Before finally selecting the spot on which to build their
winter quarters, Lewis and Clark held councils with the chiefs of the tribes who
were to be their neighbors during the cold season. These were Mandans,
Annahaways, and Minnetarees, tribes living peacefully in the same region of
country. The principal Mandan chief was Black Cat; White Buffalo Robe
Unfolded represented the Annahaways, and the Minnetaree chief was Black
Moccasin. This last-named chief could not come to the council, but was
represented by Caltahcota, or Cherry on a Bush. The palaver being over, presents
were distributed. The account says: -
“One chief of each town was
acknowledged by a gift of a flag, a medal with the
likeness of the President of the United States, a uniform
coat, hat and feather. To the second chiefs we
gave a medal representing some domestic animals and
a loom for weaving; to the third chiefs, medals with
the impressions of a farmer sowing grain. A variety
of other presents were distributed, but none seemed
to give them more satisfaction than an iron corn-mill
which we gave to the Mandans. . . .
“In the evening the prairie
took fire, either by accident or design, and burned
with great fury, the whole plain being enveloped in
flames. So rapid was its progress that a man
and a woman were burned to death before they could
reach a place of safety; another man, with his wife
and child, were much burned, and several other persons
narrowly escaped destruction. Among the rest,
a boy of the half white breed escaped unhurt in the
midst of the flames; his safety was ascribed to the
great medicine spirit, who had preserved him on account
of his being white. But a much more natural cause
was the presence of mind of his mother, who, seeing
no hopes of carrying off her son, threw him on the
ground, and, covering him with the fresh hide of a
buffalo, escaped herself from the flames. As
soon as the fire had passed, she returned and found
him untouched, the skin having prevented the flame
from reaching the grass on which he lay.”
Next day, says the journal, -
“We were visited by two persons
from the lower village: one, the Big White, the
chief of the village; the other, the Chayenne, called
the Big Man: they had been hunting, and did not
return yesterday early enough to attend the council.
At their request we repeated part of our speech of
yesterday, and put the medal round the neck of the
chief. Captain Clark took a pirogue and went
up the river in search of a good wintering-place,
and returned after going seven miles to the lower point
of an island on the north side, about one mile in length.
He found the banks on the north side high, with coal
occasionally, and the country fine on all sides; but
the want of wood, and the scarcity of game up the
river, induced us to decide on fixing ourselves lower
down during the winter. In the evening our men
danced among themselves, to the great amusement of
the Indians.”
It may be said here that the incident
of a life saved from fire by a raw-hide, originally
related by Lewis and Clark, is the foundation of a
great many similar stories of adventures among the
Indians. Usually, however, it is a wise and well-seasoned
white trapper who saves his life by this device.
Having found a good site for their
winter camp, the explorers now built a number of huts,
which they called Fort Mandan. The place was on
the north bank of the Missouri River, in what is now
McLean County, North Dakota, about sixteen hundred
miles up the river from St. Louis, and seven or eight
miles below the mouth of Big Knife River. On the
opposite bank, years later, the United States built
a military post known as Fort Clark, which may be
found on some of the present-day maps. The huts
were built of logs, and were arranged in two rows,
four rooms in each hut, the whole number being placed
in the form of an angle, with a stockade, or picket,
across the two outer ends of the angle, in which was
a gate, kept locked at night. The roofs of the
huts slanted upward from the inner side of the rows,
making the outer side of each hut eighteen feet high;
and the lofts of these were made warm and comfortable
with dry grass mixed with clay, Here they were continually
visited during the winter by Indians from all the
region around. Here, too, they secured the services
of an interpreter, one Chaboneau, who continued with
them to the end. This man’s wife, Sacajawea,
whose Indian name was translated “Bird Woman,”
had been captured from the Snake Indians and sold to
Chaboneau, who married her. She was “a good
creature, of a mild and gentle disposition, greatly
attached to the whites.” In the expedition
she proved herself more valuable to the explorers than
her husband, and Lewis and Clark always speak of her
in terms of respect and admiration.
It should not be understood that all
the interpreters employed by white men on such expeditions
wholly knew the spoken language of the tribes among
whom they travelled. To some extent they relied
upon the universal language of signs to make themselves
understood, and this method of talking is known to
all sorts and kinds of Indians. Thus, two fingers
of the right hand placed astraddle the wrist of the
left hand signifies a man on horseback; and the number
of men on horseback is quickly added by holding up
the requisite number of fingers. Sleep is described
by gently inclining the head on the hand, and the
number of “sleeps,” or nights, is indicated
by the fingers. Killed, or dead, is described
by closed eyes and a sudden fall of the head on the
talker’s chest; and so on, an easily understood
gesture, with a few Indian words, being sufficient
to tell a long story very clearly.
Lewis and Clark discovered here a
species of ermine before unknown to science.
They called it “a weasel, perfectly white except
at the extremity of the tail, which was black.”
