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. Culturally, the Nez Perce people identify themselves as Niimíipuu the Real People; however, it is also quite common for tribal members to use their ancestral band designation as an identity marker. In the historic period, the name Nez Percé, a French term meaning pierced nose, was applied to the Niimíipuu by French fur traders and through later historic usage the name has come to identify both the Niimíipuu language and its people. Today, the majority of the Nez Perce people (a population estimated at 3,000) reside on the Nez Perce Reservation in central Idaho, with several smaller communities of Nez Perce in Oregon and Washington. The Nez Perce language, like many indigenous languages of North America, is endangered and is spoken by sixty to seventy fluent elders, the majority of whom speak the Upper River dialect. Only a handful of elders still speak the Lower River dialect.

The religious traditions of the Niimíipuu, the Nez Perce people, trace their origin to the mythic emergence of the Netíitelwit, the first human beings to inhabit the earth. The emergence of the Netíitelwit brought to an end the existence of powerful mythic beings and signaled the beginning of a world inhabited by ordinary humans. 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.

The wÉeyekin system

The Nez Perce, like many cultures throughout the Columbia Plateau, base their belief system upon the wéeyekin (spirit guardian), also called the spirit-guardian tradition. The wéeyekin system consists of a core set of religious beliefs centering on the existence of transcendent power as well as a set of unifying cultural practices that integrate such beliefs into Nez Perce society. A fundamental notion informing the wéeyekin system is the existence of an innate power or force in the universe. Elements of this power can become manifest as superhuman agents or spirit beings who become attached to individual human beings. Once acquired, a wéeyekin acts as a lifelong tutelary to its human recipient.

A wéeyekin is obtained through a childhood spirit-guardian quest, inheritance, dreams, life crises, or incidental contact. While an individual may acquire a wéeyekin at any stage in life, it was more common in aboriginal times to acquire one during a childhood spirit-guardian quest called a wáay'atin. The wáay'atin involved isolation in a remote geographic location, most often a sacred area where spirit powers were known to be especially potent. For many Nez Perce children, the wáay'atin was the culmination of a more general regimen of training that started early in life and extended independently through adulthood.

Individual narrative accounts reveal that the vision experience unfolds as a dialogic encounter. The experience consists of (1) the direct apprehension of a wéeyekin, which typically occurs in an altered state of consciousness or dream state; (2) a set of directives in which the wéeyekin vocally transmits information about its identity, attributes, and powers; and (3) the transfer of powers from the wéeyekin to the human participant. The outcome of such an encounter is characterized as wéeyexnin' (to be blessed by a wéeyekin ). In addition, the human participant is later endowed with a personal spiritual name that identifies the wéeyekin, a set of prescriptive ritual behaviors to maintain spiritual empowerment, and a personal spirit song. The full extent of these endowments was usually not realized until the human participant had matured and entered into adult life. Ultimately, however, they provided the key ingredients for individual and group success in the overall survival of the Nez Perce.

The spiritual attainment of wéeyexnin' was understood to be a foundational element in the formation of a true autonomous self. Intensified forms of personal awareness were known to emerge over the life of an individual as a consequence of the originating vision experiences. This awareness often culminated in cúukwenin' (the supernatural ability to "know spiritually"), and was believed to contribute to a coherent understanding of human experience, life forces, and the basic structure of the world. The alternative was to be weyexnéey' —without a wéeyekin —and attempts at attaining anything more than a common, mediocre life would be a long and arduous undertaking.

The core beliefs informing the wéeyekin system find their greatest elaboration in the annual winter ritual performance known as the wéeyekweecet (spirit-guardian dance). The wéeyekweecet is primarily structured around the enactment and display of wéeyekin powers. It includes the public performance of one's weeyekwe'nípt (spirit-guardian song) as well as power exhibitions by mature shamans. The wéeyekweecet constitutes a collective communicative process in which information pertaining to one's inner experience is externalized through ritual performance.

The wéeyekin tradition is a belief system of great antiquity and the empowering, transformative vision experience upon which it is based is a core feature in recent Nez Perce religious traditions. The visionary realm continues to retain its inherent potency; narrative accounts show, however, that the visionary content upon which the new religious traditions are based appears to be much more universal in orientation. It includes (1) the direct apprehension of the universe, which typically occurs in a death-like altered state of consciousness or dream state; (2) the receipt of a set of directives or laws that transmits information about the existence of an omniscient creator and human life potential; and (3) the transfer of prophetic powers, songs, and rituals to the human participant. The variation and development of these modern religious traditions are not so much about the embodiment of spiritual power as they are a means to bring about changes in the world through collective ritual action.

