SALMON, Idaho - Here in the valley where the Shoshone teen-ager Sacajawea led Lewis and Clark to one of the most serendipitous encounters in the annals of discovery, the stores are full of Indian art, the pastures are grazed by Indian-bred horses, and the land itself is imprinted with Indian names. But there are no American Indians here.
The Lemhi Shoshone, living links to the teen-age girl who was instrumental in leading the Corps of Discovery over the Continental Divide in 1805, have been all but erased from this place they have called home for hundreds of years. The 400 or so Lemhi live on a reservation 200 miles south of here, on desert land set aside for two much bigger tribes.
Orphans in an arid land, the Lemhi say they have been down so long that they use an ironic phrase to describe their current status. "Basically, we are the Indians to the other Indians," said Rod Ariwite, a leader of the Lemhi Shoshone. But the tribe's luck may be about to change.
Spurred on by an extraordinary surge of interest in the journey of Lewis and Clark, hoopla over a new dollar coin honoring Sacajawea and recent scholarly finds that bolster Lemhi legal claims, the Indians from the west side of the Continental Divide are stirred by their last best hope for a homeland.
The Lemhi have asked President Clinton to carve out a small piece of federal land in the Salmon River country on the Idaho-Montana border as a place where the tribe can tell its story to the hordes of Lewis and Clark history buffs, honor their dead and try to stitch some of the past to the present. As it is, the only visible Indian in this valley is the Salmon High School mascot, a chieftain who represents "the Home of the Savages," as the school sign says.
"They have Sacajawea heritage days, they have Sacajawea arts and crafts, they have everything but the real Indians who are Sacajawea's people in the valley," said Ariwite, an Air Force veteran and high school principal who grew up in Salmon but now lives in New Mexico and in Fort Hall, Idaho. "The feeling we get is, "We don't want you here, but we want your Sacajawea heritage."
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The white leaders of this community say they revere the most famous native of the valley but are ambiguous about any land being set aside for the Indians.
"We all believe Sacajawea is not only the most famous Indian, but the most famous woman in America," said Stan Davis, mayor of this town of 3,000, set in an isolated Rocky Mountain valley of heart-stopping beauty. "And the way things are going now, with our timber, mining and fishing in trouble, it's almost like we've come full circle. We know what the Indians went through."
Even late in this century, a small group of Lemhi, Ariwite among them, continued to live in shacks by the river at the edge of town here. But that tumbledown village was destroyed by the local authorities more than 10 years ago. It is now a small park covered with gravel.
"It was our home," Ariwite said. "But I guess everyone else thought it was an eyesore." For a man who has an encyclopedic knowledge of the many slights dealt the Lemhi, Ariwite betrays only a trace of bitterness.
My kids come up here with me to fish and camp in the summer, and they say, "Dad, how could you ever give this land up?" he said. "But we haven't given up. The Lewis and Clark bicentennial is going to be our last fight."
"In 1805, the Americans asked for our help. Now we're asking for theirs."
Also read - Research may lead to formal tribal recognition
Ted McDonough
Research by a Washington State University professor suggests a group of Idaho Indians were improperly stripped of formal tribal recognition by the United States government.>>>
