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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Tribes celebrate Sacajawea

From wire reports The Spokesman-Review

Pocatello, Idaho Members of the Shoshone-Bannock tribes in southern Idaho celebrated their most famous ancestor, the American Indian woman Sacajawea who helped guide the Lewis and Clark expedition 200 years ago.

A small crowd gathered Saturday at the Fort Hall Replica Historic Complex in Pocatello as tribal members called the young Lemhi Shoshone mother and guide a groundbreaking leader of Indian women. “I am proud of her,” said Emaline George, a tribal elder on the Fort Hall Reservation. “Sometimes I hear her. I see her through some of our Lemhi descendants.”

Many historians say Sacajawea was born to the Shoshone and captured by a Hidatsa tribe war party when she was a girl. North Dakota’s Hidatsas, however, say their oral history asserts she was born Hidatsa, taken by the Shoshone and later returned.

She reputedly was purchased or won in a card game by French fur trapper Toussaint Charbonneau about 1805 and played a key role in the expedition, working as an interpreter.

Man avoids death penalty in toddler’s slaying

Boise

A man convicted last week of beating a toddler to death in 2003 has avoided the death penalty and faces life in prison.

A jury in 4th District Court in Boise on Saturday could not agree unanimously on a death sentence for Ignacio “Jesse” Sanchez, 25.

Instead, he will receive a life sentence during a formal sentencing hearing Aug. 18.

Boise police have said that, following his arrest two years ago, Sanchez acknowledged killing 2-year-old Evangelina Azteca Atencio Leija.

An autopsy revealed at least 63 bruises to the girl’s torso, with others on her head and neck.