THE AMAZING TALE OF A MAN ALONE TRAVERSING this rugged country in winter has made for many a campfire story, from Colter’s time to the present. Living for months from a pack weighing thirty pounds is in itself a feat. Colter, as a hunter and scout, knew that survival depended on mobility—the ability to carry everything necessary for procuring sustenance and shelter, and nothing more. The Corps of Discovery had learned a hard lesson when it had to cache or abandon tons of supplies along with the heavy keelboat and pirogues that carried it all upriver. In the end, the men had survived on what they could haul on their backs.
The problem of oversupply was not new. A generation earlier, Baron von Steuben, while training the Continental Army during the American Revolution, had urged the need for packing light. He frowned upon excess that slowed the march. So he issued a regulation: “It is expected, that for the future each officer will curtail his baggage as much as possible.”1
Excess baggage continued to plague later frontiersmen. Expeditions often had to cache supplies in the ground, and they were frequently pilfered by native people or wolves, or ruined by seepage. Packing light was essential for individuals as well as expeditions. Ideally, one made do with items from nature, such as a piece of bark for a plate. After a heartbreaking abandonment of all her possessions during a passage through the mountains, Narcissa Whitman, a missionary to the Cayuse nation, wrote, “It would have been better for me not to have attempted to bring any baggage whatever, only what was necessary to use on the way. . . . The custom of the country is to possess nothing, and then you will lose nothing while traveling.”2
Colter had learned the lesson well while fording icy rivers and traversing rugged mountains. The best way to determine an absolute necessity is to have to carry it on your back. Unneeded items are quickly discarded. Years of daily packing up and hiking out had forced him to define and redefine his load to perfection.
His clothing, like his pack, became tailored to the demands of the wilderness. Typical of the era and location, frontiersmen wore pants and shirts of linen, to be replaced by buckskin as clothes wore out and supplies of cloth became distant. A hunting shirt was the norm, with a shoulder cape to repel rain and snow, and fringe to wick moisture away. The length reached toward the knees. A wide leather belt and buckle held the shirt tight to the waist.3
Colter’s moccasins likely followed the Crow pattern—similar to that of the Shoshone and Mandan. Each was fashioned from a single piece of deer or elk leather, or of bison hide in winter, with the hair turned inward for greater warmth. A single seam ran along the outside sole. This was a variation from the eastern woodland style with the seam on top, or the two-piece shoe of upper and sole found elsewhere on the plains.4
A second scrap of tough bison hide could be sewn to the bottom of the moccasin to fend against rocks and thorns. Meriwether Lewis complained of prickly pears that “pierce a double thickness of dressed deer’s skin with ease.” One night, he noted that William Clark “extracted seventeen of these briars from his feet this evening after he encamped by the light of the fire.”5
Colter and the other men of the Corps suffered similarly and became adept at repairing and replacing moccasins and clothing. Rufus Sage declared that moccasin repair “is a business in which every mountaineer is necessarily a proficient, and rarely will he venture upon a long journey without the appurtenances of his profession.” Randolph Marcy, an army officer and expert on frontier survival, added that “one of the most indispensable articles to the outfit of the prairie traveler is buckskin. . . . The awl and buckskin will be found in constant requisition.”6 Marcy also noted the advantage of native footwear, especially in frigid cold and deep snow where “moccasins are preferable to boots or shoes, as being more pliable, and allowing a freer circulation of the blood.”7
For the upper body, a hooded capote—a watch-coat fashioned from a wool trade blanket—would have protected Colter from subzero weather. The same material, or pieces of fur, provided for gaiters that kept snow and slush out of moccasins and off the lower legs. Wool and fur were also used to make mittens and caps.
In addition to the clothing he wore and the thirty-pound pack on his back, Colter kept items of greatest urgency close at hand. In the arid western lands, a canteen remained by his side to be refilled at every chance. It might have been sewn from leather or made of gourd or gut in Indian fashion. Or perhaps he carried military issue—a metal container or a canteen of wood with staves like a barrel. Later frontiersmen fashioned makeshift water containers from buffalo paunches, deerskins, beaver pelts, and powder horns.8
Water was the precious commodity—the most basic of basic necessities. Its abundance or absence offered the quickest path to either life or death. Of all the hardships of hunger, pain, bitter cold, and brutal heat that frontiersmen endured, they complained that thirst was the worst. They had to know how to find scattered sources and how to carry and ration water while crossing the dry expanses.
Those who survived on the plains knew to watch for certain signs. Marcy noted that of the “many indications of water known to old campaigners . . . the most certain of them are deep green cottonwood or willow trees.” With this in mind, at a distant glance one could locate a water source, whether on the surface or just beneath the sand.9 Once underground water was found, a hole was dug as much as several feet deep to reach it.
The method of water procurement depended on the seasons. In winter, a tomahawk could be used to break river ice to reach water. Or snow could be melted in a hat or other makeshift container by dropping in rocks heated in a campfire.10
If Colter followed the example of his friends, the Crow, he seized every opportunity to drink all the water he could hold. The Crow believed water provided more than basic sustenance and held medicinal value as well. “Water is your body,” a Crow proverb said. But it also was sacred—essential to mind and spirit. The best start to every morning, they believed, was a baptismal bath in a stream.11
Modern vanity demands that Indians, frontiersmen, and premodern people in general must have been relatively brutish and lacking in proper hygiene. But the opposite was often true. Western travelers took advantage of every watering hole. Upon finding one, they usually took a long drink followed by a bath or a swim.
