Our camp is by observation in latitude 41° 3′ 11″.[1] Immediately behind it is a plain about five miles wide, one half covered with wood, the other dry and elevated. The low grounds on the south near the junction of the two rivers are rich but subject to be overflowed. Farther up the banks are higher and opposite our camp the first hills approach the river, and are covered with timber such as oak, walnut and elm. The immediate country is watered by the Papillon (Butterfly) Creek, of about 18 yards wide and three miles from the Platte; on the north are high open plains and prairies and at nine miles from the Platte the Moscheto Creek and two or three small willow islands. We stayed here several days during which we dried our provisions, made new oars, and prepared our despatches and maps of the country we passed for the President of the United States to whom we intend to send them by a pirogue from this place. The hunters have found game scarce in this neighborhood; they have seen deer, turkeys and grouse; we have also an abundance of ripe grapes, and one of our men caught a white catfish, the eyes of which were small and its tail resembling that of a dolphin. The present season is that in which the Indians go out into the prairies to hunt the buffalo; but as we discovered some hunters’ tracks, and observed the plains on fire in the direction of their villages, we hoped that they might have returned to gather the green Indian corn, and therefore despatched two men to the Pawnee villages with a present of tobacco and an invitation to the chief to visit us. They returned in two days. Their first course was through an open prairie to the south. They then reached a small beautiful river called the Elkhorn or Corne de Ceri. (These natural features have brush names in some instances.) About 100 yards wide with clear water and a gravelly channel. It empties a little below the Pawnee village into the Platte which they crossed and came to the village, about forty-five miles from our camp. They found no Indians though there were fresh tracks of a small party. The Ottoes were once a powerful nation and live about 20 miles above the Platte on the south bank of the Missouri. Being reduced they migrated to the neighborhood of the Pawnees under whose protection they now live. Their village is on the south side of the Platte about 30 miles from its mouth; and their number is 200 including about 30 families of Missouri Indians who are incorporated with them.
Five leagues above them on the same side of the river, resides the nation of Pawnees. This people were among the most numerous of the Missouri Indians, but have been gradually broken and dispersed and even within the past ten years have undergone some sensible changes. They now consist of four bands; the first of about 500 men, to whom of late years have been added a second band called the Republican Pawnees from their having lived on the Republican branch of the River Kanzas—they amount to nearly 250 men. The third are the Pawnees Loups or Wolf Pawnees, who live on the Wolf fork of the Platte, about 90 miles from the principal village and number 280 men. The fourth band originally resided on the Kanzas and Arkansaw but in their wars with the Osages they were so often defeated that they at last retired to their present home on the Red River where they form a tribe of 400 men. All these tribes live in villages and subsist chiefly on corn; but during the intervals of farming rove the plains in quest of buffalo.
Beyond them on the river and westward of the Black Mountains are the Kaninaviesch consisting of about 400 men. They are supposed to have been originally Pawnees—but they have degenerated and now no longer live in villages but rove the plains. Still farther to the westward are several tribes who wander and hunt to the sources of the River Platte and thence to Rock Mountain. Of these tribes little is known more than the names and the numbers, as first the Straitan or Kite Indians, a small tribe of one hundred men. They have acquired the name of Kites from their flying; that is their being always on horseback; and the smallness of their numbers is to be attributed to their extreme ferocity; they are the most warlike of all the western Indians; they never yield in battle; they never spare their enemies; and the retaliation of this barbarity has almost extinguished the nation. Then come the Wetapahato and Kiowa tribes associated together and amounting to two hundred men; the Castahana of three hundred men, to which are to be added the Cataka, seventy-five men, and the Dotami. These wandering tribes are conjectured to be the remnants of the great Padouca nation who occupied the country between the upper parts of the River Platte and the River Kanzas. They were visited by Bourgemont in 1724, and then lived on the Kanzas River. The Seats which he described as their residences are now occupied by the Kanzas nation; and of the Padoucas there does not now exist even the name.
It being vital to the success of further progress to hold council with the Indians messengers were sent with presents and a few days afterwards: in the afternoon the party arrived with the Indians consisting of Little Thief and Big Horse, together with six other chiefs and a French interpreter. We met them under a shade and after they had finished a repast we supplied them we inquired into the origin of the late war between their tribe and the Mahas, which they related with great frankness. * * * The evening was closed by a dance; and the next day the chiefs and warriors being assembled at ten o’clock we explained the speech we had already sent from the Council Bluffs[2] and renewed its advices. They all replied in turn and the presents were then distributed. We gave large medals to Big Horse and Little Thief, and a small medal to a third chief. We also gave a kind of certificate or letter of acknowledgment to five of the warriors expressive of our favor and their good intentions. One of them dissatisfied returned us the certificate, but the chief fearful of our being offended begged it might be restored to him; this we declined and rebuked them severely for having in view mere traffic instead of peace with their neighbors. This displeased them at first, but at length all petitioned that it should be given to the warrior who came forward and made an apology. We then handed it to the chief to be given to the most worthy among them and he bestowed it on the same warrior whose name was Great Blue Eyes. After a more substantial present of small articles and tobacco the council was ended with a dram to the Indians. In the evening we exhibited different objects of curiosity and particularly the air-gun which gave them great surprise. Those people are almost naked, having no covering except a sort of breech cloth around the middle with a loose blanket or buffalo-robe painted, thrown over them. This delegation was from the Missouris and Ottoes who speak very nearly the same language. They all begged us to give them whiskey.
