#5 Sarah Winnemucca - The Passion of Thocmetony

Bila Lee
English 48B
January 22, 2009
Journal #5 Sarah Winnemucca

Quote
“I was once buried alive; but my second burial shall be for ever, where no father or mother will come and dig me up. It shall not be with throbbing heart that I shall listen for coming footsteps. I shall be in the sweet rest of peace, - I, the chieftain’s weary daughter” (Winnemucca 505).

Summary
The quote was narrated by Sarah Winnemucca when she was rescued by her parents. Sarah and her cousins were buried alive to protect themselves against the white people, whom Sarah’s grandfather loved so deeply. There was a weird story that the white people “were killing everybody and eating them” (Winnemucca 504), thus Sarah’s mother buried Sarah and her cousins as a means to avoid being killed and eaten. You can hardly imagine the time of being buried alive, but you can easily imagine how desperate Sarah felt when she was buried alive. Fortunately, her parents finally succeeded in digging her out of the living hell; however, the white people were undeniably “cruel children” (Winnemucca 503) and, to an extent, were sinful to hurt other mankind.

Responses
Sarah Winnemucca once made a comment, “I am a shell flower, who could be as strong or as beautiful as me” (Wikipedia). Well, it was subjective to judge if a person was beautiful or ugly, but her colorful life experience and fruitful resume were two strong evident to demonstrate her strengths and contributions to American Indians. In her renowned autobiography, “Life among the Piutes,” Sarah described her childhood and shared some traditional stories of her people. Although I am not a Christian, I had studied in Christian schools for more than 10 years in Hong Kong, and I found those traditional stories (especially the “lost white brother”) shared some obvious similarities with the biblical stories.

“In the beginning of the world there were only four, two girls and two boys” (Winnemucca 503) was like the story of Adam, Eva and the Garden of Eden. In the beginning of the world, the God created a girl and a boy, and he loved both Adam and Eva so deeply that he provided almost everything to them. Adam and Eva were supposed living happily in such a paradise. However everything changed when they failed to refuse temptation offered by the snake and ate the apples – it was a sin and resulted in a huge punishment. Similarly, the white couple and the black couple in the “lost white brother” story also failed to refuse the temptation to dominate over each other, they fought and physically hurt their mates. Finally, they received a punishment from Sarah’s grandfather to “depart from each other” and they were titled as “cruel children” (Winnemucca 503) because of their sins.

Furthermore, I interpret Sarah’s narration “I was once buried alive; but my second burial shall be for ever” (Winnemucca 505) as a sacrifice to redeem the sins of her white fellows. It sounded like Jesus Christ who sacrificed himself on a cross to redeem the sins of all mankind. Being buried alive was absolutely a torture to a human – no light but only darkness, no food but only starvation, no water but only dehydration, and it was a complete hopeless environment that Sarah and her cousins did not know what the real world was like and how they would be treated. “I was once buried alive” implied she hoped her suffering would bring changes to American Indians; and “but my second burial shall be for ever” implied she would eternally die if she was threatened by the white people again.

Sarah dreamed her “sacrifice”, or her passion, might bring some returns to her people.