Closed Captions Audio Described

Alan Pinkham (Nez Perce) explains how his people lived along the Clearwater, Snake, and Salmon Rivers since time immemorial, received the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1805, and established alliances through trade and intermarriage. He discusses the prophecies that foretold the Corps' arrival, the role of leaders like Red Bear and Watkueis, and how cultural misunderstandings between the Nez Perce and incoming traders, trappers, and government agents led to conflict and treaty violations over the following 170 years.

Transcript

0:02 like to welcome you to the tent of many voices I'd also like to introduce to you our first Speaker for the day Mr Alan Pinkham of the nesper tribe is going to be speaking and what he's going to be doing is giving you the story of how the exhausted and starving core of Discovery was hospitably received by the nesp pur people he'll present aspects of traditional tribal history and culture
0:27 be before and since the core of Discovery and now I ask you to join me in welcoming Alan Pinkham as he adds his voice and his stories to our tent of many voices thank you you know I appreciate the
0:50 opportunity to speak with you today um came all away from the Idaho a few days too and it's about 40 5 46° in Idaho and we're freezing our tail off over here but that's fine you know we late uh winter in Idaho is just coming late
1:13 so you know one of the things that I like to do is let people know what the nesters knew before Lewis and Clark came to our country in Idaho you you know people think sometimes that history starts in 1805
1:36 for the npers people and that's not so we have been in Idaho since time immemorial way before the even tribal memory goes but our tribal memory tells us that we were always in Idaho we were created right along the Clearwater River
1:59 and a Snake River in the Salmon River and the upper reach is the colum River in the colum River Basin so that's where we've always been we never came from anywhere else and I don't believe what an archaeologist will tell me that I came across the bearing Straits that is not true because none of our stories ever tell us
2:22 that so when we seen a strange kind of creature that didn't look like us we wondered if they were even human beings you know they had eyes like fish they had their some of them had their faces upside down they spoke a language we never heard before and they
2:46 smelled so when we seen these creatures our old people would say now the prophecy is coming true because we foretold of these strange change kind of people coming and they're very short but they tell me quite a bit when these people come Among Us
3:10 after we decided they were human beings of some sort when they come Among Us they're going to travel faster and faster and faster they're going to make things that go through the air they're going to make things that crawl upon the ground and they're going to bring good things and bad things with them the prophecy goes on and on but that
3:33 briefly that's what it is another one is a white-faced creature will be coming behind a white-faced animal about the size of a deer and it will go right through laway Valley in the center of our country and that also happened so when Lewis and Clark came it surprised us that they showed up
3:57 on that particular day in September because nobody travels through the passes at that time of year because you can get snowed in and lost up in the mountains if you do that so we were kind of surprised that they would be doing those things but we encountered them but we knew of these people even before
4:22 that there's terms that we used even before we actually seen Lewis and Clark you know and and some of them became a very common usage among us later but if you could imagine going back another hundred years prior to
4:44 1805 we acquired the horse about 1700 you know other um anthropologists and historians tell us that we got it about 1730 but I believe it's much sooner than that because once the Pueblo Revolt occurred in about 1680 the horse trading and uh travel
5:06 route between tribes is very fast very quick so within a decade or two they would have been into the Northern Plains and into Idaho or they may have come from the Southern Idaho up into our country so either way we would have acquired the horse about 1700 and if we had seen a new animal
5:29 that we never seen before what kinds of question do you think we would ask what do you use this animal for where did it come from who brought it how do you use it how do you train it what do you call it we call the horse s that's our term and it's related very
5:52 close to the dog because we already had the dog the dog we call CH and it's just a shorten version that is sium and that's uh what we called the Horse and so we acquired the horse we adopt to that horse culture very quickly and within 100 years we had vast herds of horses before
6:16 leis and Clark came Among Us so this tells me that we knew quite a bit about these white-faced creatures they called themselves white and we didn't know why but that's what they did and and so I I'm sure that we knew about this and then what we end up calling
6:37 these white-faced creatures were soyo and the Salish people call them soapi and so that tells me quite a bit that U and the the translation of soyo means a crosswater people so how did we know they came across the water so I must have know a great deal
