The Dying Grass, page 155
Clearwater River—(American English.) Site of an important battle in the Nez Perce War; Lewiston, Idaho, is also on this river, which the Nez Perce followed upward on their flight toward Lo Lo. Aoki’s dictionary reports that the river itself is called himekhí-cku-s (Big Water); the middle fork is himeqisníme (the Great River) and the south fork is tukúpe (no meaning given; “named after a spring near Stites, Idaho”). Lewis and Clark heard the Nimiputumít name for the Clearwater as “Koos-koos-kee.” Hence the town named Kooskia.
Columbia River—(American English.) More important to the Downstream People of the Nez Perce than to the bands who took part in the Nez Perce War. Aoki gives two words for it in his dictionary. One, which would be more germane to this story, is left untranslated; the other, used by the Downstream People, contains the prefix eteyé [see Craig’s Mountain], meaning “distant,” “deceased” or “unbelievable,” so I have compromised with “Distant River.”
Cottonwood Place—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Qápqapí-n qáp.] Cottonwood, Idaho. In the vicinity of the Cottonwood battle. Cottonwood and Norton’s ranch were the same.
Cow Island—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) The highest consistently navigable point on the Missouri River; hence the site of an isolated depot (Fort Benton is about 120 miles upriver). My name for this spot, “Shallow Place,” is a pseudo-Nimiputumít invention, since I don’t know what the Nez Perce really called it. It was indeed a traditional fording point. Here the Nez Perce crossed on their way to Bear’s Paw, and engaged in a fight for supplies with the personnel of the little depot on the north shore. The island itself (some sources say there were two islands) played no part in the fight.
Craig’s Mountain—This place, which figures in the early part of the Nez Perce War (it was often in view, and Howard’s troops had to ascend it after their useless Salmon River crossing), was where many Nimiipu teenagers went on vision quests to meet their WYAKINS [G 2]. Here I have translated the Nimiputumít word eteyé [see Columbia River] as “faraway,” since that seems to combine “distant” with hint of the eerie “deceased.” Hence “Faraway Mountain.”
Crossing Place—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) Pittsburg Landing on the Snake River. It was here that Toohhoolhoolzote’s People wintered for several years before the Nez Perce War, and here that after the Battle of White Bird Canyon the volunteers found and destroyed a huge cache of food and supplies.
Dark Green Place—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) Site of a Nez Perce village on the northern bank of the Snake, closely downstream from Truax, Washington.
Distant River—See Columbia River.
Edisto—One of the Carolina Sea Islands. Here the plantations of the masters were first turned over to their former slaves, and colored schools began to thrive—a trend which Howard believed he could continue and even facilitate as head of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Unfortunately, his work was undone by the Johnson administration, and Edisto was returned to the planters.
Eel Place—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Asotain.] Also: “Eel River.” Site of present day Asotin, Washington.
Eewahtam—(Nimiputumít.) Another name for Split Rock (Tepahlewam).
Elk Water—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) A minor river which flows through Yellowstone Park. Exactly which one is unclear.
Enemy River—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) The Snake River.
Faraway Mountain—See Craig’s Mountain.
Farewell Bend—(American.) Just south of the present day town of Huntington, Oregon, this fording-place on the Snake River marked the spot where some emigrants turned off toward California and others continued on into Oregon.
Fish Trap Place—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Nahush.] The spot by Kamiah where the non-treaty Nez Perces crossed the Clearwater after the battle of July 11–12.
Fort Buford—(American English.) “At the confluence of the Yellowstone and the Missouri (five [Army] companies).” Description written in 1867.
Fort Fizzle—(American.) Derogatory name given to the place where the Seventh Infantry and some volunteers failed to stop the non-treaty Nez Perces from streaming past them off the Lo Lo Trail and into the Bitter Root Valley.
Fort Lapwai, Idaho—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) Lat. 46° 24’, long. 116° 48’. Established 6 August 1862 on Lapwai Creek at its confluence with the Clearwater, and twelve miles from Lewiston. “Sit’d within Nez Perce Indian Res’n . . . Daily stage from Lewiston, and semi-weekly steamboat route over Snake River, dist. 12 miles . . . Area of [military] reserve 640 acres and of Hay [sic] reserve 586 acres. Abandoned 1 Oct. 85(?). Turned over to Ind. Dept. for Ind. [illegible] purposes Nov. 17. 85.”—Adjutant General’s Office inventory. See also Butterfly Place.
GHOST’s TRAIL—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) The Milky Way.
Gillem’s Camp—Army field headquarters during the Modoc War. On southwest side of Tule Lake.
