Nez Perce (Niimíipuu) Religious Traditions

Nez Perce (NiimÍipuu) Religious Traditions

NEZ PERCE (NIIMÍIPUU) RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS. The Nez Perce people are one of two Sahaptian-speaking groups—the Nez Perce and the Sahaptin—to inhabit the southern Columbia Plateau region of western North America. Aboriginally, the Nez Perce–speaking peoples are ancient occupants of the southern Columbia Plateau whose ancestral lands extend along middle Snake River in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. The Nez Perce, as well as other Sahaptin groups, report no migration tradition placing them outside their current ancestral homelands; instead, their oral traditions contain imagery of mammoths, ice-age phenomena, and ancient volcanic activity. At the time of contact, the Nez Perce were composed of an estimated forty independent bands and were dispersed along three major tributaries of the Snake River: the Grande Ronde River (Oregon), the Clearwater River (Idaho), and the Salmon River (Idaho). Two dialect variants differentiated the Nez Perce speech community: the Lower River dialect and the Upper River dialect. Like other neighboring Sahaptin groups, the Nez Perce were known principally as a hunting and gathering culture, centered on the annual food quest of fishing, hunting, and gathering roots. As a consequence, the Nez Perce territory covers a diverse geography, each part of which has its own biodiversity.

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