7:01 about these white-faced creatures and so when Louis and Clark shows up you know we knew they were coming because it was foretold that they would come and that they would bring good things and bad things harmful things that would hurt us and good things that would help us so it was a dichotomy of
7:24 or a very polarized opinion of these people once we decided they were human beings and knowing what they had is what we wanted they had gunpowder lead metal glass tools that we could
7:48 use so when wat kuis the young the old lady that was stolen by another tribe out on a plane she made her way back home and she was along the water river when she heard of Lou and Clark coming and so there was a great discussion what should we do with these people should we let them pass through
8:12 our country or should we kill them or should we you know we can utilize what they have you know Lo and Clark had the most modern rifled muzzle loers of that day very accurate firearms and some of the knives and other tools they had were very useful to us so if we if we would have decided to kill
8:37 them we would have ended up with these good items but wat kuis the way the name wat kuis means that someone that has been taken away then came back to the country that's what that that means and by and at the this time in 1805 she was an elderly lady and she was very ill at the time and The Story Goes that she was
9:01 lying in a tent and she asked someone to raise up the flap so she could view these people and she seen him and says oh those are the people that helped me out on the planes when I was coming home you know don't hurt them don't do them any harm so she swayed the argument for not killing these people and we debate that issue whether
9:25 is that a good thing or bad thing if you let him live so and we're still debating it sometimes also but nonetheless we are here we survived that and so wat kuis was very influential in what occurred and so the decision was made Let's help these
9:49 people knowing what they're going to do knowing what they're going to bring to us in the following years and also that prophecy comes true also and part of the prophecy says that it will take five generations for the nesp people to recover from the coming
10:13 of the white man that is what is foretold and so knowing this and there's other members of our tribe the tribal leaders you know broken arm and a few others but there was a man that was more influential than any other
10:37 nesp leader his name was hak El pil and what hak El pil means is red bear or bloody bear and at the time of 1806 when Louis and Clark were coming back up River red bear met them he wasn't there I don't believe in the first in 18 5
11:00 when he went down river but he was there when when they came back up River Now red bear he was about 53 years old in 1806 and he also had a kind of a vision he said I must smoke with these people when they
11:23 come even before losen Clark showed up in a country this is what he said I need to smoke with these people so there again here is uh another interpretation of the encounter or the contact with Lewis and Clark so that's what he did he smoked with
11:46 him and making that decision that it's best to smoke with them rather than going to conflict them with them immediately [Music] now redbear was born about 1752 and when he passed away he was 90
12:07 years old and he had 80 wounds on his body with encounters while hunting or encounters when he was in battle he later adopted the name mini wounds when he became older he had six Sons
12:31 one another there was a red bear Jr then there were two black Eagles the the second son was named Black Eagle and he was killed by shishoni banic [Music] people and then the son redbear Jr signed the 1855 treaty that we made with
12:52 the United States government in Wala and there's two other Sons that were had Salish names and they became very prominent leaders among the tribe also but there's another son his name was Blacktail eagle and he is the one that I I surmised and the things that I found out
13:17 that he probably went to St Louis in 1831 with three other Nest purse now whether this Black Eagle was born in 180 6 I'm not sure but he must have been influenced by his father old redbear that there are certain things
13:39 that we need to do as tribal people and that is to find out how do the minds of these strange creatures work how do they do these things that they do and one of those things that they do is they
14:02 write they go like this and then they can hand that what they have written to someone else and they can read that word for word and we wondered how do they do that and this is one of the things that our old people would talk about we need to know how they do
14:26 this now one of the things that used to occur in these days is that we would exchange children with other tribes and make arranged marriages between tribal leaders well this also occurred with Lewis and Clark red Bear's daughter had the son of Clark and that was done for a purpose because this is the
14:50 alliance this is how we make relationships between another tribe or another kind of people the core of Discovery didn't think this was occurring they were just out there enjoying themselves with a young women but we were forming an alliance people forget this and so Clark has a
15:15 son and so and I'm a descendant of redbear my mother is a Black Eagle the Black Eagle name comes from through the redbear family so if there's Clarks out there we're related some way and I have met a couple of these Clark
15:36 people so there's this tie and it's ironic now that I can meet someone that we have in common ancestry people don't think of these things that way but this is what it was done 200 years ago to form this Alliance so it's very