The tuulÍim cult

The earliest documented religious development to emerge among the Nez Perce was the tuulíim cult. In contrast to the wéeyekin system, the tuulíim cult was characterized by the formalization of religious ritual centering on prophecy and revelation. Its most salient feature was the ritual transmission of sacred knowledge that was obtained during a death-like transitory state or vision experience. The revelatory and prophetic structure of this knowledge was derived, in part, from the visionary perception of the cosmos and human existence. Its content and form were later integrated into the everyday world as communicative ritual acts known as talapóosa (worship), we'nípt (singing), and waa'láasat (a sacred form of dancing). Among its most central beliefs were concepts of a hereafter, an omniscient creator (haniyaw'áat ), human moral conduct, and world renewal.

Based on archaeological and ethnographic evidence, the tuulíim cult arose during the protohistoric period (1600–1750) in response to the widespread introduction of non-aboriginal influences into the Columbia Plateau. Their cumulative impact had the unprecedented effect of transforming the physical realms (via material resources and technology), the social realms (in interpersonal and tribal relationships), and the cognitive realms (through psychology and religion) of everyday Nez Perce life. But by far the single most important event to shape the lives of Columbia Plateau peoples was a series of smallpox epidemics that swept through the ancient villages of the Columbia and Snake River areas. As an intellectual and spiritual force, the tuulíim cult and its progenitor the Prophet Dance provided a means of mediating the weakened, liminal state of existence by offering to restore vitality in a crisis-ridden world.

The 'ipnÚucililpt ritual

By the post-contact era, the fundamental elements of the tuulíim cult were so fully integrated into Nez Perce life that it reemerged as a revitalized form of worship called 'ipnúucililpt (making oneself turn). In its most basic form, the 'ipnúucililpt ritual is a modern adaptation of its protohistoric progenitor. Significantly, it continues to be grounded in the transformative power of prophecy and revelation precisely because many of its original prophetic predictions, such as the arrival of whites, the appearance of instruments of writing, and other wondrous technologies, had come to pass. Drawing on the symbolic structure of its predecessor, 'lipnúucililpt philosophy is distinguished by an adherence to natural laws, ethical codes of respect, religious authority, and ritual order. World renewal rituals such as the First Foods ceremony and children's rites of passage receive greater emphasis, as does the adoption and use of ancient symbolic imagery centering on primal sources of light such as the sun, moon, and stars.

This process of reinterpretation provided the various traditional bands of Nez Perce with a sense of social solidarity and continuity in the face of rapid change. However, the increase in opportunities for religious affiliation also had the effect of reducing the internal diversity of the 'ipnúucililpt adherents until they became collectively identified as followers of the Wanapam prophet Smohalla, a key historical figure in the native struggle to retain ancestral lands. In the political sphere, adherents of the 'ipnúucililpt faith eventually became unified to fight U.S. government attempts to extinguish aboriginal title to lands held sacred by the Nez Perce. Ultimately, however, the deep fundamental differences in religion and worldview were too great to prevent the Nez Perce War of 1877 and the division of the Nez Perce people. Today, remnants of the 'ipnúucililpt religious practices and wéeyekin tradition continue in isolation in the life of a small group of traditional Nez Perce.

Bibliography

Axtell, Horace, and Margo Aragon. A Little Bit of Wisdom: Conversations with a Nez Perce Elder. Lewiston, Idaho, 1997.

Coale, George L. "Notes on the Guardian Spirit Concept among the Nez Perce." International Archives of Ethnography 47 (1958): 135–148.

Walker, Deward E. Conflict and Schism in Nez Perce Acculturation. 2d ed., with an introduction by Robert Hackenberg. Moscow, Idaho, 1985.

Walker, Deward E. "Plateau: Nez Perce." In Witchcraft and Sorcery of the American Native Peoples, edited by Walker, pp. 113–140. Moscow, Idaho, 1989.

Walker, Deward E. "Nez Perce." In Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 12: Plateau, edited by Walker. Washington, D.C., 1998.

Phillip Cash Cash (2005)