The Journals
of Lewis and Clark: Dates January 6, 1806 - January 8, 1806
The following
excerpts are taken from entries of the Journals of Lewis
and Clark. Dates: January 6, 1806 - January 8, 1806
January 6, 1806
Monday 6, after an early breakfast set out with twelve men
in two canoes. He proceeded down the Netul into Meriwether
bay, intending to go to the Clatsop town, and there procure
a guide through the creeks, which there was reason to believe
communicated not only with the bay, but with a small river
running towards the sea, near where our saltmakers were
encamped. Before however he could reach the Clatsop village,
the high wind from the northwest compelled him to put into
a small creek. He therefore resolved to attempt the passage
without a guide, and proceeded up the creek three miles,
to some high open land where he found a road. He therefore
left the canoes, and followed the path over three deep marshes
to a pond about a mile long, and two hundred yards wide.
He kept on the left of this pond, and at length came to
the creek which he had crossed on a raft, when he had visited
Cuscalah's village on the ninth of December. He proceeded
down it, till he found a small canoe, fit to hold three
persons, in which the whole party crossed the creek. Here
they saw a herd of elk, and the men were divided into small
parties, and hunted them till after dark, when they met
again at the forks of the river. Three of the elk were wounded,
but night prevented their taking more than one, which was
brought to the camp, and cooked with some sticks of pine
which had drifted down the creeks. The weather was beautiful,
the sky clear, the moon shone brightly, a circumstance the
more agreeable as this is the first fair evening we have
enjoyed for two months.
A party, headed by captain Clarke, go in quest of a whale
driven on the shore of the Pacific to obtain some of the
oil--they pass Clatsop river, which is described--the perilous
nature of this jaunt, and the grandeur of the scenery described--Indian
mode of extracting whale oil--the life of one of captain
Clarke's party preserved by the kindness of an Indian woman--a
short account of the Chinnooks, of the Clatsops, Killamucks,
the Lucktons, and an enumeration of several other tribes--the
manner of sepulchre among the Chinnooks, Clatsops, &c.--description
of their weapons of war and hunting--their mode of building
houses--their manufactures, and cookery--their mode of making
canoes--their great dexterity in managing that vehicle.
January 7, 1806
Tuesday, 7. There was a frost this morning. We rose
early, and taking eight pounds of flesh, which were all
the remains of the elk, proceeded up the south fork of the
creek. At the distance of two miles we found a pine tree,
which had been felled by one of our saltmakers, and on which
we crossed the deepest part of the creek, and waded through
the rest. We then went over an open ridgy prairie, three
quarters of a mile, to the seabeach; after following which
for three miles, we came to the mouth of a beautiful river,
with a bold, rapid current, eighty-five yards wide, and
three feet deep, in its shallowest crossings. On its northeast
side are the remains of an old village of Clatsops, inhabited
by only a single family, who appeared miserably poor and
dirty. We gave a man two fish-hooks, to ferry the party
over the river, which, from the tribe on its banks, we called
Clatsop river. The creek, which we had passed on a tree,
approaches this river within about an hundred yards, and
by means of a portage, supplies a communication with the
villages near Point Adams. After going on for two miles,
we found the saltmakers encamped near four houses of Clatsops
and Killamucks, who, though poor, dirty, and covered with
fleas, seemed kind and well disposed. We persuaded a young
Indian, by a present of a file, and a promise of some other
articles, to guide us to the spot where the whale lay. He
led us for two and a half miles over the round slippery
stones at the foot of a high hill projecting into the sea,
and then suddenly stopping, and uttering the word peshack
or bad, explained by signs that we could no longer follow
the coast, but must cross the mountain. This promised to
be a most laborious undertaking, for the side is nearly
perpendicular, and the top lost in clouds. He, however,
followed an Indian path which would along as much as possible,
but still the ascent was so steep, that at one place we
drew ourselves for about an hundred feet by means of bushes
and roots. At length, after two hours labor, we reached
the top of the mountain, where we looked down with astonishment
on the prodigious height of ten or twelve hundred feet,
which we had ascended. Immediately below us, in the face
of this precipice, is a stratum of white earth, used, as
our guide informed us, as a paint by the neighboring Indians.
It obviously contains argile, and resembles the earth of
which the French porcelaine is made, though whether it contains
silex or magnesia, or in what proportions, we could not
observe. We were here met by fourteen Indians, loaded with
oil and blubber, the spoils of the whale, which they were
carrying in very heavyburdens, over this rough mountain.
On leaving them, we proceeded over a bad road till night,
when we encamped on a small run: we were all much fatigued,
but the weather was pleasant, and, for the first time since
our arrival here, an entire day has passed without rain.
