[Lewis:]
Saturday February 1st. 1806.
This morning a party of four men set out with Joseph
Fields; Sergt. Gass with a party of five men again set out up
the Netul river in surch of the Elk which had been killed
some days since, and which could not be found in consequence
of the snow. The Canoes of the natives inhabiting the lower
portion of the Columbia River make their canoes remarkably
neat light and well addapted for riding high waves. I have
seen the natives near the coast riding waves in these canoes
with safety and apparently without concern where I should
have thought it impossible for any vessel of the same size to
[have] lived a minute. they are built of whitecedar or Arborvita
generally, but sometimes of the firr. they are cut out of
a solid stick of timber, the gunwals at the upper edge foald
over outwards and are about 5/8 of an inch thick and 4 or five
broad, and stand horrizontally forming a kind of rim to the
canoe to prevent the water beating into it. they are all furnished
with more or less crossbars in proportion to the size
of the canoe. these bars are round sticks about half the size
of a man's arm, which are incerted through holes made in
either side of the canoe just below the rim of the gunwall and
are further secured with strings of waytape; these crossbars
serve to lift and manage the canoe on land. when the natives
land they invariably take their canoes on shore, unless they
are heavily laden, and then even, if they remain all night, they
discharge their loads and take the canoes on shore. some of
the large canoes are upwards of 50 feet long and will carry
from 8 to 10 thousand lb
s. or from 20 to thirty persons and
some of them particularly on the sea coast are waxed painted
and ornimented with curious images at bough and Stern;
those images sometimes rise to the hight of five feet; the
pedestals on which these immages are fixed are sometimes cut
out of the solid stick with the canoe, and the imagary is formed
of seperate small peices of timber firmly united with tenants
[tenons] and mo[r]tices without the assistance of a single
spike of any kind. when the natives are engaged in navigating
their canoes one sets in the stern and steers with a paddle
the others set by pears and paddle over the gunwall next them,
they all kneel in the bottom of the canoe and set on their
feet. their paddles are of a uniform shape of which this is
an imitation
[ILLUSTRATION] these paddles are made very
thin and the middle of the blade is thick and
hollowed out siddonly and made thin at the
sides while [the] center forms a kind of rib. the blade occupys
about one third of the length of the paddle which is usually
from 4 1/2 to 5 feet. I have observed four forms of canoe[s]
only in uce among the nations below the grand chatarac of this
river they are as follow. this is the smallest size
about 15 feet long and
[ILLUSTRATION] calculated for one or
two persons, and are most common among the
Cathlahmahs and Wâck-ki-a-cums among the marshey Islands.
[ILLUSTRATION] A the bow; B, the stern; these are
from twenty to thirty five feet and from
two 1/2 to 3 feet in the beam and about
2 feet in the hole; this canoe is common
to all the nations below the grand rappids. it is here
made deeper and shorter in proportion than they really are.
the bowsprit from C, to D is brought to a sharp edge tapering
gradually from the sides.
[ILLUSTRATION] This is the most common form of the
canoe in uce among the Indians from
the Chil-luck-kit-te-quaw inclusive to
the Ocean and is usually about 30 or
35 feet long, and will carry from ten to twelve persons. 4.
men are competent to carry them a considerable distance say a
mile without resting. A is the end which they use as the bow,
but which on first sight I took to be the stern C. D. is a
comb cut [out] of the sollid stick with the canoe and projects
from the center of the end of the canoe being about 1 inch
thirck it's sides parallel and edge at C D. sharp. it is from
9 to 11 Inches in length and extends from the underpart of
the bowsprit at A to the bottom of the canoe at D. the stern
B. is mearly rounding and graduly ascending. 1.2.3. represents
the rim of the gunwalls about 4 Inches wide, reather
ascending as they recede from the canoe. 4.5.6.7.8. are the
round holes through which the cross bars are inserted.
This form of canoe we did [ILLUSTRATION]
not meet with untill we reached
tidewater or below the grand
rappids. from thence down it
is common to all the nations
but more particularly the Killamucks
and others of the coast.
these are the largest canoes. B. is the bow and comb. C. the
stern and comb. their immages are representations of a great
variety of grostesque figures, any of which might be safely worshiped
without committing a breach of the commandments.
They have but few axes among them, and the only tool
usually imployed in felling the trees or forming the canoe,
carving &c is a chissel formed of an old file about an Inch or
an Inch and a half broad. this chissel has sometimes a large
block of wood for a handle; they grasp the chissel just b[e]low
the block with the right hand holding the edge down while
with the left they take hold of the top of the block and strike
backhanded against the wood with the edge of the chissel. a
person would suppose that the forming of a large canoe with
an instrument like this was the work of several years; but
these people make them in a few weeks. they prize their
canoes very highly; we have been anxious to obtain some of
them, for our journey up the river but have not been able to
obtain one as yet from the natives in this neighbourhood.
today we opened and examined all our ammunition, which had
been secured in leaden canesters. we found twenty seven of
the best rifle powder, 4 of common rifle, th[r]ee of glaized
and one of the musqu[e]t powder in good order, perfectly as
dry as when first put in the canesters, altho' the whole of it
from various accedents has been for hours under the water.
these cannesters contain four lb
s. of powder each and 8 of lead.
had it not have been for that happy expedient which I devised
of securing the powder by means of the lead, we should not
have had a single charge of powder at this time. three of the
canesters which had been accedentally bruized and cracked,
one [of] which was carelessly stoped, and a fifth that had been
penetrated with a nail, were a little dammaged; these we gave
to the men to make dry; however exclusive of those five we
have an abundant stock to last us back; and we always take
care to put a proportion of it in each canoe, to the end that
should one can[o]e or more be lost we should still not be
entirely bereft of ammunition, which is now our only hope for
subsistence and defence in a rout of 4000 Miles through a
country exclusively inhabited by savages.
