[Clark:]
Saturday 10th of May 1806
This morning the snow continued falling untill 1/2 past 6
A M when it seased. the air keen and cold the snow 8 inches
deep on the plain. we collected our horses and after takeing a
scanty brackfast of roots, we set out for the village of the Chief
with a flag, and proceeded on through an open plain. the road
was slipry and the snow cloged and caused the horses to trip
very frequently. the mud at heads of the streams which we
passed was deep and well supplied with the Carmash. Drewyer
turned off the road to hunt near the river to our lef[t] and did
not join us to day. at 4 P M we arrived at the village of
Tin nach e moo toolt the Chief whome We had left a flag. this
flag was hoisted on a pole unde[r] the flag the Chief met me
and conducted me to a spot near a small run about 80 paces
from his Lodges where he requested me to halt which I did.
Soon after Cap Lewis who was in the rear came up and we
smoked with and told this Chief our situation in respect to
provisions. they brought forward about 2 bushels of quawmash
4 cakes of bread made of roots and a dried fish. we
informed the Chief that our party was not accustomed to eate
roots without flesh & proposed to exchange some of our oald
horses for young ones to eate. they said that they would not
exchange horses, but would furnish us with such as we wished,
and produced 2 one of which we killed and informd. them that
we did not wish to kill the other at this time. We gave
medals to the broken arm or Tin-nach-e-moo-tolt and Hoh-hâst-ill-pilp
two principal Chiefs of the Chopunnish Nation and was
informed that there was one other Great Chief (in all 4) who
had but one eye. he would be here tomorrow. a large Lodge
of Leather was pitched and Capt. Lewis and my self was envited
into it. we entered and the Chief and principal men came into
the lodge and formed a circle a parcel of wood was collected
and laid at the dore and a fire made in this conic lodge before
we entered it. the Chief requested that we might make the
Lodge our homes while we remained with him. here after
we had taken a repast on roots & horse beef we resumed our
council with the indians which together with smokeing took
up the ballance of the evening. I was supprised to find
decending the hill to
Commearp Creek to find that there had
been no snow in the bottoms of that stream. it seams that
the snow melted in falling and decended here in rain while it
snowed in the plain. the hills are about Eight hundred feet
high about 1/4 of which distance the snow had decended and
still lay on the sides of the hill. as those people had been liberal
I directed the men not to crowd their Lodges in serch of food
the manner hunger has compelled them to do, at most lodges
we have passed, and which the
Twisted Hair had informed us
was disagreeable to the nativs. but their previous want of
hospitality had enduced us to consult their enclinations but
little and suffer our men to obtain provisions from them on
the best terms they could.
The Village of the broken Arm consists of one house or
Lodge only which is 150 feet in length built in the usial form
of sticks, Mats and dry grass. it contains 24 fires and about
double that number of families. from appearance I prosume
they could raise 100 fighting men. the noise of their women
pounding the cows roots remind me of a nail factory. The
Indians appear well pleased, and I am confident that they are
not more so than our men who have their stomach once more
well filled with horse beef and the bread of cows. Those
people has shewn much greater acts of hospitallity 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 diserves the appelation of hospitallity
which we have witnessed in this quarter.
