The Journals of Lewis & Clark: Lewis, January 25, 1806

Updated May 14, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

Lewis, January 25, 1806

Sunday January 25th 1806. Commowooll and the Clatsops departed early this morning. At meridian Colter returned and repoted that his comrade hunter Willard had continued his hunt from point Adams towards the salt makers; and that they had killed only those two deer which the Indians brought yesterday. In the evening Collins one of the saltmakers returned and reported that they had mad about one bushel of salt & that himself and two others had hunted from the salt camp for five days without killing any thing and they had been obliged to subsist on some whale which they procured from the natives.

The native fruits and buries in uce among the Indians of this neighbourhood are a deep purple burry about the size of a small cherry called by them Shal-lun, a small pale red bury called Sol'-me; the vineing or low Crambury, a light brown bury reather larger and much the shape of the black haw; and a scarlet bury about the size of a small cherry the plant called by the Canadin Engages of the N. W. sac a commis produces this bury; this plant is so called from the circumstance of the Clerks of those trading companies carrying the leaves of this plant in a small bag for the purpose of smokeing of which they are excessively fond. the Indians call this bury ____

I have lately learned that the natives whome I have heretofore named as distinct nations, living on the sea coast S. E. of the Killamucks, are only bands of that numerous nation, which continues to extend itself much further on that coast than I have enumerated them, but of the particular appellations of those distant bands I have not yet been enabled to inform myself; their language also is somewhat different from the Clatsops Chinnooks and Cathlahmahs; but I have not yet obtaind a vocabulary which I shall do the first oportunity which offers.