In the morning,
January 8, 1806
Wednesday, 8, we set out early and proceeded to the
top of the mountain, the highest point of which is an open
spot facing the ocean. It is situated about thirty miles
southeast of cape Disappointment, and projects nearly two
and a half miles into the sea. Here one of the most delightful
views in nature presents itself. Immediately in front is
the ocean, which breaks with fury on the coast, from the
rocks of cape Disappointment as far as the eye can discern
to the northwest, and against the highlands and irregular
piles of rock which diversify the shore to the southeast.
To this boisterous scene, the Columbia, with its tributary
waters, widening into bays as it approaches the ocean, and
studded on both sides with the Chinnook and Clatsop villages,
forms a charming contrast; while immediately beneath our
feet, are stretched the rich prairies, enlivened by three
beautiful streams, which conduct the eye to small lakes
at the foot of the hills. We stopped to enjoy the romantic
view from this place, which we distinguished by the name
of Clarke's Point of View, and then followed our guide down
the mountain. The descent was steep and dangerous: in many
places the hill sides, which are formed principally of yellow
clay, has been washed by the late rains, and is now slipping
into the sea, in large masses of fifty and an hundred acres.
In other parts, the path crosses the rugged perpendicular
rocks which overhang the sea, into which a false step would
have precipitated us. The mountains are covered with a very
thick growth of timber, chiefly pine and fir; some of which,
near Clarke's Point of View, perfectly sound and solid,
rise to the height of two hundred and ten feet, and are
from eight to twelve in diameter. Intermixed is the white
cedar, or arbor vitę, anda small quantity of black alder,
two or three feet thick, and sixty or seventy in height.
At length we reached a single house, the remains of an old
Killamuck village, situated among some rocks, in a bay immediately
on the coast. We then continued for two miles along the
sand beach; and after crossing a creek, eighty yards in
width, near which are five cabins, reached the place where
the waves had thrown the whale on shore. The animal had
been placed between two Killamuck villages, and such had
been their industry, that there now remained nothing more
than the skeleton, which we found to be one hundred and
five feet in length. Captain Clarke then returned to the
village of five huts, on the creek, to which he gave the
name of Ecola, or Whale creek.
The
natives were all busied in boiling the blubber, in a large
square trough of wood, by means of heated stones, and preserving
the oil, thus extracted, in bladders and the entrails of
the whale. The refuse of the blubber, which still contained
a portion of oil, are hung up in large flitches, and when
wanted for use, are warmed on a wooden spit before the fire,
and eaten either alone, or dipped in oil, or with roots
of the rush and shanataque. These Killamucks, though they
had great quantities, parted with it reluctantly, and at
such high prices, that our whole stock of merchandise was
exhausted in the purchase of about three hundred pounds
of blubber, and a few gallons of oil. With these we set
out to return; and having crossed Ecola creek, encamped
on its bank, where there was abundance of fine timber. We
were soon joined by the men of the village, with whom we
smoked, and who gave us all the information they possessed,
relative to their country. These Killamucks are part of
a much larger nation of the same name, and they now reside
chiefly in four villages, each at the entrance of a creek,
all of which fall into a bay on the southwest coast; that
at which we now are, being the most northern, and at the
distance of about forty-five miles southeast of Point Adams.
The rest of the nation are scatteredalong the coast, and
on the banks of a river, which, as we found it in their
delineations, we called Killamuck's river, emptying itself
in the same direction. During the salmon season they catch
great quantities of that fish, in the small creeks, and
when they fail; their chief resource was the sturgeon and
other fish stranded along the coast. The elk were very numerous
in the mountains, but they could not procure many of them
with their arrows; and their principal communication with
strangers, was by means of the Killamuck river, up which
they passed to the Shocatilcum (or Columbia) to trade for
wappatoo roots. In their dress, appearance, and indeed every
circumstance of life, they differ very little from the Chinnooks,
Clatsops, and other nations in the neighborhood. The chief
variation we have observed is in the manner of burying the
dead; the bodies being secured in an oblong box of plank,
which is placed in an open canoe, lying on the ground, with
a paddle, and other small articles of the deceased by his
side.
Whilst smoking with the Indians, captain Clarke was surprised
about ten o'clock by a loud shrill outcry from the opposite
village; on hearing which, all the Indians immediately started
up to cross the creek, and the guide informed him that some
one had been killed. On examination, one of the men was
discovered to be absent, and a guard dispatched, who met
him crossing the creek in great haste. An Indian belonging
to another band, and who happened to be with the Killamucks
that evening, had treated him with much kindness, and walked
arm in arm with him to a tent where our man found a Chinnook
squaw, who was an old acquaintance. From the conversation
and manner of the stranger, this woman discovered that his
object was to murder the white man, for the sake of the
few articles on his person, and when he rose, and pressed
our man to go to another tent where they would find something
better to eat, she held McNeal by the blanket; not knowing
her object, he freed himself from her, and was going on
with his pretended friend, when she ran out and gave the
shriek which brought the men of the village over, and the
stranger ran off before McNeal knew what had occasioned
the alarm.
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