The Warm Springs bands lived along the tributaries of the Columbia River and spoke Sahaptin. The Warm Springs people moved between winter and summer villages, and mostly ate game, roots and berries. Salmon, however, was also an important staple for the Warm Springs bands and they built elaborate scaffolding over waterfalls, such as at Celilo Falls, which allowed them to harvest fish with long-handled dip nets. Contact between the Warm Springs bands and the Wascoes was frequent, and although they spoke different languages (the Wascoes are a Chinookan people) and observed different customs, they could converse and traded heavily.
Sahaptin people
The Sahaptin people are a Native American people that inhabited territory along the Columbia River. The Nez Perce tribe is one of the major Sahaptin groups.
Territory
The prominent Sahaptin tribe formerly held a considerable territory in western Idaho and adjacent portions of Oregon and Washington, including the lower Snake River, with its tributaries the Salmon, Clearwater, and Grand Ronde rivers, from about 45° latitude down nearly to the entrance of the Palouse, and from the Blue Mountains of Oregon on the west to the main divide of the Bitterroot Mountains on the east.
Heritage
They are of the Shahaptian linguistic stock, to which belong also the Palouse, Umatilla, Tenino (Warmsprings), Yakama and others farther to the west, with whom they maintained close friendly relations, while frequently at variance with the Salishan tribes on their northern border — the Flatheads, Coeur d'Alene and Spokan — and in chronic warfare with the Blackfeet, Crows and Shoshoni on the east and south.
They call themselves Ni Mii Puu, meaning simply "the people", or "we the people". The name Sahaptin or Saptin comes through the Salishan tribes. When Lewis and Clark came through the area in 1805, they were called Chopunnish, possibly another form of Saptin. The popular and official name of Nez Percés, "Pierced Noses", originally bestowed by the French trappers, refers to a former custom of wearing a dentalium shell through a hole bored in the septum of the nose.
In 1805 they numbered, according to the most reliable estimates, probably over 6,000 but have greatly decreased since the advent of the whites, and they are still on the decline. Contributing causes were incessant wars with the more powerful Blackfeet in earlier years; a wasting fever, and measles epidemic (1847) from contact with immigrants; smallpox and other diseases following the occupation of the country by miners after 1860; losses in the war of 1877 and subsequent removals; and wholesale spread of consumption because of their changed condition of living under civilization. In 1848 they were officially estimated at 3,000; by 1910 they were officially reported at 1,530.
Culture
The clan system was unknown. Chiefs were elective rather than hereditary, governing by assistance of the council, and there was no supreme tribal chief.
Accommodations
Their permanent houses were communal structures, sometimes circular, but more often oblong, about twenty feet in width and sixty to ninety feet in length, with framework of poles covered by rush mats, with floor sunk below the ground level, and earth banked up around the sides, and with an open space along the centre of the roof, for the escape of smoke. On the inside were ranged fires along the centre at a distance of ten or twelve feet apart, each fire serving two families on opposite sides of the house, the family sections being sometimes separated by mat curtains. One house might thus shelter more than one hundred persons. Lewis and Clark mention one large enough to accommodate nearly fifty families. On temporary expeditions they used the ordinary buffalo-skin tipi or brush shelter.
They had also sweat-houses and menstrual lodges. The permanent sweat-house was a shallow subterranean excavation, roofed with poles and earth and bedded with grass, in which the young and unmarried men slept during the winter season and occasionally sweated themselves by means of steam produced by pouring water upon hot stones placed in the centre. The temporary sweat-house used by both sexes was a framework of willow rods, covered with blankets, with the heated stones placed inside. The menstrual lodge, for the seclusion of women during the menstrual period and for a short period before and after childbirth, was a subterranean structure, considerably larger than the sweat-house, and entered by means of a ladder from above. The occupants thus secluded cooked their meals alone and were not allowed even to touch any articles used by outsiders.
