Nez Perce


The Nez Perce are an Indigenous people of the Plateau who still live on a fraction of the lands on the southeastern Columbia River Plateau in the Pacific Northwest. This region has been occupied for at least 11,500 years.
Members of the Sahaptin language group, the Nimíipuu were the dominant people of the Columbia Plateau for much of that time, especially after acquiring the horses that led them to breed the Appaloosa horse in the 18th century.
Prior to first contact with European colonial people the Nimíipuu were economically and culturally influential in trade and war, interacting with other indigenous nations in a vast network from the western shores of Oregon and Washington, the high plains of Montana, and the northern Great Basin in southern Idaho and northern Nevada.
French explorers and trappers indiscriminately used and popularized the name "Nez Percé" for the Nimíipuu and nearby Chinook. The name translates as "pierced nose", but only the Chinook used that form of body modification.
Cut off from most of their horticultural sites throughout the Camas Prairie by an 1863 treaty, confinement to reservations in Idaho, Washington and Oklahoma Indian Territory after the Nez Perce War of 1877, and Dawes Act of 1887 land allotments, the Nez Perce remain as a distinct culture and political economic influence within and outside their reservation.
As a federally recognized tribe, the Nez Perce Tribe of Idaho govern their Native reservation in Idaho through a central government headquartered in Lapwai known as the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee. They are one of five federally recognized tribes in the state of Idaho. The Nez Perce only own 12% of their own reservation and some Nez Perce lease land to farmers or loggers. Hatching, harvesting and eating salmon is an important cultural and economic strength of the Nez Perce through full ownership or co-management of various salmon fish hatcheries, such as the Kooskia National Fish Hatchery in Kooskia or the Dworshak National Fish Hatchery in Orofino.
Some still speak their traditional language. The Tribe owns and operates two casinos along the Clearwater River, health clinics, a police force and court, community centers, salmon fisheries, radio station, and other institutions that promote economic and cultural self-determination.

Name and history

Their name for themselves is nimíipuu, meaning, "we, the people", in their language, part of the Sahaptin family.
Nez Percé is an exonym given by French Canadian fur traders who visited the area regularly in the late 18th century, meaning literally "pierced nose". English-speaking traders and settlers adopted the name in turn. Since the late 20th century, the Nez Perce identify most often as Nimíipuu in Sahaptin. This has also been spelled Nee-Me-Poo. The Lakota/Dakota named them the Watopala, or Canoe people, from Watopa. After Nez Perce became a more common name, they changed it to Watopahlute. This comes from pahlute, nasal passage, and is simply a play on words. If translated literally, it would come out as either "Nasal Passage of the Canoe" or "Nasal Passage of the Grass". The Assiniboine called them Pasú oȟnógA wįcaštA, the Arikara sinitčiškataríwiš. The tribe also uses the term "Nez Perce", as does the United States Government in its official dealings with them, and contemporary historians. Older historical ethnological works and documents use the French spelling of Nez Percé, with the diacritic. The original French pronunciation is, with three syllables.
The interpreters Sacagawea and Toussaint Charbonneau of the Lewis and Clark Expedition mistakenly identified this people as the Nez Perce when the team encountered the tribe in 1805. Writing in 1889, anthropologist Alice Fletcher, who the U.S. government had sent to Idaho to allot the Nez Perce Reservation, explained the mistaken naming. She wrote,
In his journals, William Clark referred to the people as the Chopunnish, a transliteration of a Sahaptin term. According to D.E. Walker in 1998, writing for the Smithsonian, this term is an adaptation of the term cú·pʼnitpeľu. The term is formed from cú·pʼnit and peľu. By contrast, the Nez Perce Language Dictionary has a different analysis than did Walker for the term cú·pʼnitpeľu. The prefix cú- means "in single file". This prefix, combined with the verb -piní, "to come out ". Finally, with the suffix of -pelú, meaning "people or inhabitants of". Together, these three elements: cú- + -piní + pelú = cú·pʼnitpeľu, or "the People Walking Single File Out of the Forest". Nez Perce oral tradition indicates the name "cú·pʼnitpeľu" meant "we walked out of the woods or walked out of the mountains" and referred to the time before the Nez Perce had horses.

