Closed Captions

Alan Pinkham (Nez Perce) shares tribal traditions including creation stories, constellations, and travel practices of the Nez Perce people. He discusses his ancestry to Red Bear, who met Lewis and Clark in 1805, and explains how the Nez Perce knew and predicted the arrival of Europeans. Pinkham recounts origin stories of Coyote, the animal council, and how the Nez Perce people were created from blood and water on Clearwater lands.

Transcript

0:09 Said.
0:13 Well, hello everyone. And good afternoon and welcome to the Tent of Mini Voices at 10 and many Voices is part of the Core Discovery Two, traveling Lewis and Clark exhibit. It's a National Park Service exhibit that's been on the road since 2003 and will continue to be on the road through 2006.
0:37 The four years of the Lu and Clark Expedition bicentennial. And what we do here in the 10 and mini voices is we bring in a wide variety of presenters and speakers to share with us a wide variety of perspectives, mini voices. And we're pleased today to have with us,
1:02 Alan Pinkham, who's gonna talk about the culture and history of the Nez Purse. So please give him a warm welcome to the tenement voices.
1:35 OK. Can everybody hear me? OK, good. My uh my English name is Alan Pinkham, of course. And uh but
1:46 little more. Ok. All right. I'll just have to talk a little louder. Ok. Thanks. Uh My English name is Alan Pinkham, but my Nesper name is Pak Ha Katin
1:59 P
2:01 and of course, I got that from my father and uh one of the reasons we ended up with English names is because when the DAS Act came and about to our reservation in 1893 we're told by the agent and the uh Presbyterians and the uh US army, we had to have English names.
2:26 So that's why I ended up having a Pink, um you know, a good English name for an Indian. So that's why I have this name and my family is Pinkham. But then actually, I'm a descendant of Red Bear Paha Pil, who met Lewis and Clark in 1805. And along the Lewis and Clark trail
2:52 right here where it says Chopin
2:56 and Kukuk river, that's my territory, my homeland. And then on this map, it's just a little bit south and east of Lewiston, Idaho. But the next person traveled to Montana, North Dakota Wyoming,
3:16 even to the Great Lakes way before Lewis and Clark came out here.
3:23 So he knew the country,
3:26 we knew how to travel way before losing Clark gets to our country and to even to Montana. Now, the reason I can say this,
3:44 there's a little story that we would listen to when we're young people.
3:52 The mean, it's a little story that's connected with this star formation is probably a little bit different than what you've heard or learned
4:04 in your school days.
4:08 This is the story of two grizzly bears, five wolf brothers and one little dog.
4:17 And I'll tell you how that is
4:21 old. Well, he was sitting down and he was looking up
4:27 and coyote come along and he said, ask old, well, what are you looking at? Says, oh, I'm looking at two of them up there, don't you see them? So coyote? He looks up and he sees two grizzly bears.
4:43 And in the meantime,
4:46 four of old wolf's younger brothers come along and ask the same question. What are you looking at? He says, oh, we're looking at the grizzly bears up there, don't you see them?
4:59 And old wolf said, I sure wish I could go up and see these two grizzly bears. So coyote since old, well persisted, he said, I'll show you how to go up there and see these two grizzly bears.
5:15 So Coyote, he makes five bundles of arrows
5:21 and a bowl. He shoots the first arrow up and it stays up there. He shoots a second and it sticks to his first arrow and a 2nd and 3rd and 4th all the way down to the ground.
5:36 And coyote tells, oh, wolf, now you can go up there and see the two grizzly bears.
5:44 But the next oldest wolf says, well, I want to go up first with my next two younger brothers to see these two grizzly bears. And old wolf agrees. He says, ok, you go up with your younger brothers and see these two grizzly bears. So the next oldest wolf and his two brothers go up the airway
6:06 and they sit down and they look across to the two grizzly bears.
6:11 And then Orwell says, well, I wanna go up next and I want to take my youngest brother and my little dog with me. So they go up and they sit down and look across to the, to the two grizzly bears and coyote says, when a human beings come, they will look up there and they will see two grizzly bears,
6:35 five wolf brothers and one little doll. Can you identify who they are?
6:48 Here's first grizzly bear, second grizzly bear, the next oldest wolf brother and his younger brother and his younger brother. And then this is the old wolf with his little dog right here and this is the youngest wolf brother right there. Some people call it the big dipper.