This animal, highly prized on account of its pretty
fur, was not scientifically described until as late
as 1829. It is a species of stoat.
The wars of some of the Indian tribes
gave Lewis and Clark much trouble and uneasiness.
The Sioux were at war with the Minnetarees (Gros Ventres,
or Big Bellies); and the Assiniboins, who lived further
to the north, continually harassed the Sioux and the
Mandans, treating these as the latter did the Rickarees.
The white chiefs had their hands full all winter while
trying to preserve peace among these quarrelsome and
thieving tribes, their favorite game being to steal
each other’s horses. The Indian method
of caring for their horses in the cold winter was
to let them shift for themselves during the day, and
to take them into their own lodges at night where
they were fed with the juicy, brittle twigs of the
cottonwood tree. With this spare fodder the animals
thrive and keep their coats fine and glossy.
Late in November, a collision between
the Sioux and the Mandans became almost certain, in
consequence of the Sioux having attacked a small hunting
party of the Mandans, killing one, wounding two, and
capturing nine horses. Captain Clark mustered
and armed twenty-four of his men, crossed over into
the Mandan village and offered to lead the Indians
against their enemies. The offer was declined
on account of the deep snows which prevented a march;
but the incident made friends for white men, and the
tidings of it had a wholesome effect on the other tribes.
“The whole religion of the Mandans,”
like that of many other savage tribes, says the journal,
“consists in the belief of one Great Spirit
presiding over their destinies. This Being must
be in the nature of a good genius, since it is associated
with the healing art, and ’great spirit’
is synonymous with ‘great medicine,’ a
name applied to everything which they do not comprehend.
Each individual selects for himself the particular
object of his devotion, which is termed his medicine,
and is either some invisible being, or more commonly
some animal, which thenceforward becomes his protector
or his intercessor with the Great Spirit, to propitiate
whom every attention is lavished and every personal
consideration is sacrificed. ’I was lately
owner of seventeen horses,’ said a Mandan to
us one day, ’but I have offered them all up
to my medicine and am now poor.’ He had
in reality taken all his wealth, his horses, into
the plain, and, turning them loose, committed them
to the care of his medicine and abandoned them forever.
The horses, less religious, took care of themselves,
and the pious votary travelled home on foot.”
To this day, all the Northwest Indians
speak of anything that is highly useful or influential
as “great medicine.”
One cold December day, a Mandan chief invited the explorers
to join them in a grand buffalo hunt. The journal adds: -
“Captain Clark with fifteen
men went out and found the Indians engaged in killing
buffalo. The hunters, mounted on horseback and
armed with bows and arrows, encircle the herd and
gradually drive them into a plain or an open place
fit for the movements of horse; they then ride in among
them, and singling out a buffalo, a female being preferred,
go as close as possible and wound her with arrows
till they think they have given the mortal stroke;
when they pursue another, till the quiver is exhausted.
If, which rarely happens, the wounded buffalo attacks
the hunter, he evades his blow by the agility of his
horse, which is trained for the combat with great
dexterity. When they have killed the requisite
number they collect their game, and the squaws
and attendants come up from the rear and skin and
dress the animals. Captain Clark killed ten buffalo,
of which five only were brought to the fort; the rest,
which could not be conveyed home, being seized by
the Indians, among whom the custom is that whenever
a buffalo is found dead without an arrow or any particular
mark, he is the property of the finder; so that often
a hunter secures scarcely any of the game he kills,
if the arrow happens to fall off.”
The weather now became excessively
cold, the mercury often going thirty-two degrees below
zero. Notwithstanding this, however, the Indians
kept up their outdoor sports, one favorite game of
which resembled billiards. But instead of a table,
the players had an open flooring, about fifty yards
long, and the balls were rings of stone, shot along
the flooring by means of sticks like billiard-cues.
The white men had their sports, and they forbade the
Indians to visit them on Christmas Day, as this was
one of their “great medicine days.”
The American flag was hoisted on the fort and saluted
with a volley of musketry. The men danced among
themselves; their best provisions were brought out
and “the day passed,” says the journal,
“in great festivity.”
The party also celebrated New Years Day by similar
festivities. Sixteen of the men were given leave to go up to the first
Mandan village with their musical instruments, where they delighted the whole
tribe with their dances, one of the French voyageurs being especially applauded
when he danced on his hands with his head downwards. The dancers and
musicians were presented with several buffalo-robes and a large quantity of
Indian corn. The cold grew more intense, and on the tenth of the month the
mercury stood at forty degrees below zero. Some of the men were badly
frost-bitten, and a young Indian, about thirteen years old, who had been lost in
the snows, came into the fort. The journal says: -
“His father, who came last night
to inquire after him very anxiously, had sent him
in the afternoon to the fort; he was overtaken by the
night, and was obliged to sleep on the snow with no
covering except a pair of antelope-skin moccasins
and leggins, and a buffalo-robe. His feet
being frozen, we put them into cold water, and gave
him every attention in our power. About the same
time an Indian who had also been missing returned
to the fort. Although his dress was very thin,
and he had slept on the snow without a fire, he had
not suffered the slightest inconvenience. We
have indeed observed that these Indians support the
rigors of the season in a way which we had hitherto
thought impossible. A more pleasing reflection
occurred at seeing the warm interest which the situation
of these two persons had excited in the village.
