Lemhi Valley, preparing to cross Bitterroots — Joseph Whitehouse: August 27, 1805

BEAUTIFUL pleasant morning. we hoisted our
large flag. Cap! Lewis Gave the head chief a flag also
the 2[nd] chief one they hoisted them on the levil
near their lodges. Cap! Lewis then began to trade with the
natives for horses, after paying off the women who helped us
over the divideing mount M! Sharbono bought one horse for
ared cloak. the natives brought up Several horses for trade.
2 hunters went out this morning to hunt with horses. the
natives caught a nomber of fine Trout which would weigh ab!
8 pound Some call them Salmon Trout. others call them real
Salmon, but they are not So redas the large Salmon. the Indian
women are mostly employed gethering a kind of Small black
Seed not So large as buck wheat, which they dry and pound or
rub between 2 Stone[s] and make a Sort of meal of it they
also dry cherries and Servis berryes & roots &c &c. for food.
they kill but fiew Deer or any wild game except when they go
down on the missourie after the buffalow. the country in
general is barron broken and mountainious. an Indian came
in with a horse load of Deer meat, which our hunters kill? our
hunters all returned towards evening had killed 4 Deer & 8 or
10 fine Salmon which they had killed with a wooden gig.
Cap! Lewis has bought 7 or 8 horses this day for a little of
different kinds of Marchandize &c, but they Seem loth to part
with any more without asking more for them. Some of them
play away whatever they git for their horses, at a game nearly
like playing butten only they keep Singing all the while and
do all by motions. more or less play at this game & loose or
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win more or less they care not always appear Still peaceable
and contented, poor as they be. in the evening they had a
war dance. their women Sang with them they danced verry
well, but no So regular as those on the Missourie they tell us
that Some of their horses will dance but I have not Seen them
yet.