The bath was often a cold one taken in a snowmelt stream, unless a man was fortunate enough to happen upon a thermal spring. If the water there was too hot, he simply moved farther downriver to a cooler place. Frontiersmen learned this technique by observing the indigenous people.
Warren Ferris recalled the Hot Springs in Pierre’s Hole: “We passed in our route a well known hot spring, which bursts out from the prairie . . . and flows several hundred yards into Wisdom River.” The water is scalding at the source, but cools as it descends. “The Indians have made a succession of little dams, from the upper end to the river; and one finds baths of every temperature, from boiling hot, to that of the river, which is too cold for bathing, at any season. Our Indians were almost constantly in one or other of these baths during our stay near the springs.”12
Ferris added, “The Indians rise at day light invariably, when all go down to the stream they may happen to be encamped on, wash their hands and faces, and comb their long hair with their fingers. . . . Bathing is one of their favorite amusements, and when near a suitable place, if the weather be fair, some of them may at any time be seen in the water.” Other observers said Indian children swam “like ducks.”
Alfred Jacob Miller noted that native people are “remarkably fond” of swimming and bathing. “They bathe at every opportunity” and “make every effort to live cleanly.” Various frontiersmen commented on the cleanliness of specific tribes with which they had contact, including the Crow, Flathead, Blackfoot, Mandan, and Oglala Sioux. Nor did winter weather deter them. Mountain man James Clyman said of the Crow Indians: “Many of them take a bath every morning, even when the hoar frost was flying thick in the air and it was necessary to cut holes in the ice to get at the water.” Others witnessed the same.13
Another means of cleanliness and health involved the use of the sweat lodge. Thomas Leforge, who lived among the Crow, explained that a sweat was a means of “purifying our minds as well as our bodies.” For this purpose, a wigwam or barrel-vault lodge was erected about six feet long with a tight covering of skins. Hot rocks were placed within and water poured over them to produce the steam. Some frontiersmen claimed that this form of treatment helped them overcome serious illnesses.14
Indians also had a reputation for keeping their clothing clean. Many used a specific white clay as a laundry soap to cleanse and whiten the dressed skins they wore.15 Cleanliness of body and clothing was important for Native Americans because hygiene meant survival.
US Army routine also urged attention to health and cleanliness, and Lewis and Clark had insisted that the men of the Corps adhere to military standards. Evidence suggests that they followed the guidelines laid out by Baron von Steuben. His Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States demanded proper hygiene. Officers were to see that their men “wash their hands and faces every day, and oftener when necessary. And when the river is nigh, and the season favorable, the men shall bathe themselves as frequently as possible.”16
A clean camp was equally essential. Von Steuben ordered that
one officer of a company must every day visit the tents; see that they are kept clean, that every utensil belonging to them is in proper order; and that no bones or other filth be in or near them; and when the weather is fine, should order them to be struck about two hours at noon, and the straw and bedding well aired. The soldiers should not be permitted to eat in their tents, except in bad weather.17
The first concern was for filth and disease. But Colter had a more urgent reason to keep a tidy campsite. A shelter that emitted smells ensured a rude awakening. Varmints enjoy nosing through odorous camps. Far worse, food and refuse broadcast to every neighboring grizzly that dinner is served.
Keeping a clean camp and body was fundamental if one hoped to survive, and every watering hole offered that opportunity. But the first order of business was to drink one’s fill and top off a canteen for the long march ahead.
In addition to the indispensable canteen, the second essential that Colter kept close was a hunting knife. Typically, it had a sharpened edge for cutting and a fine point for stabbing. It could be wielded in the hand for defense or lashed to a pole as a spear. Jedediah Smith described how he and his men made spears for defense against an Indian attack: “We then fastened our butcher knives with cords to the end of light poles so as to form a tolerable lance.”
More often, the knife served as a tool for grubbing roots and harvesting plants, killing and dressing game, slicing and chopping food, and skinning and scraping hides for cover and clothing. In addition, it frequently served as the only eating utensil. Considering its many uses, it is understandable that legendary frontiersman Hugh Glass said he “felt quite rich” when he found the knife, flint, and steel he thought he had lost.18
A typical hunting knife had a seven-inch blade of polished steel. A handle of wood, antler, or bone was held to the blade with a metal ferrule or a hilt to protect the hand.19 With or without a scabbard, the knife remained nearby, tucked in the waist belt.
The knife represented a technological leap far beyond the sharpened flint that still was used in the lithic cultures of many indigenous people. Overnight, it became essential to the lifestyle of the Native American. The sight of Colter’s hunting knife might have done more than anything else to entice the tribes to trade.
Colter probably carried a tomahawk beside his knife in usual woodsman fashion. This was standard equipment for riflemen of the American Revolution and for frontier hunters before and after. Like the knife, it doubled as weapon and tool—a portable ax and shovel, and a hammer when turned back to front. Colter’s tomahawk was likely of the Kentuckian style, with a swept-down blade and an eighteen-inch hardwood handle.