16:00 important but then historians have ignored this fact that this Alliance was formed so when Black Eagle went to St Louis you know he said you know they made to sign the
16:21 book you know how do you right well the missionaries misinterpreted that and said oh they must be looking for the Bible their souls are thirsting for religious teachings well that may have been true to a certain extent but that was not the main purpose the main purpose was how do you
16:45 transfer knowledge so you can make things that you need or you makes your life a little bit easier that's what we're really after but missionaries misinterpreted that so we got inundated by missionaries uh Presbyterians the Catholics the methodists all came out to our country which is good which is bad
17:10 also the missionaries told us don't practice your Heathen ways you know you're you're not going to go to heaven if you practice your Heathen ways you'll go to hell if you practice your Heathen ways that's what we were told ignoring the alliance that we had set up so now the nesp people are in a
17:34 dilemma we see things disappearing our land base our animals our fish our water those are being occupied by this half human creature that came to us I'm sorry I have to express myself this way but we also had our own
17:56 prejudices and biases also but this is the way our old people talk and so you know even though we had a treaty of 1855 which redbear Jr signed and there again the alliance is ignored Clark's son was at the treaty
18:19 negotiations in W Wala but he was ignored and then when it became the war of 1877 he was was also ignored as well but Clark's son went with Joseph and to certain white bird and the other leaders and he went through all the battles Battle of white bird the Battle
18:43 of Clearwater Fort fizzle big hole Canyon Creek and bears paaw he went through all those battles Clark's son Clark son was called and that means daytime smoke ER and this is what we call Clark in 1806 we called him
19:05 Hal daytime smoker because that's what he probably did he smoked during the daytime so this is a little history now this is the Tie that I'm describing of Lewis and Clark and those things that we wanted to do okay U clarkon went through the war of 1870s and also another descendant of
19:30 redbear his name was Wata and he lived to be 106 years old he met Spalding he was also the one that grabbed Lieutenant Jerome's horse at the Battle of bepa when Joseph was taken prisoner wolan held the horse of
19:54 Lieutenant Jerome and so they took Jerome back to the nesp camp and kept him prisoner until Joseph was released and he is a great grandson of redbear and the ironic thing here is the son of WLAN became The
20:16 Interpreter called Sam lot in English and he being the son of wolan he never fought in the nesp War he was an interpreter after the war so these things are very ironic that you know some of these things occurred the way they did when we went to war it
20:40 just split families right down the middle some fought with Joseph some some didn't they stayed on a reservation and also another son of watan he fought in the War of of 187 and he was exiled into Canada and this is all my family
21:04 history this is from my mother's side my father's side is another another part of this history as well because on my father's side uh my grandfather fought and participated in the war of 1877 also so I'm connected from both sides into this conflict after Lewis and Clark
21:28 now one of the things that we made an agreement with with Lewis and Clark you know after we took care of their horses and helped them make the canoes at orino fed them and took U guides down with them to
21:51 U near Salo Falls Oregon we made an agreement with him when it came back in ' 06 besides an alliance agreement that we we tried to do they also gave us these things these medals that on one side
22:15 says peace and friendship and has a has a bust of Jefferson on the other side and that was a practice of United States at the time to give out medals to U tribes as well as other country leaders of other countries but they also did this with tribes as well and um Lo and Clark brought out many of these medals
22:37 now the the nespas received seven or eight [Music] medals and since since we sat down with them in CI for about a month there was a lot of discussion on what what we should do with these people as well how do we make the relationship work well one of the agreement was is that if you're going to give us this medal that says peace and friendship on
23:01 it and you want us to be that way then you treat us the same way that was the agreement this is the first treaty between the United States and the nesper people well when treaty time came and
23:20 when the war of 1877 came that was ignored so even though we may made these kinds of agreements United States ignore these things because it's not written down you know all bets are off while to
23:44 us that was a sealed and agreed to agreement and it's ignored and that peace and friendship agreement didn't last very long because in about 1811 when the Traders and Trappers came out it was mainly a Trader they hung up poo Indian Poli Indians were as much Nest Pur as
24:09 anything else also and this is one of the conflicts the trader came in at the mouth of poo River I think it came south from Canada and it might have been Reed or Thompson or McKenzie I don't know which one it was someone told me it was probably Reed
