What was the gamble that the Lemhi Shoshone leader Cameahwait made?
The Lemhi’s had a long set of experiences of being raided by their enemies; they had recently been raided by their enemies. They had lost their teepees, they had lost horses, they had people killed and wounded and now more outsiders are coming? And certainly you would expect, given past experiences, that Cameahwait and others in his band would be deeply suspicious of outsiders. And yet, there is a welcome. A welcome first to Meriwether Lewis and then to the much larger party. Cameahwait took the great chance here, he made the great gamble, he took the chance that here was the opportunity to gain the one thing he needed, and he would say so over and over again. He needed guns. In a world that was heavily armed, the Lemhi Shoshone’s only had two or three guns. His enemies, the Blackfeet, the Atsinas, the Hidatsas all had guns; he didn’t. And in a powerful moment, when he talked with Lewis and Clark, he said to them, we want guns, and then we will not have to live like bears, knawing on b