Next in importance was the flintlock long rifle that Colter kept in his grip. The rifle was the frontiersman’s constant companion. He slept with it, ate with it, and carried it always in hand. Various men referred to it as “my only companion” or “my trusty traveling companion.” And they never allowed their guns “to remain empty for one moment.”20
Colter probably relied on the Kentucky (also known as Pennsylvania) flintlock long rifle with an approximate forty-two-inch barrel. The new US flintlock rifle Model 1803 with a thirty-four-inch barrel was distributed to fifteen of the men of the Corps of Discovery. But those who were experienced hunters preferred their own longer-barreled rifles, with greater accuracy and better aim due to the distance between front and rear sights.
To improve accuracy further, an improvised barrel rest was often used, such as a rifle ramrod placed vertically under the barrel while firing from a kneeling position, or a felt hat used as a prop when shooting from a prone position. When a barrel rest was used, missing a target became almost inexcusable. William Anderson upbraided himself when he missed an elk and a pronghorn. He said, despite his good Kentucky rifle, a steady gun rest, and good powder, he missed the targets “at a distance that a Kentucky girl would have bored a squirrel’s eye out.”21
With flint in place and the pan always primed, Colter’s rifle stood ready for instant use. In foul weather, the rifle lock remained covered with a leather frock to keep the powder dry. With this one weapon, the abundant game grazing just out of reach became an immediate supply of food, cover, and clothing.
More often than not, Colter could approach on foot within rifle range of bison, elk, and deer. In winter, with snowshoes strapped on, he could walk right up to bison floundering in deep snow. In summer, he could ambush them as they struggled in mud after fording a river. Or he could join the more honorable and dangerous native ritual of chasing the stampeding herd on horseback.22
Frontiersmen quickly learned the Indian methods of hunting bison. First, a hunter needed to find a herd that was grazing peacefully. If they had been recently disturbed, they would be scattered and skittish—ready to flee. When a quiet herd was located, the hunter determined wind direction. To do this, he tossed a feather or sand in the air. Then he approached from downwind in order to hide his scent.
If on foot, he often concealed himself with an animal skin or foliage. When close enough, he took a shot or waved a blanket to chase a herd into fallen timber or a deep snowbank. Or he could run them onto slippery river ice or off a ledge.23
On horseback, bison hunting became more efficient but riskier. Typically, a group of hunters chased a herd and fired at will, or ran the bison into a box canyon or off a cliff. These methods sometimes killed hundreds of animals—enough to feed an entire village. A slightly more subtle method involved riders surrounding a herd and tightening the circle until the bison were within easy rifle range. Jim Beckwourth lamented that white encroachments would one day result in the native people being taken by surround, like bison.24
The Indian method of shooting a bison with bow and arrow involved aiming for an area just behind the forelegs. After making a successful shot, the hunter patiently waited for the animal to bleed to death. White hunters with rifles preferred to aim behind the shoulder blades and the thick mane. A wound farther back often failed to stop the animal, while one in the head either glanced off or embedded in the surface of the skull.
As Rufus Sage said,
To shoot it in the head, is an inane effort. No rifle can project a ball with sufficient force to perforate the thick hair and hide to its brain, through the double scull-bone [sic] that protects it. A paunch shot is equally vain. The only sure points for the marksman are, the heart, lights [lungs], kidneys, or vertebrae; and even then the unyielding victim not unfrequently escapes. . . . I have witnessed their escape, even after the reception of fifteen bullet-wounds, and most of them at such points as would have proved fatal to almost any other animal.25
To butcher a bison, the animal was turned right side up on its belly and an incision was made from the front of the hump to the rear. The skin on both sides was peeled down and laid on the ground, hair down, providing a place to set the cuts of meat. Then a tomahawk was used to sever the spine on each end of the hump ribs. These were removed along with the fatty fleece and side ribs.
Next, “the flesh was cut off in large masses from the rump, haunches, and shoulders.” Native hunters often ate the liver raw, on the spot. But the favorite cuts were the hump ribs and tongue, followed by the fleece, side ribs, and bone marrow.26
Frontiersmen learned from the Indians how to proficiently hunt other game as well. Deer and elk could be stalked like bison or shot from ambush in wooded areas. Or they could be run into rivers or mud to slow them down. Deer were sometimes chased into brush-fence enclosures and shot or snared.
Pronghorn proved a much greater challenge. William Anderson quipped, “Today, I shot at four antelopes as they whizzed by me. I do not know whether my aim was twisted, or whether they outran my ball. Old traders and trappers tell marvelous things about their speed.” Some men correctly noted that pronghorn could outrun hunting dogs with ease and leave them far behind. But pronghorn usually employed a more efficient method by simply keeping a great distance away from threats and far out of rifle range.
The best way to hunt them was to pique their curiosity by bleating like their young, which sounds “precisely like sheep.” Or a hunter could hide behind a rise and raise a small flag to flutter in the breeze. Pronghorn are intensely curious and can be attracted to strange objects, to their doom.
Bighorn sheep were also difficult to hunt. After sheltering in lower elevations in winter, they ascended steep slopes as the weather grew warmer. In this way they kept pace with tender spring foliage as it emerged higher and higher up the mountainsides. In every situation they kept a wary eye for intruders and retreated up near-vertical cliffs at the first hint of danger.
Grizzly bears provided another meat source. Their flesh was poor in the spring after hibernation, but better in the summer and autumn. They and other large game could be caught in a pitfall—a simple hole covered with twigs and grass. The trappers then shot them at leisure.
