(E.4-12) An Archival Review and Ethnographic Study ... - Idaho Power

FINAL REPORTMore recently, Sappington and Carley (1995) and Sappington(et al. 1995) published two articles about Alice CunninghamFletcher's fieldwork with the Nez Perce in the late-19th century.In the latter publication, Sappington (et al. 1995:190) commentson the relationship between the northern Nez Perce and thesouthern Shoshone-Paiute in Idaho in both text and endnote.Working with Jonathan "Billy" Williams' 1891 Map of Nez Perceterritory, Sappington suggests that:The Shoshone, or Snake, Indians to the south lived in a lessfavored region, and were continually pressing upon the NezPerce. Their inroads kept the people in constant dread.These southern Indians seem to have been their onlyincursive enemies.At the opening of the last century one group of sevenvillages had been totally destroyed through wars with theShoshone Indians. Four other villages had also beendepopulated from the same cause" (1995:189).In an endnote, Sappington (et al. 1995:212) elaborate thedistinction between the Nez Perce and Shoshone-Paiute:Numerous references occur in the accounts of earlytravelers, and in the oral histories of both Nez Perce andEuro-American settlers in northeastern Oregon, to chronicand longstanding hostilities between the resident Nez Perceand the intrusive Numic-speaking peoples from the south.The invaders are variously referred to as "Snakes,""Shoshokoes," "Diggers," "Shoshones," "Bannock," and"Pokatellas."Nez Perce warrior Yellow Wolf, born in the WallowaValley in 1855, told his biographer of a maternal greatgreatfather "killed in battle with the Pokatellas, fightingfor possession of Wallowa Valley (McWhorter 1983:24). Inthe winter of 1834, Captain Benjamin Bonneville encounteredan assembly of at least 100 families of "Diggers" living in"crescent shaped brush windbreaks" near the mouth of PowderRiver (Irving 1986:245-246). Not long afterward, a burialmound marking the grave of a Nez Perce killed by"Shoshokoes" was pointed out to Bonnesville in the GrandRonde valley (Irving 1986:224-225). The missionary HenrySpalding referred to a "large number of Snakes lurkingaround to steal" in the mountains above Wallowa Lake in July1839 (Drury 1958:271). In one entry Spalding attributes two23