7:10 We call it two Geely bears, five wolf brothers and one little dog.
7:16 But what does that tell you
7:22 anybody?
7:24 North Star? Good. OK. Here's the North Star right here.
7:31 OK. If you know and hear this story as a young person, you know a direction north.
7:42 So as you grow older when you're out here in the plains to the east of us, and all you see is one horizon, one level. What do you have to find the North Star? Or if you're in a big lake somewhere where you see nothing but a horizon, you need to know where the North Star is.
8:06 East and west is easy to figure out cause that's where the sun comes up and it goes over and sets in the west. So now, you know, four directions.
8:16 So, but how can you travel?
8:21 Ok. Now, what we used to do, we would describe travel time as one half day before noon or one half day, afternoon to evening. And then maybe even divide the half day up into one quarter. We didn't have hours or minutes or seconds,
8:45 but we had days, a fraction of a day's travel and then any shorter distance, all we had to do is pace or walk steps and we could measure. So that's how we travel. We measured travel time by fraction of a day and days and maybe even 28 to 30 days of the moon phase,
9:10 one travel of a moon.
9:14 How far do you think we could go in one moon's travel?
9:19 Well, let's kind of figure it this way. Say on an average, if you travel by horse foot or canoe, you could probably average about 20 miles a day.
9:32 You traveled 100 days or three moons, you're 2000 miles away.
9:38 So that's what we did. So, from Idaho where we are now, we would travel to the Red Pipestone quarries in the state or around the Great Lakes area, which is about 100 days travel.
9:54 So we traveled
9:58 and we have many traveling stories in tribal history.
10:05 There's one story that we traveled so far south where it was hot all year long and in that country, he found a little animal. We call that little animal. Pitts coet, it's quiet. And what that means is imitator,
10:25 imitator.
10:27 And what that little monkey is, what we found, we call that little animal because he did everything that we did or tried to act like us. We called him Pitts coet. Imitator. So that's how far south we went. We also traveled so far south that we found another kind of human being once we found out that they were human beings.
10:52 Now, if you really look at it a practical sense, even in 1805, when we seen Lewis and Clark, we knew when Lewis and Clark was coming.
11:04 But then even 300 years prior to that 1492 or 1500 or 1520 1530 how could another kind of strange person or human being live 3000 or 2600 miles east of us without us knowing about it?
11:28 Now, there, this was an isolation just because there was a rocky mountain here and hundreds of miles of plains that was no obstacle to us.
11:39 So we heard about this creature and there's prophecies of the coming of these new kinds of people.
11:49 One day, there will be a white faced creature behind a white faced animal about the size of a deer that will come through Lap Way Valley. Our homeland,
12:04 the white faced creature was what we had to decide whether it was a human being or not.
12:11 Because when I heard about that, even before Lewis and Clark, this strange creature had eyes, like fish
12:20 spoke a language we never heard before.
12:24 Some of them had their faces on upside down and they smelled
12:31 and they brought, they will bring good things and bad things to us. This is what this new creature will do. So I had a little debate about, well, gee, are these human beings or not? Because they certainly don't look like us. They don't smell like us either. So what are they? Maybe they're mixed with some of the kind of animals?
12:52 But once we found out that they had human traits, we finally decided that they must be human beings.
12:59 Now, the description was eyes like fish that's gray, blue green eyes, face upside down is mustache and beard and bald on top,
13:12 you know who you are.
13:17 And, and so this was the prediction that we had made that they will come into our country.
13:26 But then one of the traits that these new kinds of human beings would have that they would be very inquisitive, inventive, aggressive, arrogant kinds of people.
13:40 So it had to be a little cautious.
13:43 And so when we heard about these people, we went to see them,
13:50 we traveled 2000 miles to see them or he went to the southwest to see him near the country of the monkey. So this isn't any great surprise to us when Lewis and Clark comes wandering up the Missouri River and gets into the Cell way and, and the Lasa River and end up on the Campus Prairie in Idaho.
