University of Virginia Library

[Lewis:]

Thursday (Wednesday) January 15th. 1806.

Had a large coat completed out of the skins of the Tiger
Cat and those also of a small animal about the size of a squirrel
not known to me; these skins I procured from the Indians
who had previously dressed them and formed them into robes;
it took seven of these robes to complete the coat. we had
determined to send out two hunting parties today but it rained
so incessantly that we posponed it. no occurrence worthy of
relation took place today.

The implyments used by the Chinnooks Clatsops Cuthlahmahs
&c in hunting are the gun the bow & arrow, deadfalls,
pitts, snares, and spears or gigs; their guns are usually of an
inferior quality being oald refuse American & brittish Musquits
which have been repared for this trade. there are some
very good peices among them. but they are invariably in bad
order; they apear not to have been long enou[g]h accustomed
to fire arms to understand the management of them, they
have no rifles. Their guns and amunition they reserve for
the Elk, deer and bear, of the two last however there are but
few in their neighbourhood. they keep their powder in small
japaned tin flasks which they obtain with their amunition from
the traders; when they happen to have no ball or shot, they
substitute gravel or peices of potmettal, and are insensible of
the damage done thereby to their guns. The bow and arrow
is the most common instrument among them, every man being
furnished with them whether he has a gun or not; this instrument
is employed indiscriminately in hunting every species of
anamal on which they subsist. Their bows are extreamly neat
and very elastic, they are about two and a half feet in length,
and two inches in width in the center, thence tapering graduly
to the extremities where they are half an inch wide they are
very flat and thin, formed of the heart of the arbor-vita or
white cedar, the back of the bow being thickly covered with
sinews of the Elk laid on with a Gleue which they make from
the sturgeon; the string is made of sinues of the Elk also.
the arrow is formed of two parts usually tho' sometimes entire;
those formed of two parts are unequally divided that part on
which the feathers are placed occupyes four fifths of it's length

and is formed of light white pine reather larger than a swan's
quill, the lower extremity of this is a circular mortice secured
by sinues roled around it; this mortice receives the one end
of the 2nd. part which is of a smaller size than the first and
about five inches long, in the end of this the barb is fixed and
confined with sinue, this barb is either stone, iron or copper,
if metal in this form [ILLUSTRATION] forming at it's point a greater
angle than those of any other Indians I have observed.
the shorter part of the arrow is of harder
wood as are also the whole of the arrow when it is of one piece
only. as these people live in a country abounding in ponds
lakes &c and frequently hunt in their canoes and shoot at fowl
and other anamals where the arrow missing its object would be
lost in the water they are constructed in the manner just discribed
in order to make them float should they fall in the
water, and consequently can again be recovered by the hunter;
the quiver is usually the skin of a young bear or that of a
wolf invariably open at the side in stead of the end as the
quivers of other Indians generally are; this construction appears
to answer better for the canoe than if they were open at
the end only. maney of the Elk we have killed since we have
been here, have been wounded with these arrows, the short
piece with the barb remaining in the animal and grown up in
the flesh. the deadfalls and snares are employed in taking the
wolf the raccoon and fox of which there are a few only. the
spear or gig is used to take the sea otter, the common otter,
spuck, and beaver. their gig consists of two points or barbs
and are the same in their construction as those discribed before
as being common among the Indians on the upper part of. this
river. their pits are employed in taking the Elk, and of
course are large and deep, some of them a cube of 12 or 14
feet. these are usually placed by the side of a large fallen tree
which as well as the pit lye across the roads frequented by the
Elk. these pitts are disguised with the slender boughs of
trees and moss; the unwary Elk in passing the tree precipiates
himself into the pitt which is sufficiently deep to prevent his
escape, and is thus taken.