Lewis and Clark Describe the Indians of the Columbia River
The tribes of the Columbia Valley lived upon fish, bread-roots, and game. Food was abundant at certain seasons, but there were times of scarcity even in this favored area. Whatever provisions they had were shared freely with each other, with guests, and with strangers. Lewis and Clarke, in 1804-1806, visited in their celebrated expedition the tribes of the Missouri and of the Valley of the Columbia. They experienced the same generous hospitality whenever the Indians possessed any food to offer, and their account is the first we have at all special of these numerous tribes. Frequent references are made to their hospitality. The Nez Perces "set before them a small piece of buffalo meat, some dried salmon, berries, and several kinds of roots. Among these last is one which is round and much like an onion in appearance and sweet to the taste. It is called quamash, and is eaten either in its natural state or boiled into a kind of soup or made into a cake, which is then called pasheco. After the long abstinence, this was a sumptuous treat; and we returned the kindness of the people by a few small presents, and then went on in company with one of the chiefs to a second village, in the same plain at a distance of two miles. Here the party was treated with great kindness and passed the night." [Footnote: Travels, etc., p. 330.]
Of another tribe they remark, "As we approached the village most of the women, though apprised of our being expected, fled with their children into the neighboring woods. The men, however, received us without any apprehension, and gave us a plentiful supply of provisions. The plains were now crowded with Indians who came to see the persons of the whites, and the strange things they brought with them; but as our guide was perfectly a stranger to their language we could converse by signs only." [Footnote: Travels, etc., p. 334.]
The Indians of the Columbia, unlike the tribes previously named, boiled their food in wooden vessels, or in ground cavities lined with skins, by means of heated stones. They were ignorant of pottery. "On entering one of their houses he [Captain Clarke] found it crowded with men, women, and children, who immediately provided a mat for him to sit on, and one of the party undertook to prepare something to eat. He began by bringing in a piece of pine wood that had drifted down the river, which he split into small pieces with a wedge made of the elk's horn by means of a mallet of stone curiously carved. The pieces were then laid on the fire, and several round stones placed upon them. One of the squaws now brought a bucket of water, in which was a large salmon about half dried, and as the stones became heated they were put into the bucket till the salmon was sufficiently boiled for use. It was then taken out, put on a platter of rushes neatly made, and laid before Captain Clarke, and another was boiled for each of his men." [Footnote: Travels, p. 353.]
One or two additional cases of which a large number are mentioned by these authors will sufficiently illustrate the practice of hospitality of these tribes and its universality. They went to a village of seven houses of the Chilluckittequaw tube and to the house of the chief. "He received us kindly," they remark, "and set before us pounded fish, filberts, nuts, the berries of the sacacommis, and white bread made of roots…. The village is a part of the same nation with the village we passed above, the language of the two being the same, and their houses of similar form and materials, and calculated to contain about thirty souls. The inhabitants were unusually hospitable and good humored." [Footnote: Travels, etc., p. 375-376.]
While among the Shoshones, and before arriving at the Columbia they "reached an Indian lodge of brush inhabited by seven families of the Shoshones. They behaved with great civility, and gave the whole party as much boiled salmon as they could eat, and added a present of several dried salmon and a considerable quantity of chokechinies;" [Footnote: ib. p. 288.] and Captain Lewis remarks of the same people, that "an Indian invited him into his bower, and gave him a small morsel of boiled antelope, and a piece of fresh salmon roasted. This was the first salmon he had seen, and perfectly satisfied him that he was now on the waters of the Pacific." [Footnote: ib. p. 268.]
Thus far among the tribes we find a literal repetition of the rule of hospitality as practiced by the Iroquois. Mr. Dall, speaking of the Aleuts, says, "hospitality was one of their prominent traits," [Footnote: On the Remains of Later Prehistoric Man, Alaska Ter. Smithsonian Cont., No. 318, p. 3. Travels, etc., Phila. ed., 1796, p. 171.] and Powers, of the Pomo Indians of California remarks, that "they would always divide the last morsel of dried salmon with genuine savage thriftlessness," and of the Mi-oal'-a-wa-gun, that, "like all California Indians they are very hospitable." [Footnote: Powell's Contributions to North American Ethnology, Power's Tribes of California, vol. iii. p. 153.]
