[Lewis:]
Saturday May 31st. 1806.
Goodrich and Willard visited the indian Villages this morning
and returned in the evening. Willard brought with him
the dressed skin of a bear which he had purchased for Capt. C.
this skin was an uniform pale redish brown colour, the indians
informed us that it was not the Hoh-host or white bear. that
it was the Yâck-kâh. this distinction of the indians induced
us to make further enquiry relative to their opinions of the
several speceis of bear in this country. we produced the
several skins of the bear which we had killed at this place and
one very nearly white which I had purchased. The white, the
deep and pale red grizzle, the dark bro[w]n grizzle, and all
those which had the extremities of the hair of a white or frosty
colour without regard to the colour of the ground of the poil,
they designated Hoh-host and assured us that they were the
same with the white bear, that they ascosiated together, were
very vicisious, never climbed the trees, and had much longer
nails than the others. the black skins, those which were
black with a number of intire white hairs intermixed, the black
with a white breast, the uniform bey, brown and light redish
brown, they designated the
Yâck-kâh; said that they climbed
the trees, had short nails and were not vicious, that they could
pursue them and kill them with safety, they also affirmed that
they were much smaller than the white bear. I am disposed
to adopt the Indian distinction with respect to these bear and
consider them two distinct speceis. the white and the Grizzly
[31]
of this neighbourhood are the same of those found on the
upper portion of the Missouri where the other speceis are not,
and that the uniform redish brown black &c. of this neighbourhood
are a speceis distinct from our black bear and from the
black bear of the Pacific coast which I believe to be the same
with those of the Atlantic coast, and that the common black
bear do not exist here. I had previously observed that the
claws of some of the bear which we had killed here had much
shorter tallons than the variagated or white bear usually have
but supposed that they had woarn them out by scratching up
roots, and these were those which the indians called Yâk-kâh.
on enquiry I found also that a cub of an uniform redish brown
colour, pup to a female black bear intermixed with entire white
hair had climbed a tree. I think this a distinct speceis from
the common black bear, because we never find the latter of
any other colour than an uniform black, and also that the poil
of this bear is much finer thicker and longer with a greater
proportion of fur mixed with the hair, in other [r]ispects
they are much the same. This evening Joseph and R. Feilds
returned with the three deer which they had killed. The
Indians brought us another of our origional Stock of horses;
there are only two absent now of those horses, and these the
indians inform us our shoshone guide rode back when he
returned. we have sixty five horses at this time, most of
them in excellent order and fine strong active horses.
The Indians pursued a mule deer to the river opposite to
our camp this evening; the deer swam over and one of our
hunters killed it. there being a large party of indians assembled
on this occasion on the opposite side, Hohâst-ill-pilp desired
them to raise our canoe which was sunk on that side of the
river yesterday; they made the attempt but were unable to
effect it.
