By Michael Howell
After years of preparation the traveling exhibit called “The Journey of the Resilient Niimiipuu People” made its first stop in Hamilton on what is planned to be a five-year-long tour along the 1,100-mile-long trail taken by the Nez Perce in their ultimately futile flight from U.S. Army troops in the 1877 War. The 16-panel exhibit will be on display at the Ravalli County Museum from now through October. From there it will travel along the Nez Perce National Historic Trail stopping in rural communities all along the way.
Kris Komar of the Bitter Root Cultural Heritage Trust helped write the initial cost-share grant with the U.S. Forest Service which funded the exhibit. Five years in the making, the exhibit is meant to celebrate the entire history and culture of the Nez Perce as commemorating the events of the 1877 War and the tribe’s flight into Montana. This month marks the 140th anniversary of that war. The exhibit is the result of collaboration between the Trust, the Ravalli County Museum staff, the U.S. Forest Service and the tribes.
Tony Incashola, chairman of the Salish-Pend d’Oreille Culture Committee, was on hand to welcome the Nez Perce to the Bitterroot valley once again. He recalled the long history of the relationship between the Salish tribe and the Nez Perce. He said his Uncle Pete told him that his great-great-grandfather was a Nez Perce. Incashola believes the connection goes back thousands of years, long before most of the other tribes arrived in the area.
He said the Nez Perce and the Salish would meet at a spot called the ‘Place of a Big Clearing’ and trade horses and blankets. They would visit and socialize for several days, making friends, and after the trading was done there were lots of games, horse races and foot races, and associated gambling.
Standing on the lawn of the Ravalli County Museum in downtown Hamilton, Incashola said, “It’s hard to imagine when there were no buildings here, but every once in a while we have to stop and remember what was here.” He said that songs were the way his people remembered things. Every song tells a story and the songs come from the environment.
“If these mountains could speak to you, if you could hear the mountains, they have many stories. Many stories of the Salish people. Many stories of the Nez Perce, who came through here… These songs, they keep us going, they keep us moving, they teach us the value of who we are,” said Incashola.
“For the Salish people it’s always been our goal to live in peace, to live in a place where we can raise our families, the dream of all people. We have to hang on to our songs, to our traditional values, to our languages, in order to survive for another generation,” he said.
Incashola said that, listening to the introductory song by the drumming group, “To me I felt a lot of things, a lot of history, a lot of strength, a lot of power, a lot of sadness, a lot of pain. But we maintain and today I am honored to be here to welcome you to the homeland of my people.”
“We need to enjoy what we are seeing, and what it has to offer us and our families,” he said. “What it has to offer in terms of education. That’s the last thing we have. If we don’t listen to the mountains and the streams we are going to lose it all. We are going to have nothing for our grandchildren.”
U.S. Forest Service Program Administrator for the National Historic Trail, Sandra Broncheau-McFarland, dropped a few edifying quotes from people who were there when the Nez Perce passed through on their way to the Big Hole in 1877.
“We travelled through the Bitterroot Valley slowly. The white people were friendly. We did much buying and trading with them. No more fighting. We have left General Howard and his war in Idaho,” said Yellow Wolf, a Nez Perce warrior.
“The Indians have plenty of gold dust, coin and green backs and have been paying exorbitant prices for flour, coffee, sugar and tobacco,” wrote Washington McCormick, a Missoula business man. They were in the Stevensville area for only two days but spent over $1,000.
“I sat on top of the Fort [Owen] and had a plain view of the caravan. As was customary among Indians on horseback, they jogged their horses along a little bit at a dog trot. Being curious to determine their number, I took out my watch and timed the passing of a given point. It took an hour and a quarter for the whole group to move by and there were no gaps in the continuous train. There was no unusual confusion or disorder and none came over on our side of the river,” wrote Henry Buck, a Stevensville shop owner.
Nakia Williamson, Director of the Nez Perce Cultural Resource Committee Program, spoke about the tribe’s connection to the land and to the past. He said the southern Nez Perce Trail, which the Salish called the “Trail to the Nez Perce,” was part of the oldest in-tact trail system, “not in Montana, or the Americas, but in the world,” dating back to the ice ages.
Williamson said that the Nez Perce and Salish knew the landscape very well and had walked the trail for thousands of years. He said Trapper Peak and El Capitan peak, the “Home of Thunder”, were sacred to his people. He emphasized how the place had educated his people, had given them their songs, and formed their identity as a people over thousands of years and through many generations.
He said if you remove the Nez Perce from the landscape not only do the people suffer but the land will suffer too. He said that both are so intertwined that neither can be what it is without the other.
“When you change and alter the landscape, you are changing us too. Protecting the land and protecting the people and their way of life go hand in hand.”
“When we walk on this land it is sacred,” he said. “We all go back to this land, there is no way of getting around that. This land is made up of generations of our people.” He said maintaining this relationship was the most important thing in life. He said these things are important not just because they are part of the distant past, but because they are part of our present and future here as well.