Lewis: January 15, 1806

Thursday January 15th 1806. Had a large coat completed out of the skins of
the Tiger Cat and those also of a small animal about the size of a
squirrel not known to me; these skins I procured from the Indians who had
previously dressed them and formed them into robes; it took seven of these
robes to complete the coat. we had determined to send out two hunting
parties today but it rained so incessantly that we posponed it. no
occurrence worthy of relation took place today.

The implyments used by the Chinnooks Clatsops Cuthlahmahs &c in
hunting are the gun the bow & arrow, deadfalls, pitts, snares, and
spears or gigs; their guns are usually of an inferior quality being oald
refuse American & brittish Musquits which have been repared for this
trade. there are some very good peices among them, but they are invariably
in bad order; they apear not to have been long enouh accustomed to fire
arms to understand the management of them. they have no rifles. Their guns
and amunition they reserve for the Elk, deer and bear, of the two last
however there are but few in their neighbourhood. they keep their powder
in small japaned tin flasks which they obtain with their amunition from
the traders; when they happen to have no ball or shot, they substitute
gravel or peices of potmettal, and are insensible of the damage done
thereby to their guns. The bow and arrow is the most common instrument
among them, every man being furnished with them whether he has a gun or
not; this instrument is imployed indiscriminately in hunting every species
of anamal on which they subsist. Their bows are extreamly neat and very
elastic, they are about two and a half feet in length, and two inches in
width in the center, thence tapering graduly to the extremities where they
are half an inch wide they are very flat and thin, formed of the heart of
the arbor vita or white cedar, the back of the bow being thickly covered
with sinews of the Elk laid on with a gleue which they make from the
sturgeon; the string is made of sinues of the Elk also. the arrow is
formed of two parts usually tho sometime entire; those formed of two parts
are unequally divided that part on which the feathers are placed occupyes
four fifths of it’s length and is formed of light white pine reather
larger than a swan’s quill, in the lower extremity of this is a circular
mortice secured by sinues roled arround it; this mortice receives the one
end of the 2nd part which is of a smaller size than the first and about
five inches long, in the end of this the barb is fixed and confined with
sinue, this barb is either stone, iron or copper, if metal in this form
forming at it’s point a greater angle than those of any other Indians I
have observed. the shorter part of the arrow is of hearder wood as are
also the whole of the arrow when it is of one piece only. as these people
live in a country abounding in ponds lakes &c and frequently hunt in
their canoes and shoot at fowl and other anamals where the arrow missing
its object would be lost in the water they are constructed in the manner
just discribed in order to make them float should they fall in the water,
and consequently can again he recovered by the hunter; the quiver is
usually the skin of a young bear or that of a wolf invariably open at the
side in stead of the end as the quivers of other Indians generally are;
this construction appears to answer better for the canoe than if they were
open at the end only. maney of the Elk we have killed since we have been
here, have been wounded with these arrows, the short piece with the barb
remaining in the animal and grown up in the flesh.the deadfalls and
snares are employed in taking the wolf the raccoon and fox of which there
are a few only. the spear or gig is used to take the sea otter, the common
otter, spuck, and beaver. their gig consists of two points or barbs and
are the same in their construction as those discribed before as being
common among the Indians on the upper part of this river. their pits are
employed in taking the Elk, and of course are large and deep, some of them
a cube of 12 or 14 feet. these are usually placed by the side of a large
fallen tree which as well as the pit lye across the toads frequented by
the Elk. these pitts are disguised with the slender boughs of trees and
moss; the unwary Elk in passing the tree precipitates himself into the
pitt which is sufficiently deep to prevent his escape, and is thus taken.