Gorge Place—(Nimiputumít.) Hell’s Canyon, Oregon.
Grandmother’s Country—(Various Indian, Anglicized.) See British Possessions.
Grande Ronde River—(Cheyenne.) Used by the Joseph [Wallowa] band as a wintering place. The Nimiputumít word is welíwe, for which no meaning is given.
Greasy River—(Cheyenne.) The Missouri River.
Great River—See Clearwater River.
Ground Squirrel Place—See Big Hole.
Heart of the MONSTER—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) See MONSTER [G 2].
Heart Mountain—(?) [Also: Hart or Hart’s Mountain.] A prominence in southeastern Montana, east of Yellowstone, this place was a landmark marking (in 1877) the near beginning of the Buffalo Country. It was very near here that the non-treaty Nez Perces came down a narrow canyon and got past Sturgis.
Imnaha—(Nimiputumít.) The canyon and river to the east of the Wallowa Valley, descending into the Snake River. The meaning of the name does not seem to be known.
Indian Territory—(American.) In General Howard’s words, “a country west of Arkansas and north of Texas,” where Seminoles, Cherokees, Chickasaws and Chocktaws had been confined. One book on the Dawes Act defines it simply as “present-day Oklahoma,” but the geometry was not quite the same. The Modocs, Cheyennes, Nez Perces and others were deported there. The Nez Perces learned to call it the Hot Place.
I.T.—Idaho Territory.
Izhkumzizlalkik—(Nimiputumít.) See Big Hole.
Kamiah—(Nimiputumít.) [Also: “Kamlahpee.” Possible meaning: Many Camas Roots.] Now a town on the north fork of the Clearwater. In 1877 some missionaries, ranchers and treaty Nez Perces resided there. After withdrawing from the Clearwater battle, the non-treaties crossed at that spot, pursued by General Howard. Ironically, seven decades before then the Nez Perces had helped Lewis and Clark cross the river near this very place
Kamnaka—(Nimiputumít.) Name of Looking-Glass’s village (destroyed by Captain Whipple at the beginning of the war). Meaning unknown.
King George’s Country—(Various Indian, Anglicized.) See British Possessions.
Lalac—(Wanapum.) Smohalla’s vision quest mountain.
Lewiston, Idaho—(American, of course.) Established illegally on the Nez Perce reservation in 1861; on the site called Simí-nekem [“Riverfork”]. Another Nez Perce location now swallowed up by the town was called Ripple Place. Named after Meriwether Lewis; Clarkston across the river in Washington honors William Clark.
Lewistown, Montana—See Ah-ki-ne-kun-scoo.
Lochsa River—(Transliterated Flathead?) This river flows out of the middle fork of the Clearwater. Aoki suspects that láqsa may be a Flathead word referring to pine trees; hence I have called it Pine Tree River.
Lo Lo Trail—(Nimiputumít.) [Also, and nowadays exclusively: Lolo.] Said to be named after a French-Canadian prospector named Lora or Lulu who was killed there by a grizzly in 1852—but apparently lolo means “to carry” in Chinook jargon. Lewis and Clark followed this route coming and going. It was the Nez Perce’s northerly way to the Buffalo Country. The non-treaties took it when they fled the Army subsequent to the Clearwater battle. It “runs along the ridge or divide between the North Fork of the Clearwater . . . and the Lochsa . . . , primarily in Idaho County.”—Gary E. Moulton. From Lewiston to Missoula along this route is about two hundred miles. Once they reached Lo Lo Pass, the Nez Perces were out of the Idaho Territory (and the core of their traditional homeland) and—so they thought—into the United States, with whose citizens they imagined they were not at war. (In fact, Montana remained a territory until 1889.) Following Lo Lo Creek down into the Bitter Root Valley, they won a nonviolent victory over the Army at Fort Fizzle.
The Low Place—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) Hell. LOW PERSONS are DEMONS and DEVILS.
Meadow Camp—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Woutokinwes Tahtakkin.] A well-grassed marshy resting point on the Lo Lo Trail, near the ranger station on Rocky Ridge, a place which the Nez Perce called Chipmunk Mountain [Motsqosmots].
Meadow Place—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) The Joseph Plains between the Snake and Salmon rivers. A camas-digging place not far from Split Rock.
Medicine Line—(Various Indian.) “Completed by August 1874, the demarcated boundary” between the U.S. and Canada “thereafter became a visibly recognizable entity . . . at the approximate midpoint of the line” between Minnesota and the Pacific. A hundred-mile length of mostly treeless plain touching both present Blaine County, Montana, and the Cypress District of Saskatchewan, was regarded as a “Medicine Line” by Native peoples crossing in either direction. The line came to possess ‘magical political power’ among the tribes . . .”—Jerome A. Greene.
