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THE NEZ PERCES, PART 8
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The Nez Perces were primarily a fish-eating people living in established
villages, but they also depended largely on the many varieties of roots
which were so abundant in their intermontane region. It is likely that
they went to the buffalo country little, if at all, previous to their
acquisition of horses, and even after that event but a small part of the
tribe engaged in these hunting expeditions. At such times they dropped
quite out of the regular habit of the Nez Perce life, and during the period
of their absence - from one to three years - they were truly nomads. Buffalo-hunting
was so much of an innovation that the tribe had not yet adjusted itself
to it, and those who did not participate in these expeditions proceeded
in the fixed order of their existence.
In May all the bands would congregate at Tipahliwam (Camas prairie) to
dig kouse. To this common harvest ground flocked the people from Wallowa,
Salmon river, Snake river, and the Clearwater. Often in the old times
the Cayuse, Palus, Umatilla, and all the bands of the Nez Perces met at
Tathinma (a prairie a mile south of Moscow, Idaho) in the spring, for
horse-racing, gambling, and war-dancing. The announcement of the time
for this meeting, and the invitations to the different bands of Nez Perces
and to other tribes were always sent out by the people of Alpoowih. During
these festivities the women spent much time digging roots. These great
gatherings were continued for a couple of weeks, when the people would
return to their homes with collected and prepared roots, .and in a short
time they would start out on another root-digging expedition for a further
supply. In July they would assemble at Oyaip (Weippe prairie) for the
harvest of camas, which they gathered in great quantities, as it formed
an important item of food with them. In preparing this bulb for eating,
they first cooked it in pits similar to those used by Indians all over
North America for the cooking of large quantities of food, either vegetables,
meat, or fish. In this instance the excavation had a depth of a couple
of feet and a diameter of perhaps ten feet. In it they placed a quantity
of dry fuel, and on that a layer of small stones. The fuel was then lighted
and allowed to burn out until no fragment of the wood was left to make
a smoke. They then spread over the hot stones a layer of grass, and on
this placed the roots, which were then covered with another layer of grass
and a final coating of earth. When taken from this cooking pit the camas
was crushed in mortars, and the gummy mass was pressed into slabs; or
the roots were eaten at once.
The camas gathering was the work of the women, and in this camp the men
engaged in all manner of festivity. At the close of the camas harvest
they all journeyed to the Wallowa lake and river, or some other favorite
place for fishing. Here at the fishing grounds they remained until September
or October, and then, before returning to their homes, they went on a
hunting trip into the mountains. The winter was given over largely to
the performance of the medicine ceremony.
Prior to the period of the skin tipi, the use of which was acquired from
the plains when the Nez Perces became buffalo hunters, and asfar back
into the hazy past as information can be had, the winter domicile was
occasionally the tipi-shaped lodge, but usually two or more were pitched
together as one, forming a structure with a groundplan like a flattened
ellipse. In this case a tripod of tipi-poles was erected at each end,
and between the two extended two parallel rows of ridge-poles tied to
a number of supporting rafter-poles, a pair for each fire to be built
in the structure. Against these two ridge-poles were leaned the customary
lodge-poles, the space between the horizontal poles permitting the escape
of smoke. There was a fire for each single lodge which entered into the
construction of a large house, and as a rule there were two families for
each fire. Three Eagles, an informant, states that he never saw a lodge
of more than ten fires. Such a house would be about one hundred feet long,
and, regardless of length, the width was about fifteen feet. In building
this house they first excavated to a depth of two feet, and carefully
smoothed the ground. The thatching was of tule and cattail mats, usually
of three or four thicknesses in order to insure protection from the cold.
The communal house suggests the adoption of a Pacific
coast form.
According to a description given by Lewis and Clark, it is evident that
in the old days lodges were larger than during the lifetime of present
informants. "One of these lodges contained eight families the other
was much the largest we have yet seen. it is 156 feet long and about 15
wide built of mats and straw. in the form of the roof of a house having
a number of small doors on each side, is closed at the ends and without
divisions in the intermediate space this lodge contained at least thirty
families. their fires are kindled in a row in the center of the house
and about io feet assunder. all the lodges of these people are formed
in this manner."' The largest structure of this form seen by the
author was erected for the Chief Joseph death-feast . It was of ten fires,
about one hundred feet in length, and about twenty feet in width.