14:13 We were just a little surprised that they would show up when the passes were starting to get snowed in. You know, we thought it was kind of odd that they'd be traveling and, uh, taking a chance to get snowed in on the passes, but they showed up and it was a pre predicted, of course. Um,
14:33 so that occurred,
14:39 I'll talk a little bit more about that later.
14:44 Now, there's another little story that maybe you youngsters would be interested about. You probably heard about while a cow jumped over a moon. The moon is full of cheese or there's a man in the moon
14:58 to us. None of this happened.
15:03 There's a frog in the moon.
15:07 He's up there. Now, the story is moon. He would go through the sky at night
15:16 every night. He would go through the sky
15:20 and one night he sees a frog sitting down there in a, near the water and he looks down and asks frog, well, what good are you
15:29 all you do is just sit there then frog looks up at moon says, well, what good are you? You just go through the sky. And so they argued, but then the moon went on next night, the same thing they argued again, moon would say, well, what good are you all you do is sit down there and talk, talk, you don't do anything. And Frog would say, well, what, what good are you? The sun?
15:52 It gives us warmth and you don't make things grow and you just go through the sky and don't give light like the sun. And so they would argue. And third, the third night,
16:05 Frog, he got so mad when they were arguing about who is the best one. Frog says, I'm going to jump in your eye.
16:14 So frog, he jumps and he lands in the moon's eye and that's where he is today. And then when coyote looks up, he says, when the human beings come, they will look up and they will see the frog in the moon because he lost his temper. That's where he ended up. And so that little story tells you, so you don't get in an argument. You may end up where you may not suppose to be.
16:39 So keep that in mind. Ok? Here is the hind. It would be the right hind foot of frog right here and right here, this is his rear end and over on this side, this is his other foot and the rest of his body over here. So that's frog in the moon.
17:01 So next time you see the full moon look for him because that's where he is, he is. So those are the kinds of stories that we have. There's more of course,
17:16 but I don't have enough time to tell you more about those kinds of stories. But I will tell you this,
17:25 you know, among the Nesper and many other tribal people, there's what we call the maker of all things. And he is called Han Yaah. He is a creator. He makes everything, you see everything that's here. And so that's the beginning of the world. He creates the world, but he also creates many other things.
17:49 He creates large animal people. What we know is large animal people,
17:55 you know, the four legged and the flying and the insects and fish, birds. But then the creator calls all the animal people together. And there's a landmark along the Clearwater River that depicts this.
18:11 And he tells all the animal people, there's going to be a great change. Some of you may not survive, some of you will,
18:22 but this great change is going to come and you'll be smaller animal people.
18:29 So now I want you all to come out
18:33 and describe what you want to look like, how you want to be, how you want to live and how you can help the human beings when they come.
18:43 So they all came out and they sat in the council
18:49 and there's the rock formations down to draw from that ridge line and some of it looks kind of rounded and haystack looking. You can't see any form, but the others are sitting up on a ridge line like large animals sitting down like a back of a mammoth or, or a dinosaur or something like that. And they're very tall. They're about 15 to 20 ft high.
19:13 And those represents the large animal people. And the rounded stones going up the draw to that area are the ones that never made the meeting. They were late. So don't be late for meetings, you just become a stone unrecognizable. So this great council was, um, call
19:36 and the creator says, now you come out and demonstrate how you want to be and you, and I'll declare you qualified. So all the animals, the birds and insects had to do this and the fish.
19:50 And they would say like, like, I'll give you an example like the deer, the first deer, he comes out and says, all I want to have horns that come up and branch out like this. And, uh, I want a short black tail and then the human beings can use my horns for tools and uh, my flesh for food, but I won't be easy to capture.
