A principal myth celebrates this transformation and is known among the Nez Perce as the climactic episode in a long series of encounters in which
'Itseyéeye (Coyote) slays a mythic being too powerful and dangerous for the emerging
Netíitelwit. The dismembered remains of this slain being embody the cultural landscape as
Tim'néepe (Heart Place),
Sit'éexspe (Liver Place), and
Qaháspa (Breast Place) and locate the mythic emergence of the
Netíitelwit on the Clearwater River of north-central Idaho.
Through the mythic emergence of the Netíitelwit, a core Nez Perce cosmology is conceived. The universe is distinctly defined as including the realm of humans and a former world inhabited by supernatural entities. Its structure is mediated by a deep time separation whereby the mythic past remotely precedes the human present. Though rare, this time separation is sometimes breached by accounts of supernatural entities coexisting with and coming into contact with ordinary humans. Nez Perce oral traditions, known as titwatitnáawit, reinforce this notion of mythic time as an enduring continuum between two possible worlds. The more immediate social value of titwatitnáawit, however, is to impart fundamental knowledge about the world and its living inhabitants in addition to basic human values and beliefs.
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