The next morning the Indians mounted their horses and received from us a canister of whiskey at parting. We then set sail and after passing two islands on the north came to one on that side under some bluffs. Here we had the misfortune to lose one of our sergeants Charles Floyd.[3] He was yesterday seized with a bilious colic, and all our care and attention could not save him. A little before his death he said to Captain Clark “I am going to leave you”; and he died with a composure which justified the high opinion we had formed of his firmness and good conduct. He was buried on the top of a bluff with the honors due to a brave soldier, and the place of his interment marked by a cedar post on which we put his name and the date of his death. We named this place after him and also a small river about a mile to the north where we encamped.
We shortly after passed the mouth of the great Sioux River—this river comes in from the north and is about one hundred and ten yards wide. M. Durion our Sioux interpreter says that it is navigable upwards of two hundred miles to the falls and even beyond them. That below the falls a creek falls in from the Eastward after passing through cliffs of red rock. Of this the Indians make their pipes: and the necessity of procuring them has introduced a sort of law of nations, by which the banks of the creek are sacred, so that even tribes at war meet at these quarries without hostility. Thus we find even among savages certain things held sacred which mitigate the rigours of their merciless warfare.
A few days following we had a violent storm of wind and rain in the evening and had to repair our pirogues the next day. At four o’clock Sergeant Pryor and his men came back with five chiefs of the Sioux and about seventy warriors and boys. Sergeant Pryor reported that on reaching their village twelve miles from our camp he was met by a party with a buffalo-robe on which they desired to carry their visitors: an honour which they declined informing the Indians that they were not the commanders of the party. As a mark of respect they were then presented with a fat dog, already cooked of which they partook heartily and found it well flavored. The camps of the Sioux are of a conical form covered with buffalo-robes painted with various figures and colours, with an aperture in the top for the smoke to pass through. The lodges contain from ten to fifteen persons and the interior arrangement is compact and handsome, each lodge having a place for cooking detached from it. The next day we prepared a speech and some presents and then sent for the chiefs and warriors whom we received under a large oak-tree near to which the flag of the United States was flying. Captain Lewis delivered the speech and we gave to the grand chief a flag, a medal, and a certificate, to which we added a chief’s coat; that is a richly-laced uniform of the United States Artillery Corps, and a cocked hat and red feather. A second chief and three inferior ones were given medals and a present of tobacco and articles of clothing. We then smoked the pipe of peace, and the chiefs retired to a bower formed of bushes by their young men, where they divided the presents among each other and ate and smoked and held a council on their answer to us to-morrow. The young people exercised their bows and arrows in shooting at marks for beads as prizes; and in the evening the whole party danced until a late hour. In the course of their amusement we threw among them some knives, tobacco, bells, tape and binding with which they were much pleased. Their musical instruments were the drum, and a sort of little bag made of buffalo-hide dressed white with small shot or pebbles in it and a bunch of hair tied to it for a handle. This produces a sort of rattling music with which the party was annoyed by four musicians during the council this morning.
These Indians are the Yanktons a tribe of the great nation of the Sioux. They are stout and well proportioned and have a certain air of dignity and boldness. They are very fond of decorations and use paint freely and porcupine quills and feathers. Some of them wear necklaces of brass chains three inches long and close strung. They have only a few fowling-pieces among them. What struck us most was an institution peculiar to them and to the Kite Indians—from whom it is copied we were told. This is an association of the bravest and most active young men who are bound to each other by attachment and secured by a vow never to retreat before danger or give way to their enemies. In war they go forward openly and without any effort at shelter. This determination became heroic—or ridiculous—a short time since when these young Yanktons were crossing the Missouri on the ice. A hole lay immediately in their course but the leader went straight ahead and was drowned. Others would have followed but were forcibly stopped by the rest of them. These young men sit and encamp and dance apart from the rest; their seats in council are superior to those even of the chiefs and their persons more respected. But their boldness diminishes their numbers; so that the band is now reduced to four warriors who were among our visitors.