The boy had been a prisoner, and adopted from charity;
yet the distress of the father proved that he felt
for him the tenderest affection. The man was
a person of no distinction, yet the whole village was
full of anxiety for his safety; and, when they came
to us, borrowed a sleigh to bring them home with ease
if they had survived, or to carry their bodies if
they had perished. . . .
“January 13. Nearly one
half of the Mandan nation passed down the river to
hunt for several days. In these excursions, men,
women, and children, with their dogs, all leave the
village together, and, after discovering a spot convenient
for the game, fix their tents; all the family bear
their part in the labor, and the game is equally divided
among the families of the tribe. When a single
hunter returns from the chase with more than is necessary
for his own immediate consumption, the neighbors are
entitled by custom to a share of it: they do not,
however, ask for it, but send a squaw, who, without
saying anything, sits down by the door of the lodge
till the master understands the hint, and gives her
gratuitously a part for her family.”
By the end of January, 1805, the weather
had so far moderated that the explorers thought they
might cut their boats from the ice in the river and
prepare to resume their voyage; but the ice being three
feet thick, they made no progress and were obliged
to give up the attempt. Their stock of meat was
low, although they had had good success when the cold
was not too severe to prevent them from hunting deer,
elk, and buffalo. The Mandans, who were careless
in providing food for future supplies, also suffered
for want of meat, sometimes going for days without
flesh food. Captain Clark and eighteen men went
down the river in search of game. The hunters,
after being out nine days, returned and reported that
they had killed forty deer, three buffalo, and sixteen
elk. But much of the game was lean and poor,
and the wolves, who devour everything left out at
night, had stolen a quantity of the flesh. Four
men, with sleds, were sent out to bring into camp
the meat, which had been secured against wolves by
being stored in pens. These men were attacked
by Sioux, about one hundred in number, who robbed
them of their game and two of their three horses.
Captain Lewis, with twenty-four men, accompanied by
some of the Mandans, set out in pursuit of the marauders.
They were unsuccessful, however, but, having found
a part of their game untouched, they brought it back,
and this, with other game killed after their chase
of the Sioux, gave them three thousand pounds of meat;
they had killed thirty-six deer, fourteen elk, and
one wolf.
By the latter part of February, the
party were able to get their boats from the ice.
These were dragged ashore, and the work of making them
ready for their next voyage was begun. As the
ice in the river began to break up, the Mandans had
great sport chasing across the floating cakes of ice
the buffalo who were tempted over by the appearance
of green, growing grass on the other side. The
Indians were very expert in their pursuit of the animals,
which finally slipped from their insecure footing
on the drifting ice, and were killed.
At this point, April 7, 1805, the
escorting party, the voyageurs, and one interpreter,
returned down the river in their barge. This party
consisted of thirteen persons, all told, and to them
were intrusted several packages of specimens for President
Jefferson, with letters and official reports.
The presents for Mr. Jefferson, according to the journal,
“consisted of a stuffed male and female antelope,
with their skeletons, a weasel, three squirrels from
the Rocky Mountains, the skeleton of a prairie wolf,
those of a white and gray hare, a male and female
blaireau, (badger) or burrowing dog of the prairie,
with a skeleton of the female, two burrowing squirrels,
a white weasel, and the skin of the louservia (loup-servier,
or lynx), the horns of a mountain ram, or big-horn,
a pair of large elk horns, the horns and tail of a
black-tailed deer, and a variety of skins, such as
those of the red fox, white hare, marten, yellow bear,
obtained from the Sioux; also a number of articles
of Indian dress, among which was a buffalo robe representing
a battle fought about eight years since between the
Sioux and Ricaras against the Mandans and Minnetarees,
in which the combatants are represented on horseback.
. . . Such sketches, rude and imperfect as they
are, delineate the predominant character of the savage
nations. If they are peaceable and inoffensive,
the drawings usually consist of local scenery and
their favorite diversions. If the band are rude
and ferocious, we observe tomahawks, scalping-knives,
bows and arrows, and all the engines of destruction. - A
Mandan bow, and quiver of arrows; also some Ricara
tobacco-seed, and an ear of Mandan corn: to these
were added a box of plants, another of insects, and
three cases containing a burrowing squirrel, a prairie
hen, and four magpies, all alive.” . . .
The articles reached Mr. Jefferson
safely and were long on view at his Virginia residence,
Monticello. They were subsequently dispersed,
and some found their way to Peale’s Museum,
Philadelphia. Dr. Cones, the zealous editor of
the latest and fullest edition of Lewis and Clark’s
narrative, says that some of the specimens of natural
history were probably extant in 1893.