Chief Joseph Guardian Of The People

Chapter One He Had Sharper Eyes The old man's eyes were clouded with age, but his vision had not failed. "My son," he told the strong young man who held his feeble hand, "my body is returning to my Mother Earth. My spirit is going very soon to see the Great Spirit Chief. When I am gone, think of your country." There had been more such advice and instruction about dispensation of his property in that final message from father to son, from an old headman to a young one, who both used the same white name: Joseph. "You are chief of these people. They look to you to guide them. Always remember that your father never sold his country. You must stop your ears whenever you are asked to sign a treaty selling your home," the old man said in a rasping voice. "A few years more and white men will be all around you. They have their eyes on this land." Already the weight of responsibility had settled upon the heir; he had spoken for his father at council and had become the recognized leader of the Wallowa Band of the Ni-mii-pu, the Nez Perce, as the whites called them since the first French-Canadian trappers saw the dentalia shell ornaments in their noses. As his father's breath and spirit fled, Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt absorbed the final words deep into his soul: "Never sell the bones of your father and your mother." The Nez Perces believe they were created by Coyote as he cut and ripped apart the monster living in the Columbia River Basin, then used pieces and parts of the monster's body to create the tribes of the Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, Spokan, and others. When Coyote got to the heart, all that was left of the monster, the heart had turned to stone and became a bump on the land at Kamiah, beside the river that eventually took the name Clearwater. Coyote had nothing left except the blood upon his paws, which he washed with water. Drops of this water touched the soil and the Nez Perces believe their tribe emerged from the blood spatters. They call themselves The People---Iceyeeye niim Mama'yac: The Children of the Coyote. Coyote gifted them with strength and wisdom. They would rise above the other tribes in the region by developing power and intellect and wealth. When the horse was introduced into their lands in the early 1700s, they were not content to simply ride the animal; instead, they watched nature's cycles and took steps to improve the breed, castrating inferior animals and breeding strong stallions to fertile mares. Their horses, the forerunners of the Appaloosa breed, had strength and speed and marvelous colors ranging from blacks and browns to pure white, with spotted rumps and deep-barreled chests. They became war horses---wealth, and mobility, for a nation. With the horse the Nez Perces spread across their lands, separating into bands that ranged through the Columbia Basin from the central and northern mountains of Idaho and western Montana to the valleys of northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington. There were many leaders, wise men who had learned from their grandfathers, as was their tradition, or sometimes from fathers and uncles. There were strong, brave young men and women who herded the horses, made periodic forays to the buffalo country along the Yellowstone River far to the east, and gathered the nutritious camas lily from the prairies where it grew in natural flower beds that shimmered like a lake when the blue flowers were in full bloom from July through September. In early spring they collected misshapen white kouse roots from other meadows and netted, speared, or trapped salmon during the annual runs when the fish swam up the deep waters of the Columbia to the swift flows of the Snake, Clearwater, and Salmon rivers that crisscrossed Nez PercMoulton, Candy is the author of 'Chief Joseph Guardian Of The People', published 0007 under ISBN 9780765310637 and ISBN 0765310635.