24:31 that did this they came and they had uh pack animals with them and and they met with the Indians that lived on at the mouth of pooo river and they they took their packs out and they spread everything out on the ground and they start bragging now this is the tribal perspective of what this event was so
24:56 they laid it all down you know and they said oh this is what we have here you know if you bring us certain things we'll trade with you you know this is a silver goblet this is silverware these are knives these their axes you know those kind of things there were things that we could utilize but then when they didn't get any trade then they folded everything packed it up and it says we're going to
25:18 leave but they missed one item an Indian had taken something and they missed it and they they said well if you don't give it back to us you know we're we're going to kill one you or or uh hang you because they never got it back after they questioned the Indians for quite a while so they said well
25:43 we're not we're not getting it back so we'll we'll hang one of you and we'll choose one of you and do that so they erected a tripod and had a rope on it and unfortunately they had the rifles to to uh intimidate us at that time and we didn't have that many rifles Among Us Now can this is
26:08 1811 so they chose one says you're going to be the one so they hunging so this agreement this Alliance that we tried to set up did not work because all white men are not the same and that's another prophecy that we for told is
26:31 that these white brothers will fight each other at different times and how did we know that you know these are little bits and pieces of information I hear from my father and other Elders you know since since this event 200 years ago
26:55 so so the police Indian was hung I think it was a silver goblet or something like that and um so our agreement wasn't working and um and the other side of this is when we bring things into a camp and we spread it out on the
27:18 ground we give them away see this is a difference in our culture now so this provide provides a good opportunity for conflict and the other aspect of this is when another group of people come through our country you know what are you going to give us for coming through our
27:41 country you know then then they they view this as begging says no what are you going to pay me for coming through my country you know so here's the Clash of cultures and interpretation of cultural events when we spread things out of the ground we call somebody up come on up you take
28:04 a gift that's what we do see and that is Mis interpretated because Traders came and said no you have to bring me something then I'll give you something completely different value system and they weren't willing to pay tolls either
28:29 so there's immediate conflict and so from 1811 then the relationship very quickly started to deteriorate now we did have some good relationship with some some Trappers and what they called in those days mountain men you know we had a good relationship
28:51 with Joe Meek I think uh new sublet and a few others because we'd go to reviews with them and then we'd have a good time and um so in some aspects the relationship that we tried to set up did work but overall it
29:16 didn't so these are things I tried to explain and you know there's other little stories you know um there was another one he became known as Chief Timothy and
29:41 he lived at the mouth of uh and up the Alaway River he his uh Nest person name was tumut and tumut was about 5 6 years old when L and Clark came and they met Lis and Clark at at the mouth of alawe Creek which is in the state of Washington and just not too far
30:03 Downstream from Caron Washington and chief Timothy remembered sack ofia and for some reason he must have picked up on a name of Jane as being saaia and I think probably what occurred was
30:25 that the core Discovery men calls SAA Jia by a nickname which was Jane I think that was probably where this name comes from well when Chief Timothy became older and a leader of his people then he named his daughter Jane and she became known after a couple of marriages by Jane silcott
30:49 and this little story is that sakaia did live to be a elderly lady and other people say no she died at Fort Emanuel a few few years later after the core Discovery Well we have this little story of uh Saka J that she became an older lady and that she did uh live in
31:12 Wyoming so Chief T Timothy hearing this said well I'll send Jane to Wyoming to visit with and trade with sacka joia so that's what they did and so to us you know you know Saia did live to be an older lady so U you know these are the kinds of things that that occurred with the nesp people and these stories come from some
31:37 of our elders so I can't ignore these stories so I retell them and it goes on and on there's other so much more misunderstandings misinterpretation and a class of cultures that occurred since 1806 it just goes on and on and on
31:59 on another incidence is when orway went from CI to the Salmon River and Snake River they didn't find any salmon to buy or purchase on a Salmon River at that time and it was the last few days of May that they went L and Clark had heard that chinuk salmon were running up the rivers but they hadn't gotten to the
32:22 clear water or the Salmon River at that time they were going up the main stem of the Snake River so or way in Frasier and um I can't recall the third one but there are three of the core Discovery and when they went down to the salmon they couldn't find salmon a so they rode over the ridge line Wai Ridge which is just south of Winchester Idaho and they went over the r and into