Beaver meat also sufficed. A mountain man made his livelihood by trapping beaver and often had meat on hand for breakfast. In addition, frontiersmen learned from the natives how to hunt wild fowl without having to expend powder and lead. Grouse could be approached within several feet, allowing the hunter to hit them with a rock or stick.27 But in most circumstances, the rifle remained the primary tool for hunting.
The use of a rifle required gunpowder, lead balls, and special equipment. These supplies and tools remained standard in the first decades of the nineteenth century. In 1803, Meriwether Lewis requested that the Corps of Discovery be supplied with powder, lead, gun worms, ball screws, extra lock parts, repair tools, and bullet molds. On the frontier, when supplies of ammunition ran low, a rifleman melted lead in an iron ladle or spoon and poured it into a bullet mold to form a round projectile.
In total, Lewis ordered two hundred pounds of gunpowder and four hundred pounds of lead in the typical weight ratio of 1:2. To waterproof the powder and carry it securely, Lewis had every four pounds of powder sealed inside a lead container weighing eight pounds. When a container was emptied, it could be melted to make lead balls and used with the next four pounds of powder.
Even with ample quantities of powder on hand, frontiersmen used it sparingly, and in most cases only fired at game when necessity dictated. They knew that surpluses of powder might be needed for defense or in case their expedition became delayed on the trail.28
Colter would carry rifle supplies in a leather hunting bag, or possibles bag, with a sturdy flap to resist the wind and “turn the severest weather.”29 Inside was wadding that had to stay dry because it was used to pack ball against powder. The typical bag also held extra rifle flints and a shot pouch containing a pound of lead balls. There was room to spare for dry tinder and flint and steel to spark a campfire.
On the frozen plains, the ability to strike a fire in all kinds of weather was essential to survival. Colter was expert at this after years of making his camp alone. Perhaps he fit the description given by Randolph Marcy decades later, after the sulfur match had come into common use: “I have seen an Indian start a fire with flint and steel after others had failed to do it with matches. This was during a heavy rain, when almost all available fuel had become wet. On such occasions dry fuel may generally be obtained under logs, rocks, or leaning trees. The inner bark of some dry trees, cedar for instance, is excellent to kindle a fire.”30
A campfire was essential for cooking, warmth, and protection from predators. But first, one had to find fuel. This was not a problem in timber-rich river bottoms or evergreen-covered mountain slopes. But many places in the West are devoid of timber. Along barren watercourses, travelers gathered small willow branches and driftwood.
Otherwise, sagebrush sufficed. Western explorers and trappers learned its use from the native inhabitants. Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), sometimes called wormwood by early visitors, grew in the barren plains throughout the West and served its purpose adequately. One frontiersman said, “It burns well and retains fire as long as any fuel I ever used.” The western bands of Shoshone carried a long rope of twisted sagebrush bark as a slow fuse from which to start fires whenever and wherever they pleased.31
The ubiquitous sagebrush served other purposes as well. It was a starvation food for bison, deer, and various game. Prairie chickens ate the buds and leaves, but western travelers complained that this tainted the flavor of the meat. Horses also grazed sagebrush out of dire necessity, and men sometimes used the leaves to concoct a bitter tea if they found local water sources unpalatable.
In addition, they learned from the Flatheads to use sage as a poultice to stop bleeding, treat open sores, and reduce swelling. Some Indians rubbed it on the body as a means of purification. Others mixed it with brains as a concoction for softening hides during the tanning process. The western bands of Shoshone even formed it into shelters—sometimes making a small hovel from a single plant. This is not surprising because sagebrush could grow to a height of ten feet with a five-inch-diameter trunk.32
Another emergency source of fuel was bison dung, or bois de vache, as the French voyageurs called it. Those who used it were pleasantly surprised that it made a fire hot enough for cooking meat. Narcissa Whitman claimed that it served “a very good purpose, similar to the kind of coal used in Pennsylvania.” If timber, sagebrush, or bison dung was not available, an inferior fire could be made from river rushes. Bison fat or gunpowder was sometimes used to start a fire quickly or keep it from sputtering out.33
After a fire burned down to coals, Indians spitted meat on a stick and inclined it over the heat for roasting. Or they dug a hole, lined it with a skin, filled it with water and chunks of meat or roots, and then added rocks that had been heated in the fire. As the rocks cooled, the cook replaced them with more hot rocks until the food was sufficiently boiled. Indian sign language reflected this ancient method of using a hole in the ground as a basin. The sign for the word kettle or basin can be literally translated: a hole scooped in the ground.
To make bread, native people pounded available roots or seeds into flour. Then they formed cakes and baked them beside an open fire. Frontiersmen learned and used all these methods, but they preferred to carry a small kettle for boiling water and cooking.34
Colter’s first action when pitching camp, before unpacking and making shelter, would be to find tinder and wood. A fire was then started and burned down to coals for cooking. For this purpose, he kept flint and steel handy, perhaps in the hunting bag alongside a carefully wrapped bundle of extra tinder.
In addition, the typical hunting bag held a whetstone for putting a quick edge on a knife or tomahawk. On top of the bag, most hunters carried their powder horn. The horn offered the best means of keeping a half-pound of powder dry and ready for immediate use.
All this gear was hung about the body within easy reach. In standard fashion, the knife and tomahawk remained strapped to the waist on the left, with a canteen slung close behind. The hunting bag hung on the right, with the powder horn resting on top. This allowed right-handed access to powder and shot while the rifle was cradled in the opposite arm.35 Essential items like the canteen, weapons, and fire-making tools remained close at hand.
