Nimi’ipuu History in Wallowa — Part 1
The Nez Perce, or Nimi’ipuu, were one of several Indigenous Nations in what we now call the Inland Northwest. The band of Nez Perce that lived in the Wallowa of northeast Oregon was called walwa ma—people of the Wallowa. Chief Joseph was their leader.
According to Rich Wandschneider, longtime Director of the Josephy Library at the Josephy Center for Arts and Culture, the Nez Perce have a long history in this region, with archeological evidence of human habitation dating more than 16,000 years.
“They traveled extensively by foot and canoe, moving up and down with the seasons,” says Rich, “hunkering in river canyons in family groups in winter, moving to higher ground in spring in larger numbers—called bands, that were often denoted by geography, or by a leader’s name.”
Since time immemorial, the Nimi’ipuu lived in harmony with the food abundant landscape and the wild waterways full of salmon. And before they met the white man, Rich says, they met the horse which dramatically changed their life ways.
Then it was in 1805 that the Nez Perce saved the Corps of Discovery and Lewis and Clark from starvation. But as Nez Perce elder and historian, Allen Pinkham, Sr., explains in Rich’s podcast, the white man’s diseases had already taken a toll.
“Nez Perce numbered between 6 and 7,000 and that was in 1805. By 1900 our numbers were only 1300 Nez Perce,” says Pinkham. “But even prior to Lewis and Clark, we had also suffered at least two epidemics that wiped out whole villages along the Salmon, the Snake and the Clearwater. We lost thousands of our tribal people to diseases.”
With Manifest Destiny driving and guiding American encounters with Indians, eventually the white man arrived en masse, and the resulting conflicts with invading settlers changed everything for the Nimi’ipuu. It ultimately led to the Nez Perce 1877 War, as Joseph and his people were forced out of the Wallowa, and across the Snake River, with the U.S. Army overseeing their removal. Rich relates a brief history of their plight in part one of his two-part podcast — Nimiipuu Return to the Wallowa. It’s not an easy story to tell, but a moving and important one to hear.
Exiled on the Colville Reservation in Washington state after the war ended and four years prior to Hinmatóowyalahtq’it’s death, Rich tells of the Chief’s tragic last visit here to the Wallowa in 1900.
“I eventually met Ben Weathers, who would have been here to shake Joseph’s hand as he was spurned by the citizens,” says Rich. He continues to tell us that over 200 locals circulated a petition, saying “that the good white citizens did not want any lazy Indians in their country. And the newspaper wrote that the locals made ‘sport of the old chief.’”
The Nez Perce are returning to the Wallowa. Who are they? Why and how did they leave? And what does their return look like? Rich’s next podcast will detail that return, and describe the hopeful and exciting changes in the Wallowa with tribal land purchases, conservation easements, the Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland, library, exhibits and interpretation at the Josephy Center, and recovery efforts of the Nez Perce Tribal Fisheries. The walwa ma—people of the Wallowa—are returning to their homeland.
Next month be sure to read another post on the Return of the Nimiipuu to the Wallowa, as well as listen to Part 2 of Rich’s Podcast.
Funding for the Voices of the Earth Podcast Series comes from the Idaho Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
Jane Fritz
9/30/2022