A structure called alwitas was made by digging a circular hole about twenty
feet in diameter and five or six feet deep, and covering it with a flat
roof of poles, grass, and earth, leaving an opening at the edge. This
opening was provided with a ladder -a notched log -and was covered at
night and in inclement weather with a trapdoor formed of twisted inner
bark of the cottonwood. This was the so-called menstrual lodge, where
women dwelt apart from the men during their catamenial periods, and during
parturition. Such an underground room was constructed by the young women
and girls, who, after the labor was completed, brought to the place food
of vari- ous kinds, and indulged in a feast. An old woman distributed
the food about the circle, and after the feast the women and girls went
home. Girls and unmarried women not in their periods sometimes slept there
in the coldest weather. The scarcity of robes is said to have been the
cause of this custom: in the underground house no coverings were necessary.
In the day-time the occupants sat there doing their basket-work and sewing.
On sunny days the girls sat about the doorway on the roof-level.
The hitamash was like the underground house for
women, but was only about three feet deep, and of lesser diameter. It
was primarily a sudatory, but youths, and old men not provided with sufficient
bedding, sometimes slept in it in very cold weather.
Spinden, describing an old village site, says that the
sunken spaces marking the location of circular lodges have a greater depth
than appears in the remains of the elongated communal structures. It is
likely that practically all these circular rings mark spots that were
occupied by the underground houses.
The summer houses at the fishing stations were called
ishnash. These were as much as a hundred feet long and fifty feet
wide, and were scarcely more than sheds for the shelter of the families
and the drying fish. At the summer root-digging camp, many pitched single
lodges covered with matting, but sometimes a group of families would erect
a long structure housing from fifty to a hundred people. It is said that
the long-houses were seldom made to contain more than eight fires, because
it had been found that longer ones soon filled with smoke. At the time
they were first met by the whites, a century ago, the Nez Perces were
a prosperous people, and on special occasions dressed with great show.
Men wore the usual deerskin shirt, leggings, and moccasins. Sometimes
buffalo-skin and elk-skin were used in mak- ing moccasins, but these were
of coarse texture and were not so durable. Their robes of buffalo-skins
or elk-skins were exceptional in their beautiful decoration. In primitive
times the shirts were ornamented with colored porcupine-quills, or with
red or yellow paint laid on solidly, not in designs. Elk-teeth and paint
were used in ornamenting the women's dresses, which were made of deerskins
or of mountain-sheep skins. When the latter was used the stubby tails
were left on so that one appeared at the breast and the other at the back
of the garment.
The men parted the hair in two lines diverging from the crown to the temples,
and braided it at the sides, the forelock being cut off at the level of
the nose and curled upward with a heated stick. This form of hairdressing
entirely disappeared about 1890, having been superseded by the pompadour
instead of the upward curl.' Women parted the hair in the middle and braided
it at each side, using a comb of thin strips of syringa arranged in the
form of a fan. Neither sex practised tattooing.
The following quotation from Lewis and Clark bearing on the Nez Perce
dress is particularly interesting:
"The Cho-pun-nish or Pierced nose Indians are Stout likely
men, handsom women, and verry dressey ey in their way, the dress of
the men are a White Buffalow robe or Elk Skin dressed with Beeds
which are generally white, Sea Shells & the Mother of Pirl hung to
the[i]r hair & on a piece of otter skin about their necks hair Ceewed
in two parsels hanging forward over their Sholders, feathers, and
different Coloured Paints which they find in their Countre Gener
ally white, Green & light Blue. Some fiew were a Shirt of Dressed
Skins and long legins & Mockersons Painted, which appears to be
their winters dress, with a plat of twisted grass about their Necks.
The women dress in a Shirt of Ibex or Goat [Argalia] Skins which
reach quite down to their anckles with a girdle, their heads are not
ornemented, their Shirts are ornemented with quilled Brass, Small
peces of Brass Cut into different forms, Beeds, Shells & curious
bones &c."
They speak of the women being particularly modest, carefully avoiding
exposure of the person; but the men, on the contrary, notwithstanding
their fine wearing apparel, were indifferent in matters of this kind.