But other provisions could be packed away. The thirty-pound pack on Colter’s back held supplies for camp and trade. The most essential component was the material that formed the pack: a single piece of hide, wool blanket, or oil cloth. In Colter’s case it was probably heavy linen cloth, waterproofed or painted with linseed oil. With a length of about eight feet and a width of six or seven feet, it replicated the large bison hides that Native Americans had depended upon for thousands of years for packs, shelter, cloaks, and other uses.
Bison hides weighed around eighteen pounds. A waterproof cloth weighed seven pounds. In combination with a good wool blanket, cloth was a comparably effective cover and easier to tote. For this reason, oil cloth was often preferred over hides.36
But if the cloth wore out and could not be replaced, one could resort to the age-old method and make use of an animal hide in the indigenous manner. For use as a cloak, Indians draped a bison robe over the back and shoulders. From there it hung to the knees. As temperatures dropped they clasped the robe snugly beneath the chin, or they used a belt or rawhide strip to tie it about the waist.
In bitter cold they turned the hair in, then out as the days grew warmer. Skins of elk, deer, pronghorn, and bighorn sheep served the same purpose when bison were scarce. In warmer months, elk hides, with hair removed, provided a lighter robe or shawl.
A large bison hide offered all the basic shelter one needed—for cover and for clothing. Clothing, after all, is nothing more than tailored cover fashioned to fit the body. Meriwether Lewis observed that, for the native people, “this robe forms a garment in the day and constitutes their only covering at night.”37 As such, it was an essential possession.
The bison robe provided the standard attire of the Plains Indian adult. Children often wore smaller skins. William Anderson said of the Shoshone, “Each child, male or female, has its little blanket or rabbit-robe, in which it sits, stands or walks.” Children, and sometimes adults, also wore ponchos made of deerskin or trade blankets.
For adult males, the bison robe was either worn by itself or with moccasins, leggings, and a breechcloth, while women added a dress. The robe was slung over the shoulders and held with the left hand. Perhaps this is why 85 percent of Indian sign language could be made with the right hand alone. Frontiersmen adopted the same use of the robe, or wore a blanket in similar manner, draped over the shoulders and kept in place with the same belt or sash that held their knife and tomahawk.
Native Americans relied on bison robes to shed water and freezing precipitation. They rarely wore hats, but pulled the robe over the head if necessary. Colter likely began his journeys with a low-crowned, broad-brimmed felt hat, but might have transitioned to a fur cap or simply used a bison robe for a hood.38
A green (untanned) bison hide, although heavy, could serve as an emergency blanket or shelter. Colter did not have to worry about using green hides or going to the trouble of tanning hides as long as he was in the vicinity of Indian villages. But elsewhere, circumstances might demand a freshly tanned hide.
Colter certainly knew the procedure, as described by F. A. Wislizenus:
They first stretch the fresh hide with pegs on the ground, clean it with sharp stones of all flesh, fat and skinny parts, and finally rub in fresh buffalo brains. . . . Hides that are to be tanned on both sides are boiled in a solution of brain. When the hair is removed, brain is again rubbed in; and finally the hides are smoked, which makes them very suitable for tents and clothing. In addition to the hide, the Indians never forget to take the strong sinews from the neck and back of the buffalo. They dry them, and use them, torn into threads, with aid of an awl, for sewing.
With this knowledge, and game nearby, a mountain man had all he required for shelter and clothing.39
Bison hides served a multitude of other purposes as well. They provided the primary material for bedding and for waterproof packs. They could be spread on the ground to catch rainfall when water supplies ran low. Hides also found use as boat sails and as a means of signaling from one hillock to another. In short, they served many fundamental purposes throughout a person’s life, and when that person died, the bison hide became the burial shroud.40
Only in recent years had traders introduced wool blankets to the Plains Indians. These blankets were warm and light to carry, with a favorable ratio of weight to insulating value. Like hides, they could be used as robes or fashioned into clothing. They soon became popular among native tribes and assumed many of the functions of the bison robe. When a baby was born, it was wrapped in a blanket. A blanket later became its primary clothing, winter cloak, and bedcover. The blanket could be used as a lodge door, a lean-to roof, or a sail. George Catlin “frequently witnessed . . . [Indians] sailing with the aid of their blankets. . . . When the wind is fair, [they] stand in the bow of the canoe and hold by two corners, with the other two under the foot or tied to the leg; while the women sit in the other end of the canoe, and steer it with their paddles.”
In Colter’s time, the Hudson’s Bay point blanket was a common frontier possession. The point blanket had originated in sixteenth-century France and became a typical trade item in North America soon afterward. It was often distributed by French companies in Montreal. By the mid-eighteenth century, “four-point blankets were standard issue for the American colonial militiamen.” With the defeat and withdrawal of the French after the French and Indian War, the British assumed control over all trade with the indigenous people of Canada and the upper Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. The British-controlled Hudson’s Bay Company began dispersing point blankets as standard trade items in about 1780 to replace those that had been manufactured by Montreal-based companies.