Missouri River—Called by the Nez Perce “the Place of the Cave of Red Paint” [Seloselo Wejanwais] and by the Cheyennes “the Greasy River,” this important military and civilian route was plied by steamboats up to Cow Island, and, when water level permitted, all the way to Fort Benton. Between this river and the Medicine Line was a No Man’s Land of Cheyennes, Assiniboines, Gros Ventres, Sioux and buffalo hunters.
Modoc Lava Beds—(Various Indian.) The area south of Tule Lake, California (which then, before draining, also stretched into Oregon). Site of the Modoc War, whose purpose, wrote the Portland Oregonian, was “to drive a couple of hundred miserable aborigines from a desolate natural shelter in the wilderness, that a few thriving cattlemen might ranch their wild steers in a scope of isolated country, the dimensions of some several reasonable sized counties.”
MONSTER-Udder Place—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) Site of a former Nez Perce village, near Kamiah, on the eastern bank of the Clearwater. See Heart of the MONSTER.
Mount Idaho—Once a contender to be Idaho’s seat of government, in 1877 this place was a nest of Indian-hating volunteers.
Mount Misery—Name for the place near Kamiah where the Nez Perce besieged some volunteers, shortly before the Battle of the Clearwater. The Nez Perce name for the place was Possossona, or Water Passing, so called from a spring nearby.
Musselshell River—Where the heart went out of Sturgis, and the non-treaty Nez Perces began to feel almost safe from soldiers.
Narrow Solid Rock Pass—Exact location not known to me. A trail on the south side of the Tongue Water, followed by the Nez Perces as they fled the cavalry in Yellowstone National Park.
Nespelem—By Colville, Washington, near the Grand Coulee Dam. Final reservation for the non-treaty Nez Perces who refused to become Christians after their exile in the Indian Territory. Chief Joseph and White Thunder (Yellow Wolf) are buried here.
Night-Fishing Place—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) Smith Creek, ten miles up the Clearwater’s middle fork near what is now Kooskia. This would have been in Looking-Glass’s traditional “country,” and might have been in (or else very near to) his reservation.
Norton’s ranch—See Cottonwood.
O-pumohat Kyai-is-i-sak-ta—(Language not stated.) Local name for the Musselshell River.
O-to-kur-tuk-tai—(Language not stated.) Local name for the Judith River and Mountains.
Old Woman’s Country—(Various Indian, Anglicized.) See British Possessions.
Old Woman Place—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) Site near or at the present day bridge from Kamiah across the river. Apparently it was not a village.
Oro Fino—(From Spanish.) Now spelled Orofino, this settlement, not far from Weippe, was realizing between ten and fifteen dollars a day for its most skilled gold miners in the spring of 1861. By 1877 the gold was pretty much played out. The Nez Perce Chief Twisted Hair used to live here.
OUR MOTHER—(Various Dreamer, Anglicized.) The earth.
Pine Tree River—See Lochsa River.
Place Like Split Rock—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Tepahlewam Wakuspah.] Canyon Creek, Montana, where the eponymous battle was fought. So named (as you might guess) on account of its similarity to Split Rock.
Place of the Cave of Red Paint—See Missouri River.
Place of the Manure Fires—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Tsanim Alikos Pah.] The place on Snake Creek to the east of the Bear’s Paw Mountains where the Nez Perce camped on 29 September 1877. Here they were surprised by Miles and Howard, and fought their last battle.
P’na—(Various Dreamer.) A sacred place near Priest Rapids, Washington; important to Smohalla.
Portland, Oregon—(?) Lat. 45° 30', long. 122° 27' 30". “Hdqrs. Department of the Columbia. AG.O. 1877 and 1874. See Ords. 10. 11th Mil. Dept. May 28, 1850 . . .”—Adjutant General’s Office inventory.
Rawhide Place—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) The indigenous site that became Mount Idaho.
The Redfaced Talking Star—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) Jupiter.
Ripple Place—See Lewiston, Idaho.
Riverfork—See Lewiston, Idaho.
Rocky Cañon—See Split Rock.
Rotten Sun Dance River—See Clark’s Fork River.
Sacrifice Cliffs—Just across the Yellowstone from Billings, Montana, this spot supposedly marks the site of a suicide by Crow braves whose families had died of smallpox. They rode their horses over the edge.
