Honorable People

In the following entries we see Lewis paying tribute to a very different characteristic of the Indian people, quite contrary to his observations in the previous passage.

On May 1st, 1806, Meriwether Lewis wrote:

some time after we had encamped three young men arrived from the Wallahwollah village bringing with them a steel trap belonging to one of our party which had been negligently left behind; this is an act of integrity rarely witnessed among Indians. During our stay with them they several times found the knives of the men which had bee carelessly lossed by them and returned them. I think we can justly affirm to the honor of these people that they are the most hospitable, honesty, and sincere people that we have met with in our voyage. (Lewis, from Moulton V.7, 196-7)

On May 7th, 1806. Meriwether Lewis wrote:

a man of this lodge produced two canisters of powder which he informed us he had found by means of his dog where they had been buried in a bottom near the river some miles above, they were the same which we had buryed as we decended the river last fall. As he had kept them safe and had honesty enough to return them to us we gave him a fire steel by way of compensation. (Lewis, from Moulton V.7, 220)

Clark’s View of the Nez Perces | Stolen Firewood | Gifts from a Chief
Without Knocking | Finders Keepers? | Honorable People