Nez Perce

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Nez Perce
Image:Bandera Nez Percé.PNG

Total population	2,700
Regions with significant populations	United States (Idaho)
Language	English, Nez Perce
Religion	Christianity, other <tr> <th style="background-color:#fee8ab;">Related ethnic groups</th> <td style="background-color:#fff6d9;">other Penutian peoples</td> </tr>

The Nez Perce or Nez Percé (pronounced /nɛz pɝs/, or /ne pɛrˈse/ as in French) are a tribe of Native Americans who inhabited the Pacific Northwest region of the United States at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The Nez Perce's name for themselves is Ni-Mii-Puu (pronounced nee-mee-poo), which means simply "the People."

1 Traditional lands
2 Chief Joseph's surrender
3 Notable people
4 Nez Perce horse breeding program
5 Nez Perce Indian Reservation
- 5.1 Communities
6 Name & Language
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Traditional lands

The Nez Perce territory at the time of Lewis and Clark was approximately 17,000,000 acres (69,000 km²). It covered parts of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, in an area surrounding the Snake River and the Clearwater River. The Nez Perce, as many western Native American tribes, were migratory and would travel with the seasons, according to where the most abundant food was to be found at a given time of year. This migration followed a predictable pattern from permanent winter villages through several temporary camps, nearly always returning to the same locations year after year. They were known to go as far east as the Great Plains, hunting American Bison and fishing for salmon at Celilo Falls on the Columbia River. They relied heavily on quamash or camas gathered in the region between the Salmon and Clearwater River drainages as a food source.

Nez Perce couple (c. 1900)University of Washington Digital Collections

[edit] Chief Joseph's surrender

On October 5, 1877, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Nation surrendered to units of the U.S. Cavalry. Before this retreat the Nez Perce fought a cunning strategic retreat toward refuge in Canada from about 2,000 Army soldiers. This surrender, after fighting 13 battles and going about 1,300 miles toward Canada, marked the last great battle between the U.S. government and an Indian nation. After surrendering, Chief Joseph stated his famous quote "Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."

[edit] Notable people

Probably the best known leader of the Nez Perce was Chief Joseph, who led his people in their struggle to retain their identity in the face of U.S. encroachments on their land. One notable Nez Perce scholar was Archie Phinney (1903-1949); he studied under Franz Boas at Columbia University and produced a published collection of Nez Perce myths and legends from the oral tradition, Nez Perce Texts. Actress Elaine Miles, best known from her role in television's Northern Exposure, is Nez Perce. Silent film actors Jack and Al Hoxie are the sons of a half Nez Perce mother Cruz Prunada.

[edit] Nez Perce horse breeding program

The Nez Perce tribe began a breeding program in 1995 based on crossbreeding the Appaloosa and a Central Asian breed called Akhal-Teke to produce the Nez Perce Horse. This is a program to re-establish the horse culture of the Nez Perce, a proud tradition of selective breeding and horsemanship that was destroyed in the 19th century. The breeding program was financed by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the Nez Perce tribe and a nonprofit group called the First Nations Development Institute, which promotes such businesses in Indian country.

[edit] Nez Perce Indian Reservation

The current tribal lands consist of a reservation comprising parts of four counties in northern Idaho; in descending order of surface area they are Nez Perce County, Lewis County, Idaho County, and Clearwater County. The total land area is 3,095.299 km² (1,195.102 sq mi), and the reservation's population as of the 2000 census was 17,959 residents. Its largest community is the city of Orofino, near its northeast corner.

[edit] Communities

[edit] Name & Language

Image:Edward S. Curtis Collection People 007.jpg

"Nez Perce" is the spelling of the tribe's name preferred by the overwhelming majority of the tribe's members and historians; however, many older works use the French spelling "Nez Percé," with the diacritic.

Nez Perce is a misnomer given by the interpreter of the Lewis and Clark expedition at the time they first encountered the tribe in 1805. It is from the French, "pierced nose." This is an inaccurate description of the tribe. They did not practice nose piercing or wearing ornaments. The actual "pierced nose" tribe lived on and around the lower Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest and are commonly called the Chinook tribe by historians and anthropologists. The Chinook were a salmon people as were the Nez Perce and shared fishing and trading sites but were much more hierarchical in their social arrangements.

The Nez Perce language belongs to the Sahaptian language family.

[edit] References

John R. Swanton: The Indian Tribes of North America. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 145, Smithsonian Press, Washington D.C., 1969
Deward E. Walker Jr.: Handbook of North American Indians. Volume 12: Plateau. Smithsonian Institution (Hg.). Washington: 1998.
Brown, Dee (1970). Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. ISBN 0-330-232193.
Nez Perce Reservation, Idaho United States Census Bureau