20:15 And so that animal came out and he demonstrated how he wanted to live and, and he was called mule deer, what we now call Neil deer. He wanted big ears and that's what he got. So the secondary comes out and says, well, I don't like the horns of the first deer. I want horns that come up and go like this and I want a big long white tail that goes like this when I run
20:42 and a human being can use my flesh and my hide for clothing, you know, and that's what I'll con contribute. But I'm not going to be easy to catch so that he's known as white tail. Another deer comes out and he says, I like the horns of the first year that come up and branch out like this. But I don't want that funny looking little tail.
21:04 I want something a little longer and black on one side. And human beings can use my flesh and hide for clothing and my brains to soften the hide to make it white.
21:18 So that deer was called black tail deer.
21:22 So I could go through this and describe all the animals, the elk, the moose grizzly bear eagle, you know, they all described themselves and how they wanted to be and how they could help the human beings and even the insects spider, he came out and this is what I'll do. I'll weave this web to catch my food.
21:48 But the human beings won't know how I do this to catch my food.
21:55 And I will show them what wisdom is because they cannot understand something. They have to accept it the way it is and how it is. And we will call that wisdom,
22:09 acceptance of something that you don't understand but is there before you. So even insects were contributing to the existence of a human being. So even insects, the birds, eagles said, well, I'll fly away up there. They can use my feathers for their symbols. And when they talk to me, I'll give their message to the creator. That's what I will do.
22:35 So that was done. Eagle became qualified. So all the animals, insects, birds, and even the fish, the salmon said, I will come to the streams every year at the same time of year. But you'll have to catch me for food. So everybody contributed something and they got a name. They were qualified.
22:58 And right near the end of this story, in this great council of the all the animal people. Coyote. He just barely makes the meeting. He just in time. He, he comes in and he's the last one
23:16 he says, well, I wanna be. Eagle says, no, that name's already taken. You're too late. Well, I wanna be grizzly bear. No, that name's already taken. And so he was, he really felt bad. Says, well, what can I be?
23:31 And when he tried to demonstrate how he wanted to be, he couldn't even talk straight.
23:37 You ever listen to coyotes at night? Hi. Hi.
23:41 You don't know what they're talking about
23:44 because he couldn't talk straight.
23:48 So finally, the creator took pity on him because all give you special powers.
23:55 I'll give you the name Itaya, which means Coyote.
23:59 You will have all the traits of the human beings. When the human beings come,
24:05 you'll be just like them, you'll have the emotions, you'll, uh, steal, maybe be a thief. Maybe you'll be a good person,
24:16 but you'll have all the traits of the human beings. But I'll give you a special power. If somebody kills you, I'll give you the power to come alive again and I'll give you the power to change things also.
24:32 So, Coyote, he was happy, you know, this is great. You know, he's got special powers. So when the meeting was over, he traveled the world and this is where all our coyote stories come from, from the nesper. And this is how Coyote got his power to be what he is. But he's got all the faults and traits of the human beings. You know, he does get himself killed every now and then.
24:57 So they were just about ready to break up. The meeting. Grizzly Bear says, wow, what are we gonna do about day and night? I want six months, day and six months night. That's what I want.
25:11 And a little chip bug, he says, no, no, no, you're just lazy. We should have one day, one night. That's all we need. And so grizzly bear and chipmunk, they start arguing. Grizzly bear six months, day, six months night, that's what we want. You know, that's the best thing we can have little chipmunk's tail going back and forth. He says, no, one day, one night, one day, one night
25:34 and he says, you're just lazy.
25:38 Co creator says, you go over there and sit down and you argue, whoever wins the argument. That's what we will have when this great change comes.
25:49 So, Grizzly bear and chipmunk, they sit down, they start arguing. Grizzly bear arguing six days, you know, six months night, six months days. Chipmunk says no, no, no 11 day, one night, one day, one night, they will argue and argue. And grizzly Berry got sleepy. He'd start arguing. Says we want six months, day, six months night and he just lean over and he just about
