[Lewis:]
Tuesday May 13th. 1806.
THIS morning Capt. C. as usual was busily engaged
with his patients untill eleven OCk. at 1 P.M. we
collected our horses and set out for the river escorted
by a number of the natives on horseback. we followed the
[Lawyer's Cañon] creek downwards about two miles, passing
a stout branch at 1 m. which flowed in on the wright. our
course S.E. we now entered an extensive open bottom of the
Kooskooske R. through which we passed nearly N. about
1 1/2 miles and halted on the bank of the river at the place
appointed to meet the canoe the man had set out early this
morning for the purpose but had not yet arrived with the
canoe we therefore unloaded our horses and turned them out
to graize. as the canoe did not arrive untill after sunset we
remained here all night; a number of the natives continued
with us. in the evening we tryed the speed of several of our
horses. these horses are active strong and well formed. these
people have immence numbers of them 50, 60 or a hundred
hed is not unusual for an individual to possess. The Chopunnish
are in general stout well formed active men. they have
high noses and many of them on the acqueline order with
cheerfull and agreeable countenances; their complexions are
not remarkable in common with other savage nations of
America they extract their beards but the men do not uniformly
extract the hair below, this is more particularly confined
to the females. I observed several men among them whom I
am convinced if they had shaved their beard instead of extracting
it would have been as well supplyed in this particular as
any of my countrymen. they appear to be cheerfull but not
gay; they are fond of gambling and of their amusements which
consist principally in shooting their arrows at a bowling target
made of willow bark, and in riding and exercising themselves
on horseback, racing &c. they are expert marksmen and good
riders. they do not appear to be so much devoted to baubles
as most of the nations we have met with, but seem anxious
always to obtain articles of utility, such as knives, axes, tomma-hawks,
kettles blankets and mockersonalls [awls]. blue
beads however may form an exception to this remark; this
article among all the nations of this country may be justly
compared to goald or silver among civilized nations. They
are generally well cloathed in their stile. their dress consists
of a long shirt which reaches to the middle of [the] thye, long
legings which reach as high as the waist, mockersons and
robes. these are formed of various skins and are in all rispects
like those particularly discribed of the Shoshones. their
women also dress like the Shoshones. their ornaments consist
of beads shells and peices of brass variously attatched to their
dress, to their ears arr[u]ond their necks wrists arms &c. a
bando of some kind usually surrounds the head, this is most
frequently the skin of some fir animal as the fox otter &c. tho'
they have them also of dressed skin without the hair. the
ornament of the nose is a single shell of the wampum. the
pirl
[1]
and beads are suspended from the ears. beads are woarn
arround their wrists necks and over their sholders crosswise
in the form of a double sash. the hair of the men is cewed
[queued] in two rolls which hang on each side in front of the
body as before discribed of other inhabitants of the Columbia.
collars of bears claws are also common; but the article of dress
on which they appear to b[e]stow most pains and ornaments is
a kind of collar or brestplate; this is most commonly a strip
of otterskin of about six inches wide taken out of the center
of the skin it's whole length including the head. this is dressed
with the hair on; a hole is cut lengthwise through the skin
near the head of the animal sufficiently large to admit the head
of the person to pass. thus it is placed about the neck and
hangs in front of the body the tail frequently reaching below
their knees; on this skin in front is attatched peices of pirl,
beads, wampum peices of red cloth and in short whatever they
conceive most valuable or ornamental. I observed a tippit
woarn by Hohâstillpilp, which was formed of human scalps
and ornamented with the thumbs and fingers of several men
which he had slain in battle.
[2]
their women brade their hair
in two tresses which hang in the same position of those of the
men. they also wear a cap or cup on the head formed of
beargrass and cedarbark. the men also frequently attatch
some small ornament to a small plat of hair on the center of
the crown of their heads.