32:46 the Snake River and they found a large Village there uh one Village uh structure was about 150 ft long and there was it was a large settlement of uh Nest purses there well they found salmon and they traded and purchased some salmon and this what they came
33:09 after so when they were packing up the next morning they found that the few of their salmon were missing and so orway in his journal he writes down my some of our salmon were stolen but we came back and they delivered some salmon back to Louis and Clark at Kim uh most of the salmon spoiled but they
33:31 had a few that survived the trip and they said that the salmon was very delicious but here again is another misinterpretation of this event in our culture there is always what we call a salmon leader in each Village and he is the one that makes the
33:55 decisions on when to fish where to fish and who gets to eat the first fish usually it's the young children and they have either a ceremony or some kind of observance for the coming of the first salmon so he has the responsibility to decide who gets the salmon how it's distributed and who it's given
34:19 to and that's his responsibility well during the evening or the night prior to uh orway going back some young men probably came and said uh my family needs salmon where can I get salmon so the Sal leader says right there you take that whatever you need you take it you
34:42 go well in orway he says no they were stolen the salmon leader has the responsibility to distribute fish to anyone that needs fish that's NES Pur law in those days so you cannot ignore nesp law when you live in nesp
35:05 country so these are the things that I'm trying to explain that there's misinterpretation constantly throughout the events for the last 200 years it's been going on and it's still here there's still misunderstanding and misinterpretation of how we live and how who we are and it goes into Juris IAL disputes
35:29 and and all kinds of Arenas but our main interest is to provide for our people because we made the United States government put it in writing In 1855 and all we want to do is make United States government live up to what
35:53 they agreed to In 1855 very simple simple not complicated but very complex to apply so that's our dilemma even today after 200 years of relationships we still are in conflict over certain issues and it continues but what the
36:18 other things that the people prophesized was one day we'll be one people when we stop killing ourselves and each other and trying to take away something from our neighbors or someone else and make it our own that's when we become one
36:41 people and that's what the old people would talk about says we need to do that so after 200 years we're still trying to do that we need to work towards that relationship of being one people it's very meaningful and we need to try to do that so I guess for now that's all I have to say so if
37:04 you have any questions or uh something I'll sure try to answer you [Music] yes the role of Trappers there was um well one of the
37:28 things that came out of Louis and Clark jwor he was half Shaunie and half French and he he was a sign talker he could th this is a sign for Indian sign talk that's what that means so he he could do that and we had a very good relationship with Julia and since we knew that he was half
37:53 shaune and he knew the sign leg we communicated him fairly well in fact I think um he was given a a gray horse because we recognized him as someone that had good knowledge of Indian people and um and I think there was a couple other uh French sounding names that may have had some Indian Blood also on the
38:17 Expedition so so jwy was well treated by us because he knew who he was but unfortunately he got killed I believe out on Yellowstone River just a few years later by the black legs so the relationship between these these mix Bloods was very good and and I said mentioned before that some early Trappers and Traders came out to nesper
38:40 Country after 1806 and some of those we got on along with very well because they they uh understood or either because they were mixed blood and they understood the Indian ways a lot better and uh some of those came out there was rebs uh sublets uh Newell Meek and a number of Trappers like that that somewhere accepted right into our tribal
39:05 organization they they U married uh nesp women so the relationship was some was very good but it's a governmental agents and Bia people and you know that we didn't get along with because it was take take take so that relationship that in that respect didn't work out very
39:25 well but it did in other aspect thanks very much for your uh your fine presentation you touch uh I don't think your mic is on there thanks very much for for that fine
39:49 presentation uh you touched on something that came up in a panel discussion I attended yesterday that is the descendants of uh some of the core of Discovery um I'm wondering two things a couple of things one is you mentioned descendants of William Clark are you aware of any descendants tribal uh
40:11 through tribal relations uh of Merryweather Lewis and secondly one of the points that came up during the panel discussion yesterday over near monachello was uh whether is there any interest uh Within your people in uh exploring possible DNA uh evidence of those
40:35 descendants thank you okay U is there any descendants of Lewis as far as I know there isn't now there there is some statements that I've seen that said that LS didn't participate in the other activities that Clark and orway and Cass