Language

The Nez Perce language, or Nimiipuutímt, is a Sahaptian language related to the several dialects of Sahaptin. The Sahaptian sub-family is one of the branches of the Plateau Penutian family, which in turn may be related to a larger Penutian grouping.

Aboriginal territory

The Nez Perce territory at the time of Lewis and Clark was approximately and covered parts of present-day Washington, Oregon, Montana, and Idaho, in an area surrounding the Snake, Grande Ronde River, Salmon and the Clearwater rivers. The tribal area extended from the Bitterroots in the east to the Blue Mountains in the west between latitudes 45°N and 47°N.
In 1800, the Nez Perce had more than 70 permanent villages, ranging from 30 to 200 individuals, depending on the season and social grouping. Archeologists have identified a total of about 300 related sites including camps and villages, mostly in the Salmon River Canyon. In 1805, the Nez Perce were the largest tribe on the Columbia River Plateau, with a population of about 6,000. By the beginning of the 20th century, the Nez Perce had declined to about 1,800 due to epidemics, conflicts with non-Indians, and other factors. The tribe reports having more than 3,500 members in 2021.
Like other Plateau tribes, the Nez Perce had seasonal villages and camps to take advantage of natural resources throughout the year. Their migration followed a recurring pattern from permanent winter villages through several temporary camps, nearly always returning to the same locations each year. The Nez Perce traveled via the Lolo Trail as far east as the Plains of Montana to hunt buffalo and as far west as the Pacific Coast . Before the 1957 construction of The Dalles Dam, which flooded this area, Celilo Falls was a favored location on the Columbia River for salmon -fishing. The Columbia Basin Initiative aims to improve salmon-fishing for the tribe.

Enemies and allies

The Nez Perce had many allies and trading partners among neighboring peoples, but also enemies and ongoing antagonist tribes.
To the north of them lived the Coeur d’Alene , Spokane , and further north the Kalispel , Colville and Kootenay / Kootenai .
To the northwest lived the Palus and to the west the Cayuse , west bound there were found the Umatilla , Walla Walla, Wasco and Sk'in and northwest of the latter various Yakama bands.
To the south lived the Snake Indians bands in the southwest and Bannock -Northern Shoshone bands.
To the east lived the Lemhi Shoshone, north of them the Bitterroot Salish / Flathead .
Further east and northeast on the Northern Plains were the Crow and two powerful alliances – the Iron Confederacy and Assiniboine , an alliance of northern plains Native American nations based around the fur trade, and later included the Stoney, Western Saulteaux / Plains Ojibwe and the Blackfoot Confederacy , the Kainai or Bloods, and the Siksika or Blackfoot, later joined by the unrelated Sarcee and by Gros Ventre or Atsina ).
The feared Blackfoot Confederacy and the various Teton Sioux and their later allies, the Cheyenne , were the main enemies of the Plateau peoples when entering the Northwestern Plains to hunt buffalo.

Historic regional bands, bands, local groups, and villages

  • Almotipu Band
  • Alpowna Band or Alpowe'ma Band
  • Assuti Band
  • Atskaaiwawipu Band or Asahkaiowaipu Band
  • Hatweme Band or Hatwai Band
  • Hinsepu Band
  • Kămiăhpu Band or Kimmooenim Band
  • Kannah Band or Kam'nakka Band
  • Lamtáma Band or Lamatama Band
  • Lapwai Band or Lapwēme Band
  • Mákapu Band
  • Pikunan Band or Pikhininmu Band
  • Saiksaikinpu Band
  • Saxsano Band
  • Taksehepu Band
  • Tukpame Band
  • Wallowa Band or Walwáma Band
  • Yakama Band or Yăkámă Band
Because of large amount of inter-marriage between Nez Perce bands and neighboring tribes or bands to forge alliances and peace, the following bands were also counted to the Nez Perce :
; Walla Walla Band
; Pelloatpallah Band Palous Band
; Weyiiletpuu Band Yeletpo Band

