Bill Speiden's Weekly Articles
Lewis and Clark This Week | January 3, 2005 | Back
By Bill Speiden, Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center
Article 5 of the series
The Corps brought with them grain grinders as gifts to the Indians. When one of the village chiefs was given a grain grinder by the Corps, it was promptly broken up to make iron weapons and hoes. Either he didn’t understand the technological advantages, the old ways are hard to hard to change, or perhaps the Indians just had other priorities.
With the fort construction and holiday season in back of them, the Corps set its sights on existing in the cold Northern Missouri valley. Whenever weather conditions permitted, hunting and processing of meat, by both the Corps and the Indians, became the main activity.
By now the reader must have noticed the rather errant spelling of the members of the Corps in their journals. Though men of great intelligence and resourcefulness, they had little formal education. Captain Clark in the journals, for example, spelt Sioux at least 20 different ways, but never Sioux. E.g. Sou, Sue, Seoux, Souis, etc.
The word Sioux is a twisted French pejorative meaning "little snake" or "treacherous snake" derived from the feelings the French had against the Indians as a result of their wars against each other. The "Sioux" are really a number of tribes speaking languages with a similar root; but living as far apart as Virginia, Minnesota and west into Montana. There was no formal organization of Sioux tribes, as such. The Lakota, with seven sub-tribes (or "council fires"), were all Siouan speaking. Of the hundreds of Indian tribes on this continent, the Corps of Discovery mentioned in their journals some 50-plus groups of Indians they came across.
In an effort to attract the buffalo to their hunting range, the Mandans had a "curious Custom" as described in the journal below.
January 3, 1805: "…8 men go to hunt the buffalow, killed a hare & wolf Several Indians visit us to day…" Captain Clark
January 4: "…Our officers sent out the hunters, they all returned but 3 who remained out all night, The hunters that returned had killed one small buffalo, which they bought to the Fort. In the evening the weather grew very cold…" Private Whitehouse
January 5: "…a Buffalow Dance for 3 nights… in the…Village, a curious Custom…the old men arrange themselves in a circle & after Smoke a pipe…the young men who have their wives back of the circle…go to one of the old men [and ask]…the old man to take his wife (who presents [herself] necked except a robe)…[she] leades him to a Convenient place for the business, after which they return to the lodge…(we sent a man to this Medisan Dance last night, they gave him 4 Girls) all this is to cause the buffalow to Come near So that they may kill them." Captain Clark
January 7: "…Several Indians returned from hunting, one of them them Big White Chef of the lower Mandan Village, dined with us, and gave me a Scetch of the Countrey as far as the high mountains [such sessions with the Indians, trappers and traders was very helpful to Clark to plan and make maps] …the three men returned from hunting, they kill’d 4 deer & 2 wolves, Saw Buffalow a long ways off…" Captain Clark
January 9: "…blustery and exceeding cold a number of the Savages out hunting the Buffalo & came in towards evening with their horses loaded with meat…[appears the "Buffalow Dance" worked!]." Sergeant Ordway
Next week the weather turns colder. We will see frostbitten hunters. Also there are potential misunderstandings with the Indians. Some of the personnel of the North West Company (the Canadian fur trapping and trading company), seeing the Corps as a possible economic threat, bad-mouth the Corps to the Indians.