The blankets were readily recognized with end-stripes, typically of blue or black on a background of natural white. Point markings appeared in the weaving on one side. The number of points roughly reflected the dimensions and weight of the wool. A three-point blanket measured about fifty-eight inches by seventy-two inches and weighed four pounds.41 Lewis ordered fifteen three-point blankets for use by the Corps of Discovery. But a taller man, like Colter, would have preferred a four-point blanket at about seventy-two by ninety inches and a weight of six pounds. Tradition suggests he carried one of these.42
Wool blankets kept their owners warm, but they repelled water poorly. They were better used in combination with a heavy piece of oil cloth. A person of five-feet-ten inches in height could wrap in a seven-by-eight-foot oil cloth, with or without a blanket, and use it as a waterproof cloak. By forming a hood over the head and bunching the folds with a belt, an effective barrier could be made which repelled wind and weather. With a capote or blanket underneath, a person could stay warm and dry while on the march in the day or while curled up at night. The cloth could serve as a rain fly, ground cloth, or bedroll liner. It also formed various portable shelters: the barrel-vault tent, the half-face tent, the wigwam, the one-person tipi (tepee), and other makeshift huts.
Native Americans of the northern plains and mountains used several shelter types, but the best known kind was the tipi. This bison-hide tent varied in size to accommodate one to ten individuals. Its ingenious conical design allowed it to deflect the strong winds and shed the heavy snow of a brutal climate. A fire could be built within larger tipis because the smoke was able to escape by means of an adjustable flap at the top. The flap also served the purpose of letting in more sunlight on cold days and less on hot days. The bottom tipi fringe could be raised to allow a refreshing breeze to enter.
A small tipi could be quickly erected with four or more eight-foot poles. Randolph Marcy illustrated this type and encouraged its use among western travelers. He said: “We adopted this description of shelter in crossing the Rocky Mountains during the winter of 1857–8, and thus formed a very effectual protection against the bleak winds which sweep with great violence over those lofty and inhospitable sierras.”43
In addition to tipis, people on the move erected small shelters in the manner described by F. A. Wislizenus: “In the summer the Indians find it often too cumbersome to carry their tents of skins with them, and so make at every place where they camp so-called summer tents. For this the squaws cut tree branches and wands, put them into the ground in semi-circle, and cover this little natural tent with a blanket or a hide.”
Rufus Sage noted similar barrel-vault structures: Shantees were erected “by means of slender sticks, planted in parallel rows five or six feet apart, and interwoven at the tops, so as to form an arch of suitable height, over which was spread a roofage of robes or blankets.” Alfred Jacob Miller’s sketches indicate that these typically stood about five feet high and slightly less wide.
Sometimes, native people made comparable dwellings without cutting branches. Instead, they simply entered a willow thicket, pulled several tops together and bound them, and then stretched skins, blankets, or cloth above. Entire villages of lodges were sometimes erected in this fashion. An example appears in William Henry Jackson’s 1871 photograph of a Shoshone family on the headwaters of Medicine Lodge Creek.
For a more temporary arrangement, a hide or blanket was simply draped over a few sticks, tree branches, or a bush to shield against rain or sun. A windbreak was made in similar fashion. Other shelters included pine branch hovels and snow caves. In the case of the latter, a hole was dug either into a snowdrift or into snow that was piled up for the purpose. Indians and frontiersmen also made use of natural stone caves or overhangs.44
Sgt. Patrick Gass described temporary huts contrived by the Corps of Discovery. “The party,” he said, “were engaged in making places of shelter, to defend them from the stormy weather. Some had small sails to cover their little hovels, and others had to make frames and cover them with grass.”45
Randolph Marcy, in his book titled The Prairie Traveler, illustrated the half-face tent—an oil cloth lean-to that Lewis and Clark had employed on their westward journey. The common tents of the Revolutionary era equaled two half-faces—two slopes of cloth at about seven-by-eight feet apiece.46 Six men shared cramped quarters within. In comparison, one half-face, at seven-by-eight feet, would have accommodated Colter quite well.
Whether he used a hide or oil cloth to construct a half-face, a tipi, a wigwam, or a similar shelter, Colter was able to burrow down and ride out the roughest wind and weather. To keep off the cold, damp ground, he could form a padded sleeping area of willow boughs, evergreen branches, sagebrush, pine needles, grass, reeds, or leaves. A perimeter of logs, rocks, or bison bones prevented bedding material from scattering. Another option was to follow the example of the Crow, who lacked the low beds that other tribes used and had nothing more than a hide or blanket between them and the ground.
For many Indians and frontiersmen, a bison hide, wool blanket, or oil cloth served as the primary item of bedding and provided the only shelter. With no roof overhead, this bedroll sometimes became drenched by rain. In that case, the occupant wrung it out as best he could, wrapped himself in the damp bedding, and tried to get some sleep. In heavy snow, a person simply curled up tighter and let the snow cover his bedroll until morning.47
The oil cloth, like the bison hide, served many other purposes as well. Marcy noted that “a supply of drinking water may be obtained . . . by suspending a cloth or blanket by the four corners and hanging a small weight to the centre [of one edge], so as to allow all the rain to run toward one point, from whence it drops into a vessel beneath. . . . Painted canvas cloths answer a very good purpose for catching water.”48
Oil cloth made a good boat cover to keep rain and river spray from collecting in the bottom of canoes, and it could be used as a sail in the manner of a hide or blanket. Or the cloth could serve as a float for crossing a river. By piling items in the middle of the cloth and tying it into a bundle, one could swim it across and keep the contents fairly dry. Sometimes leaves were bundled inside to form a makeshift raft.