Furniture consisted chiefly of bed platforms, baskets and bags woven of rushes or grass, wooden mortars for pounding roots and spoons of horn. The woman had also her digging stick for gathering roots; the man his bow, lance, shield, and fishing equipment. The Nez Percé bow of mountain-sheep horn backed with sinew was the finest in the West. The ordinary dress was of skins, with the addition of a fez-shaped basket hat for the woman and a protective skin helmet for the warrior.
Food
In their primitive condition the Nez Percés, although semi-sedentary, were without agriculture, and they depended on hunting, fishing, and the gathering of wild roots and berries. Aside from fish and game, chiefly salmon and deer, their principal foods were the roots of the camas (Camassia esculenta) and kouse (Lomatium kous), the first being roasted in pits, while the other was ground in mortars and molded into cakes for future use. Women were primarily responsible for the gathering and preparing of these root crops.
Religion
Marriage occurred at about the age of fourteen and was accompanied by feasting and giving of presents. Polygamy was general, but kinship prohibition was enforced. Inheritance was in the male line. "The standard of morality, both before and after marriage seems to have been conspicuously high" (Spinden). Interment was in the ground, the personal belongings of the deceased being deposited with the body, and the house torn down or removed to another spot. The new house was ceremonially purified and the ghost exorcised, and the mourning period was terminated with a funeral feast. Sickness and death, especially of children, were frequently ascribed to the work of ghosts.
The religion was animistic, with a marked absence of elaborate myth or ritual. The principal religious event in the life of the boy or girl was the dream vigil, when, after the solitary fasting for several days, the fevered child had a vision of the spirit animal which was to be his or her tutelary through life. Dreams were the great source of spiritual instruction. The principal ceremonial was the dance to the tutelary spirit, next to which in importance was the scalp dance.
Trading posts were established in the upper Columbia region, and from the Catholic Canadian and Iroquois employees of the Hudson's Bay Company traders they first learned of Christianity, and as early as 1820 both they and the Flatheads had voluntarily adopted many of the Catholic forms. Of the Nez Percés it has been said: "They seemed to realize the paucity of their religious traditions and from the first eagerly seconded the efforts of the missionaries to instruct them in the Christian faith."
As a result of urgent appeals from the Flathead Indians for missionaries, a Presbyterian mission was established (1837) among the Nez Percés at Lapwai, near the present Lewiston, Idaho, under Reverend H.H. Spaulding, who two years later set up a printing press from which he issued several small publications in the native language. Regular Catholic work in the same region began with the advent of Fathers Blanchet and Demers on the Columbia (1838) and of De Smet and the Jesuits in the Flathead country (1840). The establishment of the Oregon Trail through the country of the Nez Percés and allied tribes led to the introduction of an epidemic disease, by which they were terribly wasted, particularly the Cayuse, who, holding responsible Dr. Whitman, in charge of the Presbyterian mission in their tribe, attacked and destroyed the mission, murdering Whitman and his wife and eleven others. The Catholic Bishop Brouillet, who was on his way at the time to confer with Whitman for the purchase of the mission property, was not molested but was allowed to bury the dead and then found opportunity to warn Spaulding in time for him to reach safety. In consequence of these troubles all the Presbyterian missions in the Columbia region were discontinued, but the work was resumed in later years, and a considerable portion of the Nez Percés are now of that denomination.
The Catholic work in the tribe was given in charge of the Jesuits, aided by the Sisters of Saint Joseph, and centering at St. Joseph's mission, Slickpoo, Idaho. For fifty years it was conducted by Fr. Joseph Cataldo,. S.J., who gave attention also to the neighbouring cognate tribes. The Catholic Indians were reported in the early 20th century at over 500.
