"Fortunately, There Was Among These Wollwaollahs A Prisoner Belonging
To A Tribe Of Shoshonee Or Snake Indians, Residing To The
South of
the Multnomah and visiting occasionally the heads of Wollawollah Creek.
Our Shoshonee woman, Sacajawea, though she belonged to
A tribe near
the Missouri, spoke the same language as this prisoner; by their means
we were able to explain ourselves to the Indians, and answer all their
inquiries with respect to ourselves and the object of our journey.
Our conversation inspired them with much confidence, and they soon
brought several sick persons, for whom they requested our assistance.
We splintered [splinted] the broken arm of one, gave some relief
to another, whose knee was contracted by rheumatism, and administered
what we thought beneficial for ulcers and eruptions of the skin on
various parts of the body which are very common disorders among them.
But our most valuable medicine was eye-water, which we distributed,
and which, indeed, they required very much.
"A little before sunset the Chimnapoos, amounting to one hundred men
and a few women, came to the village, and, joining the Wollawollahs,
who were about the same number of men, formed themselves in a circle
round our camp, and waited very patiently till our men were
disposed to dance, which they did for about an hour, to the music
of the violin. They then requested the Indians to dance.
With this they readily complied; and the whole assemblage,
amounting, with the women and children of the village,
to several hundred, stood up, and sang and danced at the same time.
The exercise was not, indeed, very violent nor very graceful;
for the greater part of them were formed into a solid column,
round a kind of hollow square, stood on the same place,
and merely jumped up at intervals, to keep time to the music.
Some, however, of the more active warriors entered the square and
danced round it sideways, and some of our men joined in with them,
to the great satisfaction of the Indians.
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