did, to some extent, follow the custom of flattening the head. There is indeed much evidence that this is the true fact in the case. They were neighbors of the Flatheads, and like them religiously inclined. The record of burial of one of the chiefs at St. Louis describes him as a Nez Percé of the Chopunnish tribe (another name for the Nez Percés), called the Flathead nation. A letter written by one H. McAllister of St. Louis, April 17, 1833, in reference to this deputation, states that it was "from the Chopunnish tribe. residing on Lewis river, above and below the mouth of the Koos-koos-ka (Clearwater) river, and a small band of Flatheads that live with them." This information was apparently derived from General Clark. There are other authorities to the same end.
The question is therefore a doubtful one as to who these Indians really were, with the weight of evidence in favor of the Nez Percé identity instead of the Flatheads of Father De Smet. But whatever the truth, it does not affect the important fact that their visit produced a profound impression among all classes when it came to be generally known. It was given wide notoriety through the columns of the Christian Advocate. Under date of February 18, 1833, one G. P. Disoway of New York sent a letter to this journal, inclosing another from William Walker describing the circumstances of his call upon General Clark. (4) The public-
(4) Walker's letter was dated Upper Sandusky, January 19, 1833. Both the Disoway and Walker letters were published March 1, 1833. In Mr. Disoway's letter the writer speaks of Mr. Walker as having made his expedition to St. Louis and the proposed Wyandot lands "in November last," which would clearly fix the date of the Flathead deputation in 1832 instead of 1831, and this is the date universally accepted by Protestant missionary writers upon the subject. Through these letters the author of this sketch was led into the same error in his American Fur Trade of the Far West, p. 643. See, among other authorities, records of Indian Superintendency at St. Louis now in possession of the Kansas Historical Society at Topeka; and a letter from Bishop Rosati of St. Louis dated December 31, 1831, published in the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith, and quoted by Palladino in his Indian and White in the Northwest, p. 11.