26:13 go to sleep and he'd wake up and he'd start arguing again. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. He fell over and he went to sleep
26:22 and little chipmunk, he says, I won, I won. We'll have one day, one night now and the creator agrees. Yes, we'll have one day and one night.
26:33 So that's how we have one day and one night now. And so grizzly bear, he sits up and he wakes up and he looks around. He says what happened, what happened says, oh, you lost the argument. We got one day one night now
26:50 and grizzly bear looks around and he says, where's that little chipmunk? I'm gonna get
26:55 little chip that looks at him and he says, 00, he's gonna come after me. So he starts running Grizz a bear right behind him.
27:04 He wants to catch that chimp. He reaches out and scrapes the back of chipmunk. And that's why Chipmunk has those stripes on his back now because he won the argument and he got one day and one night.
27:21 So you have to be a little percent persistent sometimes to get what you want. So those are the kind of stories that come about. Now, we got all kinds of coyote stories that goes on and on as well and
27:38 how much time we got left here of?
27:43 Ok. Uh Maybe I could open up for questions. Anybody, any questions
27:50 sorry of the great. He wants a story about a coyote.
27:56 Anybody have any questions? It looks like we got a question over here for questions. What I'm gonna do is bring the microphone around so everybody can hear you. And if you could come to the center aisle with your questions, that'd be helpful as well.
28:09 See if I can get a story in here. This is your Indian name again. What is my Indian name? Ha ha, Kin Pet
28:20 Pha means five Katin means rays of light. Now, if you ever observe like cloudy days and there's rays of light coming through the clouds and comes down and touches the earth,
28:35 I'm the five rays that come down through the clouds and touch the earth. That's my name.
28:42 Yes. Did you ever come up with any stories about how something came to be? But like from you, from your point of view, how things came to be um Maybe I'll tell her to learn, uh, Coyote, you know, when he traveled the world,
29:00 his brother, Fox tells him there's a monster up there on the Clearwater. They're devouring all the animal people. He's sucking them in and he's devouring them.
29:11 And this is called one of our creation stories. And, uh, so Coyote, he prepares himself, he gets five flinch knives and he gets certain pitch and he goes up on a campus prairie and he goes over towards Grangeville where Grangeville now is and his brother Fox is with him, of course.
29:33 And then Coyote yells over to where the monster is and he says, you can't devour me like you did the other animal people. And he kept hollering, hollering at the monster. But he soon a monster, he raises his head above the level of the prairie and he looks across to Coyote. He says, who is this hollering at me? So I'm gonna suck you in like, like I did the other people.
29:58 So Coyte says, you go ahead. So monster, he sucks in his breath and he coyote tied himself to the mountain with his rope and he'd go to the end of the rope and he'd stop before he got into the monster's mouth. And they did that three times. The third time, he reaches behind him, he cuts the rope and he goes into the monster's mouth and he's inside, he's walking around
30:21 kind of dark in there.
30:24 And so he strikes a fire. So I can see, and he walks along, you see the bones of laying there where animal people have died and there's still some alive, still some alive yet. And some are pretty weak. So he goes among those people and he comes near Rattlesnake. Rattlesnake strikes at him. He says, what are you doing?
30:48 Y'all come here to rescue you and now you're striking at me. I come here to save you. So he steps on Rattlesnake's head. And so that's why Rattlesnake has flat heads now and he walks further down and Grizzly bear roars at him. What are you roaring at me before I come here to save you people? And the Grizzly bear roars again. So
31:11 Coyote pushes his nose and that's why Grizzly bears have flat noses now.
31:17 So he says, well, watch me and do what I say. I'm gonna kill this mon, I'm gonna cut the heart loose. But when all of the monster is dying in the last breath, all the holes of this body is going to open up and you run out and you kick the bones of all dead people in here too.
31:39 So the people all go to the holes, you know the mouth, the nose, the ears, and even that hole underneath the tail.