Culture

The semi-sedentary Nez Percés were Hunter-gatherers, living in a society in which most or all food is obtained by foraging. They depended on hunting, fishing, and the gathering of wild roots and berries.
Nez Perce people historically depended on various Pacific salmon and Pacific trout for their food: Chinook salmon or "nacoox" were eaten the most, but other species such as Pacific lamprey, and chiselmouth were eaten too. Other important fishes included the Sockeye salmon, Silver salmon or ka'llay, Chum salmon or dog salmon or ka'llay, Mountain whitefish or "ci'mey", White sturgeon, White sucker or "mu'quc", and varieties of trout – West Coast steelhead or "heyey", brook trout or "pi'ckatyo", bull trout or "i'slam", and Cutthroat trout or "wawa'lam".
Prior to contact with Europeans, the Nez Perce's traditional hunting and fishing areas spanned from the Cascade Range in the west to the Bitterroot Mountains in the east.
Historically, in late May and early June, Nez Perce villagers crowded to communal fishing sites to trap eels, steelhead, and chinook salmon, or haul in fish with large dip nets. Fishing took place throughout the summer and fall, first on the lower streams and then on the higher tributaries, and catches also included salmon, sturgeon, whitefish, suckers, and varieties of trout. Most of the supplies for winter use came from a second run in the fall, when large numbers of Sockeye salmon, silver, and dog salmon appeared in the rivers.
Fishing is traditionally an important ceremonial and commercial activity for the Nez Perce tribe. Today Nez Perce fishers participate in tribal fisheries in the mainstream Columbia River between Bonneville and McNary dams. The Nez Perce also fish for spring and summer Chinook salmon and Rainbow trout/steelhead in the Snake River and its tributaries. The Nez Perce tribe runs the Nez Perce Tribal Hatchery on the Clearwater River, as well as several satellite hatchery programs.
The first fishing of the season was accompanied by prescribed rituals and a ceremonial feast known as "kooyit". Thanksgiving was offered to the Creator and to the fish for having returned and given themselves to the people as food. In this way, it was hoped that the fish would return the next year.
Like salmon, plants contributed to traditional Nez Perce culture in both material and spiritual dimensions.
Aside from fish and game, Plant foods provided over half of the dietary calories, with winter survival depending largely on dried roots, especially Kouse, or "qáamsit" and "qáaws" , and Camas, or "qém'es" , the first being roasted in pits, while the other was ground in mortars and molded into cakes for future use, both plants had been traditionally an important food and trade item. Women were primarily responsible for the gathering and preparing of these root crops. Camas bulbs were gathered in the region between the Salmon and Clearwater river drainages. Techniques for preparing and storing winter foods enabled people to survive times of colder winters with little or no fresh foods.
Favorite fruits dried for winter were serviceberries or "kel", black huckleberries or "cemi'tk", red elderberries or "mi'ttip", and chokecherries or "ti'ms". Nez Perce textiles were made primarily from dogbane or "qeemu", tules or "to'ko", and western redcedar or "tala'tat". The most important industrial woods were redcedar, ponderosa pine or "la'qa", Douglas fir or "pa'ps", sandbar willow or "tax's", and hard woods such as Pacific yew or "ta'mqay" and syringa or "sise'qiy".
Many fishes and plants important to Nez Perce culture are today state symbols: the black huckleberry or "cemi'tk" is the official state fruit and the Indian arrowwood or "sise'qiy", the Douglas fir or "pa'ps" is the state tree of Oregon and the ponderosa pine or "la'qa" of Montana, the Chinook salmon is the state fish of Oregon, the cutthroat trout or "wawa'lam" of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, and the West Coast steelhead or "heyey" of Washington.
The Nez Perce believed in spirits called weyekins which would, they thought, offer a link to the invisible world of spiritual power". The weyekin would protect one from harm and become a personal guardian spirit. To receive a weyekin, a seeker would go to the mountains alone on a vision quest. This included fasting and meditation over several days. While on the quest, the individual may receive a vision of a spirit, which would take the form of a mammal or bird. This vision could appear physically or in a dream or trance. The weyekin was to bestow the animal's powers on its bearer—for example; a deer might give its bearer swiftness. A person's weyekin was very personal. It was rarely shared with anyone and was contemplated in private. The weyekin stayed with the person until death.
Helen Hunt Jackson, author of "A Century of Dishonor", written in 1881 refers to the Nez Perce as "the richest, noblest, and most gentle" of Indian peoples as well as the most industrious.
The museum at the Nez Perce National Historical Park, headquartered in Spalding, Idaho, and managed by the National Park Service, includes a research center, archives, and library. Historical records are available for on-site study and interpretation of Nez Perce history and culture. The park includes 38 sites associated with the Nez Perce in the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington, many of which are managed by local and state agencies.