This Repast Gave Them
Much Satisfaction; For, Though They Sometimes Kill The Black Bear,
They Attack Very Reluctantly The Fierce Variegated Bear;
And Never Except When They Can Pursue Him On Horseback Over
The Plains, And Shoot Him With Arrows."
Chapter XXII
Camping with the Nez Perces
Soon after they had fixed their camp, the explorers bade farewell
to their good friend Tunnachemootoolt and his young men,
who returned to their homes farther down the river.
Others of the Nez Perce, or Chopunnish, nation visited them,
and the strangers were interested in watching the Indians
preparing for their hunt. As they were to hunt the deer,
they had the head, horns, and hide of that animal so prepared
that when it was placed on the head and body of a hunter,
it gave a very deceptive idea of a deer; the hunter could move
the head of the decoy so that it looked like a deer feeding,
and the suspicious animals were lured within range of the Indians'
bow and arrow.
On the sixteenth of May, Hohastillpilp and his young men also
left the white men's camp and returned to their own village.
The hunters of the party did not meet with much luck in their
quest for game, only one deer and a few pheasants being
brought in for several days. The party were fed on roots
and herbs, a species of onion being much prized by them.
Bad weather confined them to their camp, and a common entry
in their journal refers to their having slept all night in a pool
of water formed by the falling rain; their tent-cover was a
worn-out leathern affair no longer capable of shedding the rain.
While it rained in the meadows where they were camped,
they could see the snow covering the higher plains above them;
on those plains the snow was more than a foot deep, and yet
the plants and shrubs seemed to thrive in the midst of the snow.
On the mountains the snow was several feet in depth.
The journalist says: "So that within twenty miles of our camp
we observe the rigors of winter cold, the cool air of spring,
and the oppressive heat of midsummer." They kept a shrewd lookout
for the possibilities of future occupation of the land by white men;
and, writing here of country and its character, the journalist says:
"In short, this district affords many advantages to settlers,
and if properly cultivated, would yield every object
necessary for the comfort and subsistence of civilized man."
But in their wildest dreams, Captains Lewis and Clark could not
have foreseen that in that identical region thrifty settlements
of white men should flourish and that the time would come when
the scanty remnant of the Chopunnish, whom we now call Nez Perces,
would be gathered on a reservation near their camping-place.
But both of these things have come to pass.
In describing the dress of the Chopunnish, or Nez Perces,
the journal says that tippets, or collars, were worn by the men.
"That of Hohastillpilp," says the journal, "was formed of human
scalps and adorned with the thumbs and fingers of several men
slain by him in battle." And yet the journal immediately adds:
"The Chopunnish are among the most amiable men we have seen.
Their character is placid and gentle, rarely moved to passion,
yet not often enlivened by gayety." In short, the Indians
were amiable savages; and it is a savage trait to love to
destroy one's enemies.
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