The handiwork of the Nez Perce's shows greater skill than is exhibited
by that of the tribes of the plains. They made baskets and bags of several
forms. A large cylindrical basket for the gathering and storage of roots
was called kakapa; it was made of twine from Indian hemp and bear-grass,
the latter forming the weft and the former the warp. The bear-grass was
sometimes dyed blue, red, or yellow, the blue being made from lichens,
the red and yellow from earth not burned or otherwise prepared. Kushh
was a flat winnowing basket made of osiers and measuring twenty to
twenty-fourinches in diameter. Pishkut, the mortar basket, was
of the same material and shape; it was bottomless, as usual, and was fastened
upright to a flat stone upon which the roots or seeds were pounded. It
is probable that both the winnowing and the mortar basket of the Nez Perces
were borrowed originally from the Shoshoni.
Cooking-vessels consisted of coiled baskets made of willow splints, and
had the form of an inverted truncated cone. Flat bags or pouches were
woven in several sizes. The smaller bags of this type were used by the
women for containing their small, personal belongings, while the larger
ones held the clothing and personal effects of the family. Both warp and
weft were of hemp twine, the design being often produced or elaborated
by the use of colored materials wrought into the surface by being caught
under the horizontal threads as the bag was woven. Matting, woven from
cattails or from tules, was made in great quantities, as it furnished
the principal house-covering, served as mattresses, and, spread upon the
ground, formed tables upon which to place the food, while small pieces
were used in lieu of dishes. Spoons were carved from the frontal bone
of the deer, from horn of the mountain-sheep, or from clam-shells. Bowls
were hollowed out of soft wood, such as alder, by means of knives, which
primitively were flakes of flint. Bows about three feet in length and
of great strength were fashioned from mountainsheep horn, and were either
of one piece or of two pieces spliced. Red cedar and syringa also were
used. All well-made bows were strengthened with a backing of several layers
of sinew. Arrows were principally of syringa. Flint-headed spears were
sometimes used in war, also clubs consisting of a spherical stone wrapped
in rawhide and provided with a wooden handle; such a weapon was called
kaplafs. An effective armor was manufactured of rawhide taken from
the neck of the bull-elk. This shirt of mail, called tukupailakt,
protected the upper part of the body, had half-length sleeves, and was
fastened at the front with thongs. The Nez Perce shield, which was used
only by war-leaders and their principal followers, was made of doubled
rawhide of the elk, unshrunken, and stretched over a wooden hoop; it sometimes
bore painted representations of the war exploits of its owner. Quivers
were made from the skin of the otter, coyote, cougar, or deer. Crude canoes
were hewn from drift logs, usually cedar.
The Nez Perces did not " make medicine " before undertaking
a buffalo hunt, as was common with the Sioux, Apsaroke, and other tribes
subsisting mainly on the bison. Individual medicine men might invoke supernatural
aid in their own way, or some man might dream that a herd would be found
in a certain place at a certain time. It is evident that, contrary to
the custom of the plains Indians, there was comparatively little order
in their hunting; indeed, it was more in the nature of a grand rush, each
man for himself. The lack of ceremony attending their buffalo killing
seemingly indicates that bison hunting had not become a deeply rooted
institution of the Nez Perces, but was rather incidental. The following
brief account of an actual journey to the buffalo country about the year
1870 illustrates the character of such expeditions.
Under the leadership of Looking Glass and Shorn Head the Nez Perces started
from the plains of Oyaip in June, one hundred and thirty tipis strong
from twelve hundred and fifty to fifteen hundred people. About two months
were consumed in the journey to the buffalo country, and the nights were
already growing cold. Although scouts were kept constantly in advance,
the party came within sight of the first great herd while the whole cavalcade
was in motion. The chiefs at once ordering the women and children to remain
in the rear while the killing was in progress, the men quickly secured
their " buffalo horses " and were ready for the slaughter. It
was a great hunt, beginning before noon and lasting until nightfall. When
the men returned in the evening the women had of course pitched camp and
already had brought in quantities of meat. For six days the hunting party
remained in this place, feasting on the choicest parts of the buffalo
meat, and drying the remainder. Then for eight days they circled about
in search of the main herd. The scouts, who were everywhere on the alert,
reported many buffalo near the lake northwest of where Billings, Montana,
now is, and the party went into camp on a small creek forming its outlet.
In the morning the chiefs cried out: "Today we will have a great
hunt! The buffalo are thick all about us! The prairie is black with them!"
Soon the men on their fast horses were ready to ride down upon the herd.
In the early part of the day the hunters cut out a small band and drove
sixty of them over a precipice. Throughout the day the hunt continued
and the number slaughtered was tremendous. No one could tell how many.
They remained at this place eighteen days, drying meat and killing scattered
buffalo.
EDWARD S. CURTIS
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