University of Virginia Library

Saturday May 10th. 1806.

This morning the snow continued falling [until] 1/2 after
6 A.M. when it ceased, the air keen and cold, the snow 8
inches deep on the plain; we collected our horses and after
taking a scant breakfast of roots we set out for the village of
Tunnachemootoolt; our rout lay through an open plain course
S. 35. E. and distance 16 Ms. the road was slippery and the
snow clogged to the horses feet, and caused them to trip
frequently. the mud at the sources of the little ravines was
deep black and well supplyed with quawmash. Drewyer
turned off to the left of the road in order to hunt and did
not join us this evening. at 4 in the afternoon we decended
the hills to Commearp Creek[8] and arrived at the Village of
Tunnachemootoolt, the cheif at whos lodge we had left the
flag last fall. this flag was now displayed on a staff placed at
no great distance from the lodge. underneath the flag the
Cheif met my friend Capt. C. who was in front and conducted

him about 80 yds.. to a place on the bank of the creek where he
requested we should encamp; I came up in a few minutes and
we collected the Cheifs and men of consideration smoked with
them and stated our situation with rispect to provision. the
Cheif spoke to his people and they produced us about 2
bushels of the quawmas roots dryed, four cakes of the bread
of cows and a dryed salmon trout. we thanked them for this
store of provision but informed them that our men not being
accustomed to live on roots alone we feared it would make
them sick, to obviate which we proposed exchangeing a [good]
horse in reather low order for a young horse in tolerable order
with a view to kill. the hospitality of the cheif revolted at the
eydea of an exchange, he told us that his young men had a
great abundance of young horses and if we wished to eat them
we should by [be] furnished with as many as we wanted. accordingly
they soon produced us two fat young horses one of
which we killed, the other we informed them we would pospone
killing untill we had consumed the one already killed.
This is a much greater act of hospitality than we have witnessed
from any nation or tribe since we have passed the
Rocky mountains. in short be it spoken to their immortal
honor it is the only act which deserves the appellation of
hospitallity which we have witnessed in this quarter. we informed
these people that we were hungry and fatiegued at this
moment, that when we had eaten and refreshed ourselves we
would inform them who we were, from whence we had come
and the objects of our resurches. a principal Cheif by name
Ho-hâst-ill-pilp arrived with a party of fifty men mounted on
eligant horses. he had come on a visit to us from his village
which is situated about six miles distant near the river. we
invited this man into our circle and smoked with him, his
retinue continued on horseback at a little distance. after we
had eaten a few roots we spoke to them as we had promised,
and gave Tinnachemootoolt and Hohâstillpilp each a medal;
the former one of the small size with the likeness of Mr. Jefferson
and the latter one of the sewing medals[9] struck in the
presidency of Washington. we explained to them the desighn
and the importance of medals in the estimation of the whites
as well as the red men who had been taught their value. The
Cheif had a large conic lodge of leather erected for our reception
and a parsel of wood collected and laid at the door after which
he invited Capt. C. and myself to make that lodge our home
while we remained with him. we had a fire lighted in this
lodge and retired to it accompanyed by the Cheifs and as
many of the considerate [considerable] men as could croud in
a circcle within it. here after we had taken a repast on some
horsebeef we resumed our council with the indians which
together with smoking the pipe occupyed the ballance of the
evening. I was surprised to find on decending the hills of
Commearp Cr. to find that there had been no snow in the
bottoms of that stream. it seems that the snow melted in
falling and decended here in rain while it snowed on the plains.
the hills are about six hundred feet high about one fourth of
which distance the snow had decended and still lay on the
sides of the hills. as these people had been liberal with us with
rispect to provision I directed the men not to croud their lodge
[in] surch of food in the manner hunger has compelled them
to do at most lodges we have passed, and which the Twisted
hair had informed me was disgreeable to the natives. but
their previous want of hospitality had induced us to consult
their enclinations but little and suffer our men to obtain provision
from them on the best terms they could. The village
of the broken arm as I have heretofore termed it consists of
one house only which is 150 feet in length built in the usual
form of sticks matts and dry grass. it contains twenty four
fires and about double that number of families. from appearances
I presume they could raise 100 fighting men. the noise
of their women pounding roots reminds me of a nail factory.
The indians seem well pleased, and I am confident that they
are not more so than our men who have their s[t]omachs once
more well filled with horsebeef and mush of the bread of cows.
the house of coventry is also seen here.