The Tushepaw, or "Flathead," Indians, who spoke the Salish language (which sounded like Welsh to some of the Americans), supplied a dozen excellent horses to the Corps before leaving to join the Shoshoni buffalo hunt.  (There was nothing unusual about their heads, and some historians think they had flat-top haircuts.)

The other tribe was the Nez Perce ("pierced nose" in French), called "Chopunnish" by Lewis and Clark.  They lived along Idaho's Clearwater River and spoke the Sahaptian language.  Because many tribes along the Upper Columbia River spoke variations of that language, two Nez Perce chiefs (Walammottinin, or "Twisted Hair, " and Tetoharsky) agreed to guided and translated for the Americans on the next phase of their journey.

{See more under Nez Perce.}

After building dugout canoes and leaving their mountain horses in the safekeeping of the Nez Perce, Lewis and Clark finally reached the Columbia River via the Snake River on 16 October 1805.  The Pacific Ocean lay some 260 miles to the west, and the trip down the Columbia took the Expedition through many different tribal territories.

At the Snake-Columbia junction in southern Washington state, Lewis and Clark met friendly delegations of the Sahaptian-speaking Wanapam ("Sokulks") and Yakima, or "Chimnapams."  Chief Cutssahnem led 200 chanting and drum-beating Wanapam warriors into the American camp to enjoy smoking and feasting.  He drew a diagram of the river to supplement an elk skin map previously supplied by the Nez Perce.

The strong smell of drying or rotting salmon was everywhere because the Indians of the Upper Columbia River were fishermen living in permanent villages of large mat lodges.  Tired of eating so much fish, the Corpsmen bought dogs to eat all along the Columbia because other forms of meat were in short supply. 

On 19 October 1805, Chief Yellippit and a delegation of Walla Walla ("Walula") Indians arrived for a cordial council.  When the Expedition returned to this area in April 1806, Yellippit gave an "elegant white horse" to Captain Clark, and Clark gave him his own sword.  The Walla Walla were the "most hospitable, honest and sincere people" among the upriver Indians.  In contrast, the Umatilla Indians downstream were more fearful than friendly and avoided the Americans because they thought they were dangerous sky gods.

Lewis and Clark reached two key landmarks between 22 October, when they had to portage around Celilo Falls, and 24 October, when they dropped anchor at The Dalles (pronounced "dals" - rhymes with "pals").  The Dalles was an area of rapids where the Columbia River passed through the Cascade Mountains, and it marked an important cultural boundary.  West of this point almost all of the Pacific-area Indians spoke a form of the Chinookan language and lived in increasingly large, cedar-plank houses, in contrast to the mat-lodge Sahaptian speakers of the Plateau region to the east. 

The Dalles was the center of widespread native trade along the Middle Columbia River, and an annual trade fair attracted many tribes from the Pacific to the Rockies.  For many weeks, Indians exchanged all types of native crafts from different, distant areas – woven reed hats, heavy log canoes, leather goods, and hardened-hide parfleche bags; horses; human slaves (mainly captured Indian children); native tobacco; furs (coastal sea otters, mountain beaver and sheep, and plains buffalo robes); European fabrics, firearms, beads, and metal goods from sailing ships of many nations; and a wide variety of foods (whale blubber, sea salt, salmon, anchovies, eels, wappato and camas roots, nuts, berries, elk and deer venison, dog meat, beaver tails, and steaks, tongues, and tallow from the plains buffalo. 

The Chinook-speaking tribes of Wishram and Wasco Indians in The Dalles area hosted this annual international rendezvous, much like the Missouri River trade fairs at the Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa villages.  Unfortunately, Lewis and Clark missed all of these popular native trade rendezvous due to bad timing.  As a result, they never understood a vital part of Indian life and economic activity in the West.     

In late October 1805, the Expedition continued downriver from The Dalles.  The Nez Perce guides returned to their homes because they would not have been welcome in the coastal territories of Chinook-speaking Indians.  Sahaptian translators were now useless in the area beyond The Dalles, anyway.  Lewis and Clark were surprised to find that Indians closer to the Pacific Coast spoke some English – especially curse words – and dressed in European clothing because they had had regular contacts with British and American trading ships along the Oregon Coast since the early 1790s. 

In fact, it was a Boston, Massachusetts, sea captain, Robert Gray, who first discovered and named the Columbia River in 1792.  Metal weapons, Venetian beads, copper plates, clothes, and other products imported from Europe and U.S. cities poured into the Columbia River Valley in exchange for the lush sea otter pelts that the coastal Chinook Indians harvested for the Chinese fur trade. 

After passing The Dalles, Lewis and Clark entered a strange new world of hard-bargaining Indian traders – women as well as men – who sometimes wore sailor uniforms and tattooed the names of English merchants on their bodies.  The economics of global fur trading had dramatically changed native cultures, making the Pacific Coast tribes far different than any other Indians seen by the Corps of Discovery.

Lewis and Clark disliked many of the tribes along the Columbia River. They said that the Chinook language sounded like clucking chickens, and they described the people, who had their heads artificially deformed in infancy, as ugly, short, and dirty.  The Americans denounced their rudeness, hostility, and what was perceived as steeling. In fact, the tribes had a system requiring a toll to pass through the gorge territories. Lewis and Clark did not understand the tradition, and when they refused to pay the toll, they offended the tribes. 

The Corpsmen were especially angered by the high prices that these Indians charged for everything. As expert traders (a tradition dating back 10,000 years) the tribes were used to getting the best goods for their furs and fish. The Indians near the Oregon Coast either ignored or insulted these poor "cloth men" from the United States, because Lewis and Clark seemed unimportant, with few presents left to trade for native products.  

Resentment and even hostility resulted.  In making its way to and from the mouth of the Columbia River between early November 1805 and late April 1806, the Expedition endured more insults and faced more dangers from Chinookan-speaking Indians since the confrontations with the Teton Lakota.  In November "disagreeable" Skilloot warriors stole a hooded wool coat (capote) and Clark's favorite ceremonial pipe tomahawk.