THE NEZ PERCES, PART 9
Now, having obtained an abundant supply of meat, and realizing that cold
weather was approaching, they moved to the Yellowstone to spend the winter.
Crossing the river they established themselves at the mouth of Tullocks
fork, the encampment stretching along the bank of the stream for probably
a mile. In addition to the regular tipis sheltering two or more families,
there were two long-houses, one occupied by Shorn Head, the other by Three
Eagles.
In this camp the Nez Perces were visited by a war-party of fifteen Apsaroke,
led by Long Horse, on a raid against the Piegan. The Nez Perces remained
on the Yellowstone until spring, when they were visited by the Mountain
Crows, who had started out on their summer hunt. This party was under
the leadership of Winking Eyes, and consisted of three hundred and seventy
lodges- probably two thousand people. Soon after the visit of the Mountain
Crows, Looking Glass and Three Eagles started on their return home, while
Shorn Head with thirty tipis remained with the Apsaroke. The combined
party moved about for twenty days, then stopped for a time on the Bighorn.
There a party of Sioux came in sight on a distant hill. One brave young
man came down and swam the river, probably expecting to capture a horse,
but he was seen and forced to return under heavy fire. The fact that he
escaped the many flying bullets caused the Nez Perces and Apsaroke to
think that he must have possessed great mystic power.
Plenty Coups, the present chief of the Apsaroke, was but a young man at
that time. He and Big Shoulder-blade, another untried youth, went out
together to show that they were men and warriors. They swam their horses
across the Bighorn and rode on in search of some one to kill. Coming finally
upon a lone Sioux hunting antelope, the boys lay in wait until he had
secured one, then they killed him, took his scalp, his gun, and the antelope,
and returned at night to the camp. On arriving, Plenty Coups rode past
the tipi of Grizzly-bear Ferocious (the Nez Perce narrator of this episode)
and ridiculed him, saying: "Why do you sleep there with your wives
all the time? Why don't you prove yourself a man and go out and do something?"
This was probably the first grand coup won by Plenty Coups. Spurred to
action by the ridicule, Grizzlybear Ferocious, who later became one of
the greatest warriors among the Nez Perces, started in search of the Sioux,
taking with him a Nez Perce and two Apsaroke. After swimming the river
they rode off in the direction of the Little Bighorn. During the night
the Apsaroke deserted the two Nez Perces, but they continued on and reached
the Little Bighorn at the place where the Custer battle was afterward
fought, and below them in the valley, where the Sioux and their allies
were encamped when Custer saw them, was a large camp of Sioux. For a time
they watched the camp with all its activity.Women, old and young, were
going to the river for water, while young men loitered by the trails and
stream watching for their sweethearts to pass.
About noon a terrible storm arose and swept the camp with such fury that
the tipis were blown in all directions and the women and children were
overcome by fear. Taking advantage of the raging storm and the excitement
in the Sioux camp, Grizzly-bear Ferocious and his companion rushed into
the enemy's midst, killed and scalped a man, and drove off a herd of horses.
The tempest continued during the afternoon, favoring their flight by obliterating
their tracks; but as soon as the Sioux fully realized the disastrous result
of the audacious raid they were in hot pursuit. Encumbered with their
captured herd, the two Nez Perces knew at the break of the following day
that the distance between them and their pursuers was steadily diminishing;
they therefore abandoned all the horses except three, which they succeeded
in taking safely to the Nez Perce and Apsaroke camp.
A few days later the Apsaroke scouts reported that a large party of Sioux
were approaching. Orders were at once given to prepare for battle, and
at daybreak the Sioux made their attack. The fight lasted most of the
day, seven Sioux and three Apsaroke being killed in the encounter. Shortly
afterward Shorn Head said to his people "There is too much fighting
here. We will go home." The return journey occupied three months.
As is shown in the historical sketch, the Nez Perces consisted of a number
of loosely formed bands or groups, each with its elective chief. The prominent
men of each of these groups, such as warriors of reputation and the tiwat,
or medicine-men, formed an advisory council. Members of a council did
not become such by virtue of tribal enactment: the position was merely
assumed by reason of the individual's prominence, his recognized leadership,
and he was readily displaced if deemed unworthy to serve longer as an
adviser in the affairs of the people. Each of the bands was independent
of the others, and prior to the appointment of Ellis, there was no headchief
of all the Nez Perces, and of course he became such only by the action
of the Government.
After the death of Ellis, the Government assumed that Lawyer, the chief
of the church Nez Perces, was head-chief, but as the whole later history
of the tribe attests, he was not so considered beyond the Clearwater country.
Succession in chieftainship of a band was ostensibly by inheritance, yet
public opinion played so important a part that the natural successor was
often disregarded, and another, presumably more fit, was selected. Following
a chief's demise a great death?feast was held, to which in some instances
were invited the people of all the Nez Perce bands, as well as the Umatilla,
the Wallawalla, and even the Cayuse. In council at this gathering it was
determined who was to be the new chief. Visiting tribesmen of importance
participated in the deliberations to such an extent that the selection
might be materially influenced by their speeches, although their only
interest was the natural desire that each band should have a chief of
ability, whose policies were likely to be beneficial to his people.
