Where We Live, How We Live

On January 8th, 1806, Captain William Clark wrote:

…I enquired of those people as well as I could by Signs the Situation, mode of liveing & Strength of their nation They informed me that the bulk of their nation lived in large villages Still further along the Sea coast to the S, S, W. at the enterence of 3 Creek which fell into a bay, and that other houses were Scattered about on the Coast, Bay and on a Small river which fell into the Bay in which they Cought Salmon, and from this Creek (which I call Kil a mox River) they crossed over to the Wappato I. on the Shock-ah-lil corn (which is the Indian name for the Columbia river) and purchased Wappato. that the nation was once verry large and that they had a great maney houses, In Salmon Season they Cought great numbers of that fish in the Small Creeks, when the Salmon was Scerce they found Sturgion and a variety of other fish thrown up by the waves and left by the tide which was verry fine, Elk was plenty in the mountains, but they Could not Kill maney of them with their arrows. The Kil â mox in their habits Customs manners dress & language differ but little from the Clatsops, Chinnooks and others in this neighbourhood are of the Same form of those of the Clatsops with a Dore at each end & two fire places i, e the house is double as long as wide and divided into 2 equal parts with a post in the middle Supporting the ridge pole, and in the middle of each of those divisions they make their fires, dores Small & houses Sunk 5 feet. (Clark, from Moulton V.6, 184)

Related pages:

Anticipating the Columbia from Nez Perce Country  |  Where We Live, How We Live
Learning about People of the Mid-Columbia Villages