How the Sea Got Its Name (Sacagawea)"

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
You were fifteen
and pregnant
and married to a man
who had won you
in a card game
from the men
who had taken you
from your family
when you were twelve
and the expedition
hired your husband
as a translator
and got you
as the part
of the deal
nobody
had listed
on the invoice
and the part
nobody listed
turned out
to be
the invoice.

[Verse 2]
You carried
a newborn
on your back
across the continent
and the journals
the captains kept
smell
like the wet rawhide
and the particular
green patience
of a woman
who is pointing
at the correct pass
through the mountains
while
a man
behind her
writes down
that he
found it.

[Chorus]
Every tribe
you walked into
looked at
the expedition
and saw
thirty armed men
and then
looked at you
and the baby
on your back
and understood
that a war party
does not
travel
with a woman
and a baby
and the woman
and the baby
were the reason
thirty armed men
crossed
the continent
without
firing a shot
and the captains
wrote this down
as if
the peace
had been
their idea.

[Verse 3]
You saw
the Pacific
in November
in the rain
and the ocean
tasted
like the cold
salt version
of every river
you had
already
crossed
to get there
and you
were sixteen
and the baby
was ten months old
and the ocean
did not know
your name
and the captains
would misspell it
for the next
two hundred years.

[Outro]
The journals
say
your name
eleven hundred times
and spell it
differently
almost
every time
and the river
that runs
through
the place
you were
taken from
still
runs
through it
and the river
has never
once
misspelled
anything.

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