried deadly malaria. For a lone girl to survive, she had to be not only brave but very smart.

It is hard to imagine an eleven-year-old girl walking from North Dakota to Idaho by herself! And Naya Nuki did it with no roads, no signs, no maps, no McDonald’s, no tent, no boots, no raincoat—nothing. She followed the Missouri River, probably remembering the landmarks she’d seen before. For at least a month, she had to find or kill anything she ate. Even cooking would’ve been a long, difficult ordeal to people today—no matches, no pans!

But Naya Nuki did it—she made it across North Dakota and Montana all by herself. Sometime that winter, she crossed the snow-covered mountains between Montana and Idaho (the same mountains that nearly killed several men in the Lewis and Clark group). Less than a year after her capture, the determined girl made it back to her village. She was home. The Shoshoni were so surprised and delighted by her courage and miraculous return that they gave her a new name: Pop-pank, or Jumping Fish, because of the way she raced through the stream during the Hidatsa raid. She was a hero, and her story was told for years to come.

In 1805, four years later, the Lewis and Clark expedition arrived in Shoshoni country. The Indians were shocked to see the white men’s pale skin. But Naya Nuki was even more shocked when a young Indian woman stepped out from the crowd of men. It was her friend Sacagawea! Captain Lewis described their reunion:

The meeting of those people was really affecting, particularly between Sah cah-gar-we-ah [Sacagawea] and an Indian woman who had been taken prisoner at the same time with her, and who had afterwards escaped from the Minnetarees [another name for the Hidatsa] and rejoined her nation.1

The two girls hadn’t seen each other in years and hadn’t expected to ever see each other again. They had a lot of catching up to do.

After a great deal of laughing and crying, they shared their stories. Naya Nuki finally heard the strange path her friend’s life had taken: After living with Charbonneau for years, Sacagawea had met Lewis and Clark. The explorers were looking for someone to guide them to the Shoshoni—the only friendly Indians who would sell them horses so they could make it to the Columbia River and the end of their journey. They realized that Sacagawea would be an invaluable guide and translator since she was practically the only person who had been west, and she also spoke the Shoshoni language. Against their better judgment, they also brought along Charbonneau, who lacked any needed skills.

Each girl survived her share of amazing adventures during those four years apart. But after their brief reconnection, their lives would again take different paths. Lewis and Clark’s party stayed with the Shoshoni for a few weeks, and after buying the horses, they left to continue their journey to the Pacific. Sacagawea left with them and never returned to her people. Naya Nuki, on the other hand, never left her people again, a survivor and hero who risked her life to return to her nation.

HOW WILL YOU ROCK THE WORLD?

I will rock the world by being an open-heart surgeon. I’ll travel around the world and give people in remote places the help and surgery that they need. It might save lives that might not have been saved without heart surgery. I will do whatever I can to help people who need it.

IZZYIE SANDOZ AGE 12