Also, like the bison hide, an oil cloth was used for concealment while stalking or ambushing game. Conversely, the cloth was waved to cause panic and drive game toward traps or cliffs.
But the primary use, in addition to shelter, was as a simple pack cover. When spread upon the ground, a person’s possessions could be carefully arranged and rolled into a bundle for transport. In this way, items stayed “perfectly protected from rain, and capable of being suspended from the shoulders and carried with comfort and ease during a march.”49
To form a pack in this manner, the oil cloth is spread flat. The wool blanket rests on top, while the other items are bundled and centered at one end. The cloth is then folded inward from both sides. A six-foot strap of leather is laid crosswise, extending beyond the cloth on each side. Then the cloth is rolled and tied into a cylindrical pack. Finally, the strap is fastened into a loop to form a sling.50
The pack is now ready to be carried on the back in the ancient way, from a sling over the shoulder, or from a chest strap that crosses the upper arms and chest. Or the strap can serve as a tumpline across the upper forehead. A thirty-pound pack is easily carried by any of these methods. It also can be readily dropped to the ground and used as a rifle rest or as a cushion for quick naps between marches.
Inside the pack, Colter probably carried an additional two pounds of bar lead for rifle balls and an extra pound of powder for replenishing his powder horn.51 A bullet mold allowed him to make lead balls either from a bar or from balls extracted from the game he had killed. His rifle cleaning and repair kit would include a vial of oil, spare lock parts, and small tools.
In the event that game proved scarce, frontiersmen kept food on hand. Colter was adept at jerking beef by slicing it thinly and hanging it on scaffolds in the sun to dry. To “make meat” was “a highly necessary precaution.” It remained “sweet and sound” in the summer for ten or twelve days, and in the winter for months at a time. Rufus Sage claimed that “meat thus cured may be preserved for years without salt.”
In order to expose the meat to wind and sun, it was laid on a frame, tied to wagon wheels, or spread out on bushes. If time was pressing, a small fire could be built under the jerky to hurry the process along. This also provided a pleasant, smoky flavor and kept the flies away.
Another means of preserving meat was to make pemmican from jerky. Marcy described the Plains Indian method:
The buffalo meat is cut into thin flakes, and hung up to dry in the sun or before a slow fire; it is then pounded between two stones and reduced to a powder; this powder is placed in a bag of the animal’s hide, with the hair on the outside; melted grease is then poured into it, and the bag sewn up. It can be eaten raw, and many prefer it so. Mixed with a little flour and boiled, it is a very wholesome and exceedingly nutritious food, and will keep fresh for a long time.52
Colter likely started out with a pouch of corn to supplement his beef diet and consumed roots, berries, and seeds along the way. Later mountain men often began their journeys with a supply of corn and sometimes procured additional small amounts along the route. Corn was grown in large quantities by the Mandan and Hidatsa villages and was a major trade item for the plains tribes. Frontiersmen cooked it in various forms. One method was to grind it down to cornmeal, add bison fat and water to form thick pancakes, and fry it in the bottom of a kettle.
When the corn supply ran out, frontiersmen subsisted on plants that nature provided. Roots were a primary staple for tribes on both sides of the Continental Divide and served as a supplemental diet or starvation food for western travelers. The root of the prairie turnip (Psoralea esculenta) was an essential food source for natives of the Great Plains. It also went by the names bread root and pomme blanche.
Its counterpart in the Rocky Mountains and far west was camas (Camassia quamash). The ranges of prairie turnip and camas overlapped in parts of the eastern Rockies and the plants shared similar characteristics. Both could be readily located by their blue or purple flowers. Both were eaten raw, boiled, baked in pit ovens, or dried and pounded into flour for making mush or cakes.
Colter had opportunity to partake of both species. He ate camas while crossing the Rockies with Lewis and Clark, and survived on prairie turnip while returning to Manuel’s Fort after one of his escapes from the Blackfoot. He probably consumed these roots on numerous other occasions as well. Lewis brought back specimens of both plants as part of his herbarium, and later frontiersmen made general use of them, sometimes commenting on the sweet and pleasant flavor of both.
Bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva) was another useful plant harvested by indigenous people, but with a more limited range. Lewis had gathered specimens at Traveler’s Rest in present-day western Montana and also included this in his herbarium. Flathead Indians harvested the plant in June, at the time of what they called the Bitterroot Moon, and prepared the roots for consumption much like prairie turnip and camas. Bitterroot had a pleasant enough flavor, but was more of an acquired taste.
Other common food plants included wild onions, plums, currants, chokecherries, gooseberries, serviceberries, buffalo berries, and huckleberries. The berries were eaten fresh or pounded and dried. Or they were added to pounded meat to make pemmican.
Rosehips, sunflower seeds, sunflower roots, grass seeds, mosses, and sap from cottonwood trees and evergreens also served as dietary supplements. According to Rufus Sage: “Rosebuds are found in great quantities in many places, throughout the mountains, during the winter . . . and have not unfrequently been the means of preserving life in cases of extreme hunger.”53
Salt for preservation and seasoning was carried as an essential supply in many backpacks. Among the men of the Corps of Discovery, some insisted on salt in their diets while others did not. The fact that Colter helped boil seawater into salt for the expedition might hint at his personal preference. Other condiments are rarely mentioned in frontier journals.
