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Updated: May 15, 2025
"The rain continued through the night, November 23, and the morning was calm and cloudy. The hunters were sent out, and killed three deer, four brant, and three ducks. Towards evening seven Clatsops came over in a canoe, with two skins of the sea-otter.
We had heard instances of pilfering while we were among them, and therefore gave a general order excluding them from our encampment, so that whenever an Indian wished to visit us, he began by calling out 'No Chinook. It is not improbable that this first impression may have left a prejudice against them, since, when we were among the Clatsops and other tribes at the mouth of the Columbia, they had less opportunity of stealing, if they were so disposed."
The four tribes nearest to Astoria, and with whom the traders had most intercourse, were, as has heretofore been observed, the Chinooks, the Clatsops, the Wahkiacums, and the Cathlamets.
The Killamucks in their habits customs manners dress and language differ but little from the Clatsops & Chinnooks. they place their dead in canoes resting on the ground uncovered, having previously secured the dead bodies in an oblong box of plank.
The Clatsops Chinnooks &c. in fishing employ the common streight net, the scooping or diping net with a long handle, the gig, and the hook and line. the common net is of different lengths and debths usually employed in taking the sammon, Carr and trout in the inlets among the marshey grounds and the mouths of deep creeks. the skiming or scooping net to take small fish in the spring and summer season; the gig and hook are employed indiscriminately at all seasons in taking such fish as they can procure by their means. their nets and fishing lines are made of the silk-grass or white cedar bark; and their hooks are generally of European manufactary, tho before the whites visited them they made hooks of bone and other substances formed in the following manner A C, and C. B. are two small pieces of bone about the size of a strong twine, these are flattened and leveled off of their extremities near C. where they are firmly attatched together with sinues and covered with rosin.
It may appear Somewhat incrediable, but So it is that the Elk which was killed last evening was eaten except about 8 pounds, which I directed to be taken along with the Skin, I proceded up the South fork of the Creek about 2 miles and crossed on a pine tree which had been fallen by the Saltmakers on their first going out, on this tree we crossed the deepest of the water and waded on the opposit Side for 30 yards, from thence to the ocian 3/4 of a mile through a Continuation of open ridgey Prarie, here the Coast is Sandy, we proceeded on the Sandy beech nearly South for 3 miles to the mouth of butifull river with bold and rapid Current of 85 yards wide and 3 feet deep in the Shallowest place, a Short distance up this river on the N E Side is the remains of an old village of Clatsops.
We were visited today by two Clatsop women and two boys who brought a parsel of excellent hats made of Cedar bark and ornamented with beargrass. two of these hats had been made by measures which Capt Clark and myself had given one of the women some time since with a request to make each of us a hat; they fit us very well, and are in the form we desired them. we purchased all their hats and distributed them among the party. the woodwork and sculpture of these people as well as these hats and their waterproof baskets evince an ingenuity by no means common among the Aborigenes of America. in the evening they returned to their village and Drewyer accompanied them in their canoe in order to get the dogs which the Clatsops have agreed to give us in payment for the Elk they stole from us some weeks since. these women informed us that the small fish began to run which we suppose to be herring from their discription. they also informed us that their Chief, Coma or Comowooll, had gone up the Columbia to the valley in order to purchase wappetoe, a part of which he in tended trading with us on his return. one of our canoes brake the cord by which it was attatched and was going off with the tide this evening; we sent Sergt.
In language, habits, and in almost every other particular, they resemble the Clatsops, Cathlamahs, and, indeed, all the people near the mouth of the Columbia, though they appeared to be inferior to their neighbors in honesty as well as spirit.
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.
The party that was Sent up the Netul river for the Elk returned this evening with three of them only; The Elk had been killed just before the Snow fell which had Covered them and So altered the apparant face of the Countrey that the hunters Could not find them. The River on which Fort Clat Sop Stands we now call Netul, this being the name by which the Clatsops Call it.
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