31:48 They all wait at these holes and Coyote gets his knife, he cuts away, breaks a knife, gets another knife. He's down to his last knife and the last piece of flesh is that hang on the heart and he reaches up and he tells the people now get ready. So he cuts the last piece of flesh and the heart falls
32:12 and the holes open up for the last breath. All animal people will run out and carry the remains of the other ones with them and they all go out and the last one out is Muskrat. He's running out the, the hole at, underneath the tail.
32:31 And just as he goes out, that whole clothes is on his tail. And that's why Muskrat doesn't have any hair on his tail. He's the last one out. So all animal people and remains in crowd. He says, now you're all alive. So all the animal people are, are uh come alive and, and they go around about their way.
32:53 And then coyote says, no. Fox asked Kyle, what are you gonna do? Now,
32:59 this wonderful place here, this beautiful Clearwater Valley should have human beings here
33:06 and his whole land should be occupied by human beings. And this is an island. We knew this was an island because of water in every direction you went.
33:20 So, Coyote says, well, I'll, I'll make human beings. So it cuts the monster up in pieces and he'd throw a part
33:32 in a direction, another part in another direction. And you know, this is the way he distributed. When those pieces of this monster struck the ground, they became Cheyenne, Sue Shoshone. Uh
33:46 um do Amish, you know, coastal people, uh Pueblo people. So he populated this continent
33:56 and he was just about done and Fox as well, what are you going to do about people living right here? There should be people right here
34:04 and he had thrown most of the body parts out.
34:09 So Kyle says, bring me some water. So Fox, he goes up and bring some water back from the Clearwater and he washes his hands
34:19 and he sprinkles the blood and the water on the ground. And when the blood and water strikes the earth up, pop N iu people nesper people. So that's how we are created by Coyote. We are the human beings of the blood and the water and the earth. That's how we're made and that's how we're created.
34:43 So that's one little coyote story. It's our creation story. That's how we're made
34:50 right there. It's, uh, there's a rock, it's a heart formation of, it's about 35 40 ft high, right at Cam Idaho.
35:01 And that's our center of our creation and that stone is there. So if you ever get to Cam Ida, I think co two will be over there in August, I believe.
35:12 And if you ever get over there and look for that rock because it's very prominent, you can look like a heart standing on the, on a base and then to the point is upright.
35:24 So that's how we're created.
35:26 Then of course, other coyote stories come from that too. Are we one more question? We got time for maybe one or two more questions. How old are you? How old am I? Uh? Oh, this is getting personal now.
35:44 Well, in, in the old days used to count age by winter time.
35:49 I have seen 67 winters.
35:55 Of course, I was born in January so I've already seen the first winter. So, yes, I'm 67.
36:02 Can you speak Chin, not Chinese? But India,
36:08 I didn't quite hear, wants to know if she can speak your native language and she can speak the next first language.
36:16 Knox la meat
36:21 ple, we're not 12345 Knox. The meat pip pocket
36:31 Knox is one Knox latte is Lapit is two
36:37 noli me pip pocket. We not
36:42 when Sputum sputum all the way to 10.
36:48 We have another question here. Where were you born? I was born in Lap Way, Idaho in my grandmother's house. My mother wanted to get me to the hospital before I was born, but we only made it to grandmother's house. So I was born there. I was delivered by my grandmother
37:10 one more question. How did you get your Indian name? How did I get my Indian name? My father took me to a of a gathering of, of, of the Nesper community and this would have been probably about 1942 or 43 somewhere on a and um
37:35 he, he got me by the hand and led me. I don't remember any of this. I was probably only about three or four years old. He took me out and he said this is the name of this young person here. This is the name I'm going to give him. He is my fifth son. So I will call him pocket heine because he is my fifth son. Pocket
37:59 in five and rays of light. That was my name. That's how I got it. Thank you. Thank you, Alan.
38:15 Thank you for sharing your stories with us and just tore.

Tent of Many Voices

Alan Pinkham on Nez Perce history, culture, and creation stories

Alan Pinkham

Nez Perce

38:19

Search the Database

Alan Pinkham on Nez Perce history, culture, and creation stories

Our Partners

More Voices

Our Partners