Treaties and conflict
In 1855 they sold by treaty a large part of their territory. In the general outbreak of 1855-56, sometimes designated as the Yakima war, the Nez Percés, almost alone, remained friendly. In 1863, in consequence of the discovery of gold, another treaty was negotiated between another Nez Percés chief known as Lawyer (whose band had converted to Christianity and was now assimilating to white culture) and General Howard of the U.S. Army in which Lawyer surrendered all but the Lapwai reservation. Chief Joseph of the Wallowa band refused to sign the new treaty, stating that the Treaty of 1855 was promised to be the rule of law for "as long as the sun shines," protecting their home land from white intrusion. Since Nez Percés custom dictated that no single chief spoke for all others, when Joseph and others (including Toohoolhoolzote and Looking Glass) refused to sign the treaty, it was done so with the understanding that the U.S. Gov't was still bound by their original agreement, and that only Lawyer's band would be bound by the new treaty that only they signed.
However, General Howard gathered numerous other Nez Percés to make their "X" on the document so as to give the illusion that Joseph and the others had indeed signed the treaty. Thus, in the eyes of the U.S. government, they would also be subject to its terms.
Joseph steadfastly refused to be a party to the treaty or to its terms, only relenting when it became clear that the survival of his people depended on it. But as they made the arduous trek out of their home land and to the new reservation, a small group of young Nez Percés warriors broke off and murdered numerous white settlers along the Salmon River. These events were what set in motion the Nez Percés war (1877). After successfully holding in check for some months the regular troops and a large force of Indian scouts, Joseph, Looking Glass, and other chiefs conducted a retreat for over a thousand miles across the mountains but were finally intercepted and forced to surrender within a short distance of the Canadian frontier. Despite the promise that he should be returned to his own country, Joseph and the remnant of his band were deported to Oklahoma, where they wasted away so rapidly that in 1885 the few who survived were transferred to the Colville reservation in Washington. Throughout the entire retreat no outrage was committed by Joseph's warriors. The main portion of the tribe took no part in the war.
In 1893 those of Lapwai were given individual allotments, and the reservation was opened to white settlement.
Walla Walla
History
The people are a Sahaptin-speaking tribe which traditionally inhabited the Columbia River region of the northwestern United States. The Walla Walla occupied the territory along the Walla Walla River and along the junction of the Snake and Columbia Rivers in a territory that is now part of northern Oregon and southeastern Washington state in the United States before the coming of white settlers.
The Walla Walla encountered the Lewis and Clark Expedition both in 1805, during their trip down the Columbia River, and in 1806 during their return upriver. The Americans were welcomed warmly by the Walla Walla chief Yellepit (whose name is also spelled Yelleppit and Yellepitt). Yellepit's village was on the Columbia River near the mouth of the Walla Walla River. Lewis and Clark stayed for several days in April, 1806. Various presents were exchanged and goods traded. Notably, Yellepit presented Clark with a white horse. The chief requested a copper kettle in return, but the Americans had already given away all their kettles, so Clark gave Yellepit his own sword, along with a quantity of gunpowder and musket balls. Lewis and Clark also gave Yellepit a peace medal engraved with a portrait of Thomas Jefferson, to be worn around the neck, and a small American flag.
The next non-native to reach the Walla Walla region was David Thompson of the Canadian-British North West Company, who arrived in 1811. Thompson had placed a pole at Snake River junction with the Columbia, about five miles upriver from Yellepit's village. Thompson attached a letter to the pole claiming the territory for the British Crown and stating that the North West Company intended to build a trading post at the site. Continuing downriver, Thompson stopped at Yellepit's village and discovered the American "claims" in the form of Yellepit's flag and medal.
Neither Lewis and Clark or Thompson had much power to actually lay claim to the region, rather these acts and tokens served more like reminders of each nation's activities in the region. Thompson's pole and letter was intended for the traders of the Pacific Fur Company, an American rival to the North West Company. Thompson found Yellepit very friendly and intelligent, and the two talked at length. Notwithstanding his friendship with the Americans, Yellepit was very supportive of the idea of Canadians setting up a trading post nearby. Thompson decided that the junction of the Snake River with the Columbia would be an excellent place for a trading post. For various reasons no such post was built until 1818, when the North West Company established Fort Nez Perces at the mouth of the Walla Walla River.