Salmon River—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) A powerful natural barrier—to the Army, not to the Nez Perces, who after the Battle of White Bird Canyon crossed it, then crossed back again, leaving Howard’s troops frustrated and humiliated. It lay in Toohhoolhoolzote’s and White Bird’s Idaho homelands. The Nez Perce called it “Chinook Salmon Water.” For the sake of euphony I have altered the name of Toohhoolhoolzote’s country (which was evidently “Tamá-nma,” or “Place Where the Chinook Salmon Water meets the Enemy River”) to “Chinook Salmon Water Mountains,” further simplified to to “Chinook Salmon Mountains.”
Sapachesap Cave—(Nimiputumít.) [Also: Apaschesap.] A rock shelter on Cottonwood Creek, Idaho, near White Bird Canyon, where the Nez Perce once burned some Snake warriors alive.
The SAYAK STARS—(Half-Anglicized Nimiputumít.) The Little Dipper.
Shale-Rock Mountain—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) Exact location unknown.
Shallow Place—See Cow Island.
Simí-nekem—(Nimiputumít.) [Also: Shimenekem.] The confluence of two rivers, or the land between them. One place with this name (which I translate “Riverfork”) is now Lewiston, which lies where the Clearwater meets the Snake.
Snake Creek—See Place of the Manure Fires.
Snake River—In Nimiputumít, the Enemy River—presumably so called after the Snakes or Bannocks [G 2]. According to Aoki, however, it has another name derived from the same “big” or “grand” as the Clearwater. [Gulick gives the Nimiputumít name as “Ki-moo-e-nim.”] Also referred to as something approximating “Twining River” (name for the Snake “as far up as the forks of Salmon River”). Compassionating the reader, I have used only “Enemy River” in this text.
Soaring Up Like Birds—(Anglicized Wanapum.) [Wahluke.] A slope above the White Bluffs on the north side of the Columbia. Apparently this was a sacred Dreamer site.
Sparse-Snowed Place—See White Bird Canyon.
Split Rock—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) [Tepahlewam.] Meaning conjectural (Aoki, who writes it “Tipakhlíwamiwatam” [thus simplified by WTV], defines it as “head of rocky bluffs,” while McWhorter believes it to signify “split rocks” or “deep cuts”). The camas ground between Rocky Canyon and Tolo Lake, Idaho. Here the Nez Perces, Flatheads and other Indian groups used to meet in June to dig camas, gamble, flirt, make political decisions, etcetera. The non-treaty Nez Perces all came together here in 1877 to consider Howard’s ultimatum. Ultimately they decided to bow to superior force, and go on the reservation. But a few young warriors scotched this by killing settlers. Hence the Nez Perce War.
Stinking Water River—The Shoshone River, Wyoming. So called by Howard.
Sunflower Place—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) Site of Boise, Idaho, which lay near the extremity of the traditional Nez Perce roaming grounds.
Sweat Lodge Place—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) Where the Grande Ronde meets the Snake.
The THREE SISTERS—(Anglicized Nimiputumít.) Three stars in the handle of the Big Dipper. This interpretation of the Three Sisters is conjectural.
Timí-map—(Nimiputumít.) The place at at Bruce’s Eddy, near Orofino, “now under an artificial lake.” Aoki, p. 743. Meaning not exactly ascertainable.
Tipsusleimah—(Nimiputumít.) “Name of an edible root.” Site on John Day Creek where Shore Crossing and Swan Necklace opened the Nez Perce War by murdering white settlers.
Tolo Lake—(Nimiputumít.) I am informed that at this time the lake had no native name; “Tolo” is an English corruption of “Tulekats Chikchamit,” the name of the Nez Perce woman who warned the miners of Florence that her nation had risen up against theirs. Hence when I have the whites refer to Tolo Lake in “Should Be a Pleasurable Fight,” my use is probably anachronistic; the war had just broken out, so it is unlikely that the lake would yet have received this name.
Tongue River Cantonment, Montana—(Anglicized Chinook?) The semipermanent base of Colonel Miles during the Nez Perce War; Colonel Gibbon likewise set out from here en route to the operation at Big Hole. Established 28 August 1876, the year of Little Big Horn. After surrendering to Miles, Joseph and the other captured non-treaty Nez Perces were temporarily brought here. “Situated at the mouth of Tongue River in the Yellowstone, about 272 miles Southwest of Fort Buford, Dakota, by the Yellowstone and 175 miles by wagon trail. Temporary reservation, 20 miles square, made by Interior Dept., Jan. 20 1877 at request of War Dept—for desc. see Post G.O. No. 2 of 1877 Reservation of suitable size to be surveyed and decld—letter Jan. 26, 1877 to Gen. Sheridan. Troops transferred to Fort Keogh (near by) Nov., 1877.”—Adjutant General’s Office inventory.
