Heritage
They are of the Shahaptian linguistic stock, to which belong also the Palouse, Umatilla, Tenino, Yakama and others farther to the west, with whom they maintained close friendly relations, while frequently at variance with the Salishan tribes on their northern border — the Flatheads, Coeur d'Alene and Spokane — and in chronic warfare with the Blackfeet, Crows and Shoshoni on the east and south.
They call themselves Ni Mii Puu, meaning simply "the people", or "we the people". The name Sahaptin or Saptin comes through the Salishan tribes. When Lewis and Clark came through the area in 1805, they were called Chopunnish, possibly another form of Saptin. The popular and official name of Nez Percés, "Pierced Noses", originally bestowed by the French trappers, refers to a former custom of wearing a dentalium shell through a hole bored in the septum of the nose.
In 1805 they numbered, according to the most reliable estimates, probably over 6,000 but have greatly decreased since the advent of the whites, and they are still on the decline. Contributing causes were incessant wars with the more powerful Blackfeet in earlier years; a wasting fever, and measles epidemic (1847) from contact with immigrants; smallpox and other diseases following the occupation of the country by miners after 1860; losses in the war of 1877 and subsequent removals; and wholesale spread of consumption because of their changed condition of living under civilization. In 1848 they were officially estimated at 3,000; by 1910 they were officially reported at 1,530.
Read more about this topic: Sahaptin People
Famous quotes containing the word heritage:
“Flowers ... that are so pathetic in their beauty, frail as the clouds, and in their colouring as gorgeous as the heavens, had through thousands of years been the heritage of children—honoured as the jewellery of God only by them—when suddenly the voice of Christianity, counter-signing the voice of infancy, raised them to a grandeur transcending the Hebrew throne, although founded by God himself, and pronounced Solomon in all his glory not to be arrayed like one of these.”
—Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859)
“The heritage of the American Revolution is forgotten, and the American government, for better and for worse, has entered into the heritage of Europe as though it were its patrimony—unaware, alas, of the fact that Europe’s declining power was preceded and accompanied by political bankruptcy, the bankruptcy of the nation-state and its concept of sovereignty.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)