University of Virginia Library

[Lewis:]

Saturday (Friday) January 24th. 1806.

Drewyer and Baptiest La Paage returned this morning in a
large Canoe with Comowooll and six Clatsops. they brought
two deer and the flesh of three Elk & one Elk's skin, having
given the flesh of one other Elk which they killed and three
Elk's skins to the Indians as the price of their assistance in
transporting the ballance of the meat to the Fort; these Elk
and deer were killed near point Adams and the Indians carryed
them on their backs about six miles, before the waves were
sufficiently low to permit their being taken on board their
canoes. the Indians remained with us all day.[5] The Indians
witnissed Drewyer's shooting some of those Elk, which has
given them a very exalted opinion of us as marksmen and the

superior excellence of our rifles compared with their guns;
this may probably be of service to us, as it will deter them from
any acts of hostility if they have ever meditated any such. My
Air-gun also astonishes them very much; they cannot comprehend
it's shooting so often and without powder; and think
that it is great medicine which comprehends every thing that is
to them incomprehensible.
I observe no difference between the liquorice of this country
and that common to many parts of the United states where it is
also sometimes cultivated in our gardens. this plant delights
in a deep loose sandy soil; here it grows very abundant and
large; the natives roast it in the embers and pound it slightly
with a small stick in order to make it seperate more readily
from the strong liggament which forms the center of the root;
this the natives discard and chew and swallow the ballance of
the root; this last is filled with a number of thin membrenacious
lamela [like net work], too tough to be masticated and which I
find it necessary also to discard. this root when roasted
possesses an agreeable flavour not unlike the sweet pittaitoe.
beside the small celindric root mentioned on the 20th. inst, they
have also another about the same form size and appearance
which they use much with the train oil, this root is usually
boiled; to me it possesses a disagreeable bitterness. the top
of this plant I have never yet seen.[6] The root of the thistle
after undergoing the prossess of sweating or baking in a kiln is
sometimes eaten with the train oil also, and at other time
pounded fine and mixed with could water untill reduced to the
consistency of sagamity[7] or indian mush; in this way I think
it very agreeable. but the most valuable of all their roots is
foreign to this neighbourhood I mean the Wappetoe, or the
bulb of the Sagitifolia or common arrow head, which grows in
great abundance in the marshey grounds of that beatifully and
firtile valley on the Columbia commencing just above the
entrance of Quicksand River, and extending downwards for
about 70 Miles. this bulb forms a principal article of traffic

Heads of Clatsop Indians, by Clark—an old man, a young man,
and a woman; and a child in process of having
its head flattened.

between the inhabitants of the valley and those of this neighbourhood
or sea coast.

The instrument used by the natives in diging their roots is a
strong stick of 3 1/2 feet long sharpened at the lower end and
it's upper inscerted into a part of an Elks or buck's horn
which serves as a handle, standing transversely with the stick
or it is in this form [ILLUSTRATION] A the lower point, B the
upper part or handle.