Colter’s pack perhaps included the typical metal cup, fork, and spoon for making food preparation and consumption easier. These, along with his hunting knife, would meet all his needs.
To add to his larder when times were hard, he certainly carried tools for fishing, as he did while traveling with the Corps of Discovery. A few metal hooks and a piece of string would allow him to fish in the manner of Indians along the Missouri River. Or he could spear fish with a gig like the Columbia Basin natives.
An assortment of metal hooks and gigs also made attractive trade items to display to Indians, although the Crow and Blackfoot cared little for fishing.54 All were impressed by the pins and needles, the awl and thimble, and the roll of thread that Colter carried for clothing repairs or suturing wounds. These and the full assortment of trade items were sure to draw long stares and covetous murmurs.
For people who made fire by friction with a stick spun between the palms of their hands, flint and steel appeared as a miracle. For those who boiled meat in a rawhide container with hot rocks dropped into the broth, brass kettles came as a godsend. For those who combed their hair with a porcupine tail or buffalo tongue, the ivory comb looked like a luxury.
Neat and tidy hair was important to most tribes of the northern plains and mountains. Indian sign language for the word woman can be literally translated as hair comber. Women of the Crow, Blackfoot, and other nations typically parted their hair on the forehead down the middle, then painted the part with vermilion. Some native people, male and female alike, groomed their spouse or lover in a similar manner as a sign of affection.55
In addition to combs, there were other trade items used for personal adornment: colorful flannel cloths, silk handkerchiefs, and ribbons. There were shiny rings that could be poked into clothing, ears, and noses. These rings were highly prized. Rufus Sage noted that an Indian woman “prides herself much upon the number of rings in her ears and upon her fingers.” Among wealthier tribes like the Blackfoot, women sometimes wore six to eight rings on each finger.56
Trade items also included tiny brass bells and buttons. There were pewter mirrors that offered a first look at oneself or provided a means of signaling to friends by reflecting the sun. The Crow, Shoshone, and other tribes later learned to use mirrors for conveying messages at a distance. Jim Beckwourth said they “telegraphed with the aid of a small looking-glass, which the Crow scouts usually carry, and every motion of which is understood in the village.”57
Other items included whole strings of wampum and perfectly spherical beads manufactured in several hues, including the favorite color of blue.58 Vermilion was available in one-ounce portions to be painted on cheeks as a sign of friendship. Two years earlier, when Meriwether Lewis came upon three Shoshone women, they had fallen down and wailed aloud for fear of the white-skinned stranger. But he soon gained their trust with a few trade items, especially when he “painted their tawny cheeks with some vermilion, which,” he explained, “with this nation is emblematic of peace.”59
To clinch trade negotiations, Colter would have carried a supply of tobacco. The dried plant was essential for establishing diplomacy and formalizing commercial transactions. It was also a provision eagerly sought among tribes of the plains, who often had nothing more than a pungent local plant to smoke.
John Townsend spoke for many western traders when he said, “No trade, of consequence, can ever be effected with Indians, unless the pipe be first smoked, and the matter calmly and seriously deliberated upon.” For Native Americans, tobacco served many purposes. Physically, it provided a soothing effect. Mentally, it symbolized goodwill during serious deliberations. Spiritually, it served as an important element of prayer.
P. J. De Smet, a Jesuit missionary among the northern tribes, explained: “The smoking of the calumet forms a part of all their religious ceremonies. It is a kind of sacred rite which they perform when they prepare themselves to invoke the Great Spirit, and take the sun and moon, the earth and the water as witnesses of the sincerity of their intentions, and the fidelity with which they promise to comply with their engagements.”60
The tobacco plants cultivated by Indians on the eastern plains along the Missouri River included the species Nicotiana quadrivalvis, as well as the closely related species Nicotiana multivalvis and Nicotiana attenuate. Lewis collected Nicotiana quadrivalvis in South Dakota on October 12, 1804, and placed a sample in his herbarium.
These plants provided the primary ingredient of native tobacco. But Indians almost always combined this with parts of other plants to form a tobacco mixture some called kinnikinik. They produced favorite blends by adding bearberry or the inner bark of red osier dogwood (also known as red willow). Other plants used for this purpose included black willow, sumac, pokeweed, and various herbs.61
With an essential supply of tobacco, Colter’s bundle of trade goods was complete—representing a sampling of items that would be available at Manuel’s Fort in the spring. The inventory of trade items remained basically the same on the frontier through the first half of the nineteenth century. The goods that Lewis and Clark carried westward as gifts for native tribes remained popular among indigenous people for many years.
As a result of this continuity, the Corps of Discovery’s list of trade goods in 1804 closely matched those of François Larocque in 1805, William Ashley in 1825, and Jedediah Smith in 1826. In the 1830s, Robert Campbell, John Townsend, Nathaniel Wyeth, William Anderson, and Alfred Jacob Miller noted trade items practically identical to those of their predecessors. The same held true in the records of Rufus Sage in the 1840s and Kit Carson in the 1850s.62
In addition to standard trade items, Colter’s pack probably held an extra shirt and pair of pants, or patches of cloth and leather that allowed for repairs while on the trail. With snowshoes strapped on top, the pack weighed some thirty pounds and contained all that Colter needed for a trek of several months in the mountains.63