Slavery was too rare to be considered an institution. Such slaves as they
possessed were usually captives; the women were taken as wives by their
owners, and the children became members of the tribe by adoption.
Constant foes of the Nez Perces were the Bannock, the Shoshoni, the Coeur
d'Alenes, and the Spokan. With the Flatheads and Kalispel, the Yakima,
the Columbia river people as far down as the Dalles, including the Umatilla,
the Cayuse, and the Wallawalla, they were always at peace. On their journeys
to the buffalo country they were often in conflict with different tribes
met in the region traversed; but generally they were on friendly terms
with the Apsaroke, such amity being almost a necessity, for on it depended
their passage through the western gateway to the southern buffalo plains.
Often the Nez Perces met Flatheads and other Indians from the east on
the plains of Oyaip, and there bartered with them for buffalo-robes and
meat. They went also to the Columbia at the Dalles, where they reexchanged
their buffalo-robes for such articles as the river Indians possessed -pounded
fish, wapato roots, shell beads. In rare instances men went to the mouth
of the river, to return with stories of the great water and its monsters-
whales, porpoises, and sea-lions.
The Nez Perce youth wooed his sweetheart whenever chance or design favored
him with an opportunity to speak to her; and when fortune was unkind he
laid siege to her heart with plaintive strains on his flute, such as the
accompanying air. When two lovers agreed to marry, they reported the fact
to their parents, and the young man's parents went to the father and the
mother of the girl and obtained their consent to the match. Then either
at once or after an interval of some days the girl was taken to the home
of the youth.
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After two or three weeks she informed her parents that she was coming
home on a certain day, and when that day arrived she and the family of
her husband went with presents and partook of the feast which her relatives
had prepared, receiving in return for their presents gifts of equal value.
Marriage might be arranged without any wooing. The young man would tell
his father that he desired a certain girl for his wife, and the father
would cause a friend to ask the girl's parents for her hand, promising
them a certain number of horses or other presents. If they consented,
she was at once taken home by the mother or the sisters of the young man,
and after the usual interval came the marriage feast and the exchange
of presents. As a rule a couple lived for about two years with the parents
of belonging to the families of their fathers. There were no restrictions
against conversation and ordinary social amenities between a man and his
mother-in-law or between brothers and sisters.
The infantile name, which usually was that of an ancestor, might be suggested
by some relative, and if it proved satisfactory to the parents, it was
accepted without formality. Later, when the child was a few years old,
the father might desire to change its name, and to do so would, at the
time of a death-feast or other ceremony, announce this new name and make
presents to an old man, who received also gifts from all others who changed
their names, and then distributed them among the deserving. The name thus
chosen might be one belonging to some living person, who in return for
certain presents had relinquished his right to it. A final name was often
obtained through revelations in their fastings in the mountains during
youth. This, however, was not used until later in life, when the revealed
name was made known by the new-fledged warrior or was developed through
hypnotic agencies at a long-house ceremony.
Bodies of the dead were wrapped tightly in skins and carried out to where
a shallow grave had been made ready in the rocky ledges. The friends and
relations followed the body to the grave, venting their grief by loud
wailing and crying. After the corpse had been laid away with its head
to the eastward, the opening was covered first with poles or split cedar
staves, and then deeply with stones, and between these stones were thrust
many upright split cedar pickets. Quantities of trinkets were thrown into
the grave, and horses were killed and left close by. During the last generation,
it is said, they often stuffed horses and propped them up in a lifelike
position. Those persons who had touched the dead body afterward entered
the sweat-lodge to purify themselves, having first thrust red-osier wands
down their throats in order to cause vomiting. The parents of a deceased
young man would cut the hair of his widow to about shoulder-length, and
it remained uncombed for one, two, or three years; but when the parents
decided that the time of mourning should be ended, they called her in
and said, "It is time for you to change." Still she might continue
to mourn, extending the period to as much as four or five years. This
was not an invariable rule, for sometimes the widow cut her own hair,
and occasionally it was left uncut. Men did not shorten the hair in mourning,
but they did wear unworthy clothing; abstention from merry-making was
the only other restriction imposed on them.
After a corpse had been removed from a house the structure was taken down
and moved, unless it was a long-house, in which case the part in which
the person had died was cut out. If it was near the end of the large structure,
it was taken down and both it and the end unit were moved away; if it
was in the middle, the two parts remaining after it was removed were covered
over at the exposed ends and thus made into two lodges. The belongings
of a dead person were piled outside the lodge awaiting the distribution.
The death of any person was followed by an announcement from the chief
that all the people should refrain from merry-making until after the "dead
feast."
The so-called "dead feast" (hiptanit, "food-making")
was a custom originating in the trouble which frequently ensued on the
death of a man, when his relatives would forcibly take what he had left,
depriving his widow and children of the means of subsisting. Tradition
relates that the chiefs decided to make it a law that a man's property
should be kept intact until in the course of a few days or months after
his death the people all came together, and a certain man of standing,
having been appointed by the close relations of the departed to make the
desired distribution of the property, gave away the various articles to
those whom the deceased or his relations had designated. The same custom
was observed in disposing of the possessions of a woman.
EDWARD S. CURTIS