Criminal
10-24-2005, 06:40 AM
So said the Wasco tribe.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-0510230428oct23,1,1803895.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
A bunch of chauvinistic, dog-eating yahoos probably is not how most Americans view Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and their intrepid band of explorers who made an epic journey of discovery across the American West 200 years ago.
That was pretty much the impression, however, that the expedition left on some of the American Indians it encountered from 1804 to 1806 as the party traversed an unmapped frontier from St. Louis to the Pacific Northwest.
Pat Courtney Gold, a master basket weaver from the Wasco tribe in Oregon who helped shape a bicentennial Lewis and Clark exhibition at the Newberry Library in Chicago, pokes gentle fun at the explorers for learning less than they should have from those meetings.
"Suddenly these hairy, smelly people came down the river in their crummy dugout canoes," Gold joked. "They didn't make much of an impression.
"They were pretty beat up and hungry when they got to the Wasco. They didn't realize that we are a matriarchal society, so they spent all the time speaking with our men. They missed out on a whole lot of knowledge because of that."
The American Indian side of Lewis and Clark's heroic undertaking got short shrift in past official histories, but that seems to have changed as scores of anniversary observances are mounted around the country. The Newberry's exhibit, "Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country," runs through Jan. 14.
40 tribes contributed
Robert Archibald, president of the National Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission, said the commission sought input from representatives of 40 tribes Lewis and Clark encountered. The elaborate traveling exhibit mounted by Archibald's own museum, the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis, includes 500 artifacts, "about half Indian, half non-Indian," he said, and was based on input from more than a dozen Native American consultants.
For its exhibit, the Newberry enlisted the help of five Native American advisers, who talk about the Indian view of the expedition in video kiosks set up at the library, 60 W. Walton St.
"This exhibit really is about the Indian country," said Riva Feshbach, the library's exhibits manager. "The Native Americans the expedition encountered already had vast trade and diplomatic networks with other tribes and with other European trade entities, including Britain, through the Hudson's Bay Co., and France, through the French fur traders.
"When Lewis and Clark came through, different tribes reacted in different ways. Some were less interested in the Americans because they already did thriving business with other traders. Those who didn't have prior trade relationships in some cases were more eager to develop a relationship with the American explorers."
Gold's Wasco tribe, for example, was one of the richest because its territory is along the salmon-rich Columbia River. The tribe had been trading with the British, Spanish and Russians long before Lewis and Clark showed up.
Favored dog to salmon
Unfortunately, expedition members hated the taste of salmon, which was the staple of many of the Northwest tribes they met. So they fell back on eating dog meat--something the explorers first tasted when it was offered during an earlier feast with the Sioux along the Missouri River.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-0510230428oct23,1,1803895.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
A bunch of chauvinistic, dog-eating yahoos probably is not how most Americans view Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and their intrepid band of explorers who made an epic journey of discovery across the American West 200 years ago.
That was pretty much the impression, however, that the expedition left on some of the American Indians it encountered from 1804 to 1806 as the party traversed an unmapped frontier from St. Louis to the Pacific Northwest.
Pat Courtney Gold, a master basket weaver from the Wasco tribe in Oregon who helped shape a bicentennial Lewis and Clark exhibition at the Newberry Library in Chicago, pokes gentle fun at the explorers for learning less than they should have from those meetings.
"Suddenly these hairy, smelly people came down the river in their crummy dugout canoes," Gold joked. "They didn't make much of an impression.
"They were pretty beat up and hungry when they got to the Wasco. They didn't realize that we are a matriarchal society, so they spent all the time speaking with our men. They missed out on a whole lot of knowledge because of that."
The American Indian side of Lewis and Clark's heroic undertaking got short shrift in past official histories, but that seems to have changed as scores of anniversary observances are mounted around the country. The Newberry's exhibit, "Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country," runs through Jan. 14.
40 tribes contributed
Robert Archibald, president of the National Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission, said the commission sought input from representatives of 40 tribes Lewis and Clark encountered. The elaborate traveling exhibit mounted by Archibald's own museum, the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis, includes 500 artifacts, "about half Indian, half non-Indian," he said, and was based on input from more than a dozen Native American consultants.
For its exhibit, the Newberry enlisted the help of five Native American advisers, who talk about the Indian view of the expedition in video kiosks set up at the library, 60 W. Walton St.
"This exhibit really is about the Indian country," said Riva Feshbach, the library's exhibits manager. "The Native Americans the expedition encountered already had vast trade and diplomatic networks with other tribes and with other European trade entities, including Britain, through the Hudson's Bay Co., and France, through the French fur traders.
"When Lewis and Clark came through, different tribes reacted in different ways. Some were less interested in the Americans because they already did thriving business with other traders. Those who didn't have prior trade relationships in some cases were more eager to develop a relationship with the American explorers."
Gold's Wasco tribe, for example, was one of the richest because its territory is along the salmon-rich Columbia River. The tribe had been trading with the British, Spanish and Russians long before Lewis and Clark showed up.
Favored dog to salmon
Unfortunately, expedition members hated the taste of salmon, which was the staple of many of the Northwest tribes they met. So they fell back on eating dog meat--something the explorers first tasted when it was offered during an earlier feast with the Sioux along the Missouri River.