Spring and summer are the gathering times for Nimíipuu, the People. More commonly known as Nez Perce, Nimíipuu is their word for themselves. The French word for “pierced nose” most likely was given by French-Canadian fur trappers and used extensively by the Lewis & Clark Expedition. The Nez Perces are a tribe of people who have continuously inhabited what is now known as southeastern Washington, northeastern Oregon and north-central Idaho.

While agriculture, in the most common definition, is based on seeding, cultivating, and harvesting, “gatherculture” more accurately describes what the Nez Perce people have continued to do for at least 10,000 years. Millennia before Egyptians grew cotton and grain during 2700 B.C., the Nez Perces gathered and cultivated qews, qeqit, qemes, huckleberries, pine moss, wild carrots, mountain tea, wild celery, mushroom, and wild onions. Each of these foods has been identified and given a scientific name; however, the common names are used to protect the identities of these increasingly rare plants. Enthusiasts have, in the past, unwittingly taken food from a tribal family’s traditional gathering place.

‘Gatherculture’ aptly describes the Nez Perce tradition of collecting food where it was found, not where it was planted. Some of the objects of Nez Perce gathering were elderberries (above) and camas roots (below). Photos courtesy of the Nez Perce National Historic Park.

Not knowing the rules of traditional gathering and cultivation, misunderstandings have ensued, forcing many Nez Perces to remain silent on the subject of their roots.

Roots and berries are dug and picked along Idaho’s Clearwater River drainage. Now, as throughout history, women are the gatherers. Traditional root-digging practices are passed down from woman to woman, usually mother to daughter or grandmother to granddaughter. A group of women will decide when and where to harvest—commonly, areas that have been gathering places for their families for generations.

The traditional root-digging implement, a túukes, is used to gently lift the soil, making it easier to gather the roots and replace the ground to its original condition. The implement generally is shaped like a “T” with the bottom point straight enough to pierce. Old digging sticks were made from yew wood or iron wood and fire-hardened. The bar at the top of the stick was fashioned from antler bone or stone. These days, iron has replaced wood as the material of choice for Nez Perce gatherers. A well cared for túukes can last through several generations of diggers.

The idea of agriculture, when it was first introduced in 1837 by missionaries Henry Harmon Spalding and his wife Eliza Spalding, seemed a violent one. Expose the ground by digging a hole or furrow, introduce foreign seed, cultivate the plant, and then harvest it. The Nez Perces’ belief in the ground as “the mother” made them careful about how they gathered and collected plant food. Spalding also wanted the bands of Indian people to stay in one place and hoped, by tending fields and orchards, they would give up traditional practices of going to buffalo country in the east or moving to higher elevations in the summer. He managed to convince some of them to remain and assist him; they produced an introductory crop of potatoes around 1838.

Although many Nez Perces now own farmland, most rent their land to non-Indian farmers. Root-digging still is practiced and passed down to each new generation. Every spring, tribes along the Clearwater, Snake, and Columbia river drainages celebrate “Root Feasts” to give thanks to the new foods. People of all beliefs attend these one-day gatherings to sing, dance, and taste the roots, berries, fish, and meat that have sustained the Indian people for thousands of years.
 

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