This Nez Perce baby is elaborately bundled up. Encamped among the Indians while waiting for the snow to melt, the Corps of Discovery captains added to their recorded knowledge of the tribe. Courtesy of CURTIS LIBRARY, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Visit the Photo Place

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Historians speculate on Pompy's illness Series on Web site

Sex and the Indians; Sacagawea's baby gets sick. By Bill Speiden

Date published: 6/10/2006

Part 77 of a series

SEX WAS USED by various Indian tribes for purposes other than reproduction and pleasure. During the previous winter (1804-05) with the Mandan Indians, sex was used to gain spiritual power. During the winter of 1805-06, the Clatsop Indians utilized their women to do their bargaining and often sealed the trade with sex.

There were no prohibitions among the Nez Perce on having sex with the whites. The journals are silent on the subject. We can only speculate that, during the more than a month when the Corps was in proximity with the Nez Perce, liaisons did take place as they had with other tribes near whom they lived.

In 1877, in the Nez Perce war, William H. Jackson photographed an older, blue-eyed, sandy-haired man taken prisoner by the American army. The Nez Perce had no doubt that this was a son of Capt. William Clark. There is no way to prove it now, but Indian oral history is often accurate.

Encamped among the Nez Perce, the captains added to their recorded knowledge of the tribe while they waited for the snow to melt in the Bitterroots.

Pompy got sick: Pompy (Sacagawea and Charbonneau's infant boy, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, nicknamed "Pompy" by Capt. Clark) became ill with swelling in the neck. Historians are divided as to what really ailed the child. Speculations include an abscess on the neck, mumps, tonsillitis, an infected lymph gland and mastoiditis.

From the Journals, week of May 22, 1806:

To see the entire "Lewis and Clark This Week" series on The Free Lance-Star's Web site, visit fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/ Projects/2005/lewis_and_clark.

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Date published: 6/10/2006