August 30, 1804, the council at Calumet Bluff. Three published journals in this corpus record the day: Clark, Gass, and Whitehouse. Lewis left no journal of his own here; he appears as an actor in the other three pens. Gass is a sergeant, Whitehouse a private, Clark a captain.
Council under an oak
Whitehouse and Clark both open with fog. Whitehouse: “the fog is so thick on the river this morning that we could not See across the river, untill late in the morning.” Clark: “a verry thick fog this morning”. Gass does not mention fog. He begins at the crossing: “nine o’clock the Indians came over the river.” Whitehouse has the same hour: “about g oClock the Indians was brought across the river in our pearogue”. Clark names the ferryman and the ground: “we sent Mr. Dorion in a Perogue for the Cheifs and Warriers to a Council under an Oak Tree near where we had a flag flying on a high flagstaff”.
Gass condenses the council into one sentence: “they all sat in council. Captain Lewis and Captain Clarke made five of them chiefs, and gave them some small presents.” Whitehouse adds procedure: the captains “counseled with them read a Speech to them, & made 5 of them chiefs & Gave them all Some Marchandize”; the visitors “received them verry thankfully divided them out among themselves”. Clark times the meeting at noon and ranks the five:
at 12 oClock we met and Cap. L. Delivered the Speach & then made one great Chief by giving him a Meadel & Some Cloathes, one 2d Chief & three Third Chiefs in the same way, they recd those things with the goods and tobacco with pleasure.
To the grand chief, Clark alone records, went “a Flag and the parole [certificate] & Wampom with a hat & Chiefs Coat”. Then “We Smoked out of the pipe of peace”, and the chiefs retired “to a Bourey made of bushes by their young men to Divide their presents and Smoke eate and Council”. Clark and Lewis “retired to dinner and consult about other measures.” Before the council, Gass’s four musicians “went backwards and forwards, through and round our camp, singing and making a noise”; neither Clark nor Whitehouse keeps that circuit.
The air gun, the drum, the dance
Whitehouse keeps two episodes the others pass over: men playing “their juze harps” while the boys “Shot with their Bows and arrows for Beeds”, and Lewis’s air-gun demonstration:
Cap! Lewis Shot his air gun told them that their was medician in hir & that She would doe Great execution, they were all amazed at the curiosity, & as Soon as he had Shot a fiew times they all ran hastily to See the Ball holes in the tree they Shouted aloud at the Site of the execution She would doe
Neither Gass nor Clark mentions the gun.
Gass and Whitehouse both give the night’s dancing their longest passages; Clark does not describe the dance. Gass focuses on instruments and counts. “At dark Captain Lewis gave them a grained deer skin to stretch over a half keg for a drum.” The rattles are “little bags of undressed skins dried, with beads or small pebbles in them.” “Ten or twelve acted as musicians, while twenty or thirty young men and boys engaged in the dance, which was continued during the night.” He closes: “No Squaws made their appearance among this party.”
Whitehouse records what the dance looked like. A fire, “a drum was repaired among them”, young men painted — “Some with their faces all white others with their faces part white round their forehead, & breasts” — then:
they would dance around the fire for Some time and then houp, & then rest a fiew minutes. one of the warrirs would git up in the centre with his arms & point towards the different nations, & make a Speech, telling what he had done, how many he had killed & how many horses he had Stole.
He reads that as war honors: “all this make them Great men & fine warrirs, the larger rogues [are] the best men & or the Bravest men & them that kills most gets the greatest honoured among them.” “Rogues” carries his disapproval. Gass’s printed counts do not attempt that reading.
Three registers, one evening
Clark writes oak, flagstaff, Dorion, a noon speech, ranked chiefs, medals, wampum, a pipe, a bower, dinner. Gass writes a nine o’clock crossing, four singers, five chiefs, a half-keg drum, twelve musicians, thirty dancers, no women. Whitehouse keeps merchandise divided, juze harps, boys shooting for beads, ball holes in a tree, white paint, and a warrior pointing at other nations. None of the three is a copy of the others.
