Introduction
The Walla Walla (rendered variously in the journals as “Wallah wollah,” “Wallah wallah,” and “Wallahwallahs”) were a Sahaptian-speaking people whose villages lay along the lower Walla Walla River near its junction with the Columbia, in what is today southeastern Washington State. The Corps of Discovery first met them briefly during the descent of the Columbia in October 1805, but the substantive encounter — and the one most fully documented in the surviving journals — occurred during the return journey in late April 1806, when the expedition spent several days among them and forged a memorable relationship with their principal chief, Yelleppit. A final, brief reference in late May 1806 records that the expedition continued to think of a Walla Walla–related chief during the convalescence at Camp Chopunnish.
The journal record for the Walla Walla, while concentrated in just a few days, is unusually rich in detail about diplomacy, hospitality, fishing technology, and the exchange of horses and provisions. What follows draws strictly on the four entries provided.
First Reunion: April 27, 1806
On Sunday, April 27, 1806, Lewis recorded the moment the expedition was rejoined by Yelleppit, the principal chief of the Walla Wallas, whom they had met the previous autumn. After a fatiguing morning march of some twenty-four miles through a country of abrupt, rocky 300-foot hills and high plains, the captains halted short of the Walla Walla village to rest men and horses. Lewis writes:
while here the principal Cheif of the Wallahwallahs joined us with six men of his nation. this Cheif by name Yel-lept had visited us on the mor[ning] …
The encounter is framed by the Corps’ fatigue and short provisions — they had stopped to boil “a small quantity of our jerked meat” over a fire of weed-stalks and a shrub Lewis compared to southern wood. Into this lean moment walked Yelleppit with six of his men, a meeting that would soon transform the expedition’s prospects.
Hospitality and the River Crossing: April 29, 1806
Two days later, Clark’s entry of Tuesday, April 29, 1806, records the practical fruits of Walla Walla generosity. Yelleppit personally supplied canoes for the crossing of the Columbia:
This Morning Yelleppit furnished us with 2 Canoes, and We began to transport our baggage over the river; we also Sent a party of the men over to collect our horses. we purchased Some deer and chappellell this morning. we had now a Store of 12 dogs for our voyage through the plains.
The crossing was completed by 11 A.M., though the party was delayed several hours rounding up horses. Unable to reach water before nightfall, they camped on the Walla Walla River about a mile above its mouth, near a fish weir. Clark devoted considerable attention to describing this weir — a piece of ethnographic observation that stands as one of the journals’ most detailed accounts of Plateau fishing technology:
this weare Consists of two Curtains of Small willows wattled together with four lines of withes of the Same Materials extending quite across the river, parralal with each other and about 6 feet asunder. those are Supported by Several parrelals of poles placed in this manner those Curtains of willows is either roled at one end for a fiew feet to permit the fish to pass or are let down at pleasure.
The provisioning here — deer, the root-bread the captains called “chappellell,” and a stock of twelve dogs — was crucial to the journey ahead across the Columbia Plateau toward the Nez Perce country.
The Gift of the White Horse: April 30, 1806
Clark’s entry for Wednesday, April 30, 1806, contains the single most striking gesture of the Walla Walla encounter. Yelleppit had given Clark a white horse, and when it could not be found among the herd that morning, the chief himself rode out to look for it:
at 10 A.M. we had Collected all our horses except the White horse which Yelleppit the Great Chief had given me. the whole of the men haveing returned without being able to find this hors. I informed the chief and he mounted Capt Lewis’s horse and went in Serch of the horse himself.
The willingness of “the Great Chief” — Clark’s own honorific — to ride out personally on Lewis’s mount in pursuit of a gift-horse he had already given speaks to a personal warmth in the relationship. The same entry shows the expedition still trading actively in this neighborhood: “we purchased two other horses this morning and 4 dogs,” and one of their poorer horses was exchanged “for a very good one with the Choponnish man who has his family with him” — a Nez Perce traveler whose presence among the Walla Walla illustrates the multi-tribal character of the gathering. The party departed before Yelleppit’s return, leaving a single man behind to bring up Lewis’s horse when the chief came back.
This same April 30 entry also contains Clark’s account of menstrual seclusion practices among the traveling Nez Perce family — material associated with the Walla Walla camp setting but ethnographically describing the Chopunnish (Nez Perce), not the Walla Walla themselves.
An Echo at Camp Chopunnish: May 29, 1806
The final entry tagged to the Walla Walla in this dossier is Lewis’s of Thursday, May 29, 1806, recorded weeks later among the Nez Perce at Camp Chopunnish. The reference is oblique:
Bratton is recovering his strength very fast; the Child and the Indian Cheif are also on the recovery. the cheif has much more uce of his hands and arms. he washed his face himself today which he has been unable to do previously for more than twelvemonths.
The “Indian Cheif” being treated by sweat-bath therapy is generally understood by historians to be a paralyzed Nez Perce man rather than a Walla Walla; the connection to the Walla Walla file in this dossier is therefore tenuous and may reflect a tagging convention rather than a direct mention of the Walla Walla nation. The entry otherwise turns to Lewis’s natural-history description of the horned lizard. This source is included for completeness but should not be over-read as Walla Walla material.
What the Record Shows — and Doesn’t
From these four entries, several things stand out about the Walla Walla as the journals depict them:
- A diplomatic anchor on the Columbia. Yelleppit is named in three of the four entries and is repeatedly identified as the principal or “Great” chief. The relationship was personal enough that he sought out the Corps and rode out himself in search of a missing horse.
- Material generosity. Within roughly forty-eight hours the Walla Walla supplied canoes for crossing the Columbia, sold deer meat and “chappellell” bread, contributed to a store of twelve dogs for the plains crossing, and gifted at least one horse outright.
- A multi-tribal crossroads. The Walla Walla camp on the lower Walla Walla River hosted Nez Perce (Chopunnish) travelers as well, and the expedition transacted with both peoples simultaneously.
- An ethnographic glimpse. Clark’s description of the willow-curtain fish weir is detailed and technical, suggesting close observation during the brief stay.
What the record does not contain, in this dossier, is anything approaching a full ethnography of the Walla Walla — no population estimates, no detailed account of language, dress, or governance beyond Yelleppit’s standing as principal chief, and no description of the Walla Walla villages themselves (the captains halted short of the village on April 27). The Walla Walla appear in the journals largely through the lens of a single, hospitality-rich passage on the homeward leg, anchored by the figure of Yelleppit.
Conclusion
In the surviving journal record, the Walla Walla emerge as one of the most openly generous nations the Corps of Discovery encountered. Yelleppit’s canoes, his gift of a white horse, and his personal search for that horse form a small cluster of incidents — all between April 27 and April 30, 1806 — that the captains plainly valued. The sources are sparse but vivid: four entries, two narrators (Lewis and Clark), and a portrait drawn in fish weirs, exchanged horses, and a chief who rode out himself rather than send another.