Wasco-Wishram
History
The Wishram and Wasco are Plateau tribes that are closely related and share many cultural aspects of the Northwest Coast tribes. They lived along the banks of the Columbia River, near The Dalles. The Dalles were a prime trading location, and the tribes benefited from a vast trade network. Unfortunately, the 19th brought non-Indians and European diseases, which took a great toll on the Wasco and Wishram populations. Both tribes were forced by the United States in 1855 to sign treaties ceding the majority of their lands. These treaties established the Warm Springs Reservation.
Wasco
Wasco comes from the word, Wacq!ó, which means "cup" or "small bowl," which refers to a distinct bowl-shaped rock near the tribe's primary historical village. They traditionally lived on the south sides of the Columbia River. In 1822, their population was estimated to be 900.
Wishram
Fishing rights
The 1855 treaties signed by the Wasco-Wishram provide for the tribes to fish "at all ... usual and accustomed stations in common with the citizens of the United States..." Between 1938 and 1956, the Bonneville Dam, Grand Coulee Dam, and The Dalles Dam all wreaked havoc upon native fisheries. The government paid money to the tribes to compensate the loss of fish; however, that provided no compensation for the cultural and religious importance that fishing for salmon and steelhead held for the tribe. In 1974 a landmark court case confirmed the rights of Northwest Coast tribes to fish as they have historically done.
Today
The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon has 4,000 enrolled tribal members that are Wasco, Walla Walla, Warm Springs, and Paiute. 200 of these 4,000 are estimated to be Wasco. Wishram are predominantly enrolled in the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation in Washington state.
Language
The Wasco-Wishram language is part of the Upper Chinookan or Kiksht division of the Penutian language family. Currently, five elders from the Warm Springs Reservation are fluent speakers. The tribe has a language program to revive its use among tribal members of all ages.
Art
Both tribes are known for their intricate wood carving, beadwork, and basketry. Wasco-Tlingit artist Pat Courtney Gold takes traditional Wasco-Wishram designs and weaves them into contemporary baskets.
Northern Paiute
Paiute refers to three closely related groups of Native Americans — the Northern Paiute of California, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon; the Owens Valley Paiute of California and Nevada; and the Southern Paiute of Arizona, southeastern California and Nevada, and Utah.
The Northern Paiute traditionally have lived in the Great Basin in eastern California, western Nevada, and southeast Oregon. The Northern Paiute's pre-contact lifestyle was well adapted to the harsh desert environment in which they lived. Each tribe or band occupied a specific territory, generally centered on a lake or wetland that supplied fish and water-fowl. Rabbits and pronghorn were taken from surrounding areas in communal drives, which often involved neighboring bands. Individuals and families appear to have moved freely between bands. Pinyon nuts gathered in the mountains in the fall provided critical winter food. Grass seeds and roots were also important parts of their diet. The name of each band came from a characteristic food source. For example, the people at Pyramid Lake were known as the Cui Ui Ticutta (meaning "Cui-ui eaters"), the people of the Lovelock area were known as the Koop Ticutta, meaning "ground-squirrel eaters," and the people of the Carson Sink were known as the Toi Ticutta, meaning "tule eaters." The Kucadikadi of Mono County, California are the "brine fly eaters."
The government first established the Malheur Reservation for the Northern Paiute in eastern Oregon. The federal government's intention was to concentrate the Northern Paiute there, but its strategy did not work. Because of the distance of the reservation from the traditional areas of most of the bands, and because of its poor environmental conditions, many Northern Paiute refused to go there. Those that did, soon left. They clung to their traditional lifestyle as long as possible; when environmental degradation made that impossible, they sought jobs on white farms, ranches or in cities. They established small Indian colonies, where they were joined by many Shoshone and, in the Reno area, Washoe people.
Later, the government created larger reservations at Pyramid Lake and Duck Valley, Nevada. By that time the pattern of small de facto reservations near cities or farm districts, often with mixed Northern Paiute and Shoshone populations, had been established. Starting in the early 20th century, the federal government began granting land to these colonies. Under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, several individual colonies gained federal recognition as independent tribes.
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