40:57 and and York also had with the native women now I don't know the reason why there's speculative uh things about it but uh but if you need if you recall there's controversy of how he ended his life was it himself or was he shot by somebody else well it raises the question what what made his mind you
41:22 know deteriorate like that that he would do that you know was it cus or something else so you know you can speculate on on how that occurred but um as far as I know there's no descendants of Lewis um there is descendants of York though among the naspers and
41:44 um and if you if you can imagine most of these men of the core Discovery were U probably average age was just a little over 20 there were I think one or two that were still teenagers and and of course the leaders were only about 30 32 33 years old so these are you know young vigorous men
42:08 you know but and they viewed the native women as as something different than the way I just described you know we're trying to set up a good relationship with that then and uh and arranged marriages with with nespr women did occur so and that's something that even some of our own people that would like to ignore but it did occur in those days so um and
42:33 DNA I don't know uh whether it really serve any purpose for us or not I I don't think it would um to become a member of the nesp tribe you have to have a certain blood Quantum now whether a Clark would want to be a member of the tribe I don't know but uh but it's interesting I I bring this out
42:56 because this relationship that we're trying to establish you know so I don't know whether uh our people would accept DNA I know what occurred with Jefferson's descendants but you'd have to ask someone of uh black descendants to to see how they reacted to that cuz I have
43:19 no idea how my people would react anything [Music] else hi Alan hi I this may be a repeat question but I I was um and you may have presented it earlier but the um one thing we've been working with in ners
43:43 tribe on is trying to manage the Lewis and Clark Trail up on the Lola Trail and that route itself is the historic Buffalo Road that the nesp used for years and years and years uh and then ended up being the nesp uh flight path when Chief Joseph obviously uh was trying to uh flee the
44:07 military um do you think that uh how do you think that we should be presenting the story of the npers in relationship to the Lewis and Clark Story well I think it needs to be told that you know the relationship that we tried to establish was for you know this agreement that we made with the medal you know peace and
44:32 friendship you know that's what we wanted to uh continue well it didn't work you know in 1877 we went on the the flight of 1877 through the corridor of Lewis and Clark you know that trail it's it's about three or four different Trails we call it the Buffalo Trail because we went East to the Buffalo country and then when Lis and Clark came then it became
44:54 known as the leis and Clark Trail but prior to that it was known as a l Trail then a birds Truax Trail in 1863 or something you know so it's a a combination of different roads and trails and one of the things that the tribe is very concerned about is that we have some very significant sacred sites
45:16 and cultural sites along that trail you know it goes from Cami to um near the mouth of l Creek in Montana so so those things we want to see protected and they're they're it could be just a rock pile it could be just something under a stone it could be a mount it could be a mountain that has
45:41 some kind of aesthetic or religious significance to us you know since it's public land you know that presents a dilemma to us how should though that Corridor be managed to protect the resources and the sites that we we hold very dear you know and it and it becomes a dilemma who do you need to tell where
46:05 the specific site is you know does everybody need to know I no I don't think so now certain people need to know the forest service people need to know where these sites are so they can go there and at least monitor the condition of that site you know is it steel a has it been undisturbed you know is it is it going to exist longer
46:28 and and it is becoming a dilemma because the budget cuts are here there's not enough uh resource Personnel to to offer protection and oversight and and also the our own nest Pur people should be able to go into that area utilize a site or the resource the way we did 200 years ago or
46:52 even 300 years ago there's still some of us that still practice this and so it's important to us and we don't want to see this resource desecrated or um expired you know out of existence because we still use it it's be it's it's not that it's a particular site that it has a physical presence but
47:15 it's also this aesthetic value that we have and because people don't see it they don't think anything exists there you know our beliefs is that the Earth is our mother and the son is the father without these two elements and water being mixed together does not give you
47:37 life if you remove one of these elements life will no longer exist so it's very important to us so so we shouldn't going be going out and utilizing a resource into expiration and that's what we're afraid of and I hope that we could come up with some kind of management plan that would
47:59 protect these resources yes another question okay well thank you thank you for your [Music]
48:23 attention