First Across the Continent: The Story of the Exploring Expedition of Lewis and Clark in 1804-5-6Brooks, Noah
History
First Across the Continent: The Story of the Exploring Expedition of Lewis and Clark in 1804-5-6
Brooks, Noah
Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806); United States -- Discovery and exploration; West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
“Shortly after, the chiefs and warriors held a council among themselves,
to decide on an answer to our speech, and the result was, as we were
informed, that they had full confidence in what we had told them, and
were resolved to follow our advice. This determination having been made,
the principal chief, Tunnachemootoolt, took a quantity of flour of
the roots of cow-weed (cowas), and going round to all the kettles and
baskets in which his people were cooking, thickened the soup into a
kind of mush. He then began an harangue, setting forth the result of the
deliberations among the chiefs, and after exhorting them to unanimity,
concluded with an invitation to all who acquiesced in the proceedings
of the council to come and eat; while those who were of a different
mind were requested to show their dissent by not partaking of the feast.
During this animated harangue, the women, who were probably uneasy at
the prospect of forming this proposed new connection with strangers,
tore their hair, and wrung their hands with the greatest appearance of
distress. But the concluding appeal of the orator effectually stopped
the mouths of every malecontent, and the proceedings were ratified, and
the mush devoured with the most zealous unanimity.
“The chiefs and warriors then came in a body to visit us as we were
seated near our tent; and at their instance, two young men, one of whom
was a son of Tunnachemootoolt, and the other the youth whose father
had been killed by the Pahkees, presented to us each a fine horse. We
invited the chiefs to be seated, and gave every one of them a flag, a
pound of powder, and fifty balls, and a present of the same kind to the
young men from whom we had received the horses. They then invited us
into the tent, and said that they now wished to answer what we had
told them yesterday, but that many of their people were at that moment
waiting in great pain for our medical assistance.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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