Nez Perce Storytelling

Transcript of the Voices of the Wild Earth episode. Lightly formatted from the original production script.

JEANETTE: STORYTELLING IN THE NEZ PERCE TRADITION

6/29/2022

[AMBIENCE OF WIND CHIMES UP AND FADE UNDER]

INTRO FOR WEBSITE : WELCOME TO THE VOICES OF THE WILD

EARTH PODCAST SERIES FOR THE IDAHO MYTHWEAVER.

I’M JANE FRITZ. [FADE AMBIENCE OUT]

JANE: BACK IN THE 1990s, I GOT TO HEAR SOME OF THE BEST

STORYTELLERS IN THE NEZ PERCE TRIBE SHARE THEIR ORAL

LITERATURE. BUT YEARS BEFORE I BEGAN RECORDING TRIBAL

ELDERS FOR RADIO PROGRAMS, I WAS VISITING AN ELDER IN

KOOSKIA, IDAHO, WHEN HER GREAT GRANDSON, WHO WAS ABOUT

FIVE OR SIX AT THE TIME, CAME HOME FROM SCHOOL AND

INTERRUPTED US. HE SAT DOWN AT HER FEET AND SHE PROCEEDED

TO TELL HIM A STORY COMPLETELY IN HER NATIVE TONGUE.

LISTENING TO AN ELDER SPEAK NIMIIPUUTIMT IS A SPECIAL GIFT

EVEN IF I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND A SINGLE WORD. HE SEEMED TO

UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING SHE SAID. THEY BOTH LAUGHED A LOT

AND CONNECTED IN A DEEP AND MEANINGFUL WAY THAT I’LL NEVER

FORGET. HE WANTED ANOTHER STORY AND ANOTHER, AND SO I

LEFT HER HOME IN AWE AND WONDER.

WHERE DO TRADITIONAL STORIES COME FROM? HOW DO THEY

CONNECT TO TRIBAL LANDS? AND WHAT DO THEY HAVE TO TEACH

THE YOUTH OF TODAY? LET’S LISTEN TO SOMEONE WHO CAN TELL

US.

JEANETTE: Hello, my name is Jeanette Weaskus and I’m an enrolled

member of the Nez Perce Tribe of Idaho, or Nimiipuu. Today I’ll be talking

about Nez Perce legends and how they relate to the tribal landscape.

As a folklorist, I have gotten to know the mythologies of many cultures

around the world and have learned how traditional stories function within

those cultures. Specific cultural knowledge is conveyed to the listener who

will remember it, thus learning from the stories.

In the case of our Nimiipuu mythology, the function of the stories is to

teach youth how to treat one another in the right way, as well as how to

survive if they are somehow caught alone in the wilderness. The landscape

covered in the legends begins at the mouth of the Columbia River and

ends just south of the Seven Devils Mountain range. This region, as

described in the Coyote stories, are settings for his many adventures.

These stories begin with, “Coyote was going upriver,” because he begins

his journey at the ocean and travels inland.

In each story, Coyote has an adventure at a landscape feature that

children will recognize as places the people have traveled in their seasonal

food cycle. Over the years, the youth grow to become expert navigators

by recalling Coyote’s adventures and seeing the places for themselves.

MARI WATTERS: “The concept of the Coyote stories, my father told me

was they started along the coast, Pacific Ocean and Coyote kept coming

upriver from the mouth of the Columbia. And he kept coming up.”

JEANETTE: The late Nez Perce elder, Mari Watters explains how the

Coyote stories were interactive within the landscape:

MARI WATTERS: “...And as he passed numerous tributaries, things

happened like he’d go up one tributary and maybe there would be some

oyster sisters or bear sisters or somebody that would call him and they

would talk back and forth and whatnots and he’d say, “Well I’m making the

way for the salmon.” And depending on what happened in each tributary,

whether it was the mussel shells or it was the otter or anybody else, the

skunks or something else or the bear that did something to the Coyote

depended whether they were good to him or bad to him. If they were good

to him, he said, “The salmon would come up the river and spawn.” If they

were bad to him, he said, “Salmon will not come up this river.” So all the

way from the coast, all the way up into Idaho, he would go along and he

would say each story. And that’s why all the stories from Coyote say he is

going upstream. And each time he’s come to a river and something would

happen to him, he would either marry deer sisters or something like that

and then maybe mother-in-law was bad to him because of this no salmon

would go up the Potlatch. So that’s the essence of why Coyote was

coming upriver was giving all these landmarks and why salmon would go

up certain tributaries...”

JEANETTE: In addition to the salmon, other foods are discussed in many

of the stories so that children can recall where in the landscape Coyote

had left a great patch of sunflowers or huckleberries and more importantly,

where he did not. Coyote cursed some areas of the land so no foods grew

there, like from Asotin to Dayton, Washington. A lost child would know not

to go there. It was a sagebrush desert.

MARI: “...and also the same thing would happen when he’d go over land,

he would say, “Because of this, you were good to me, elk and deer will be

here and there will be good forests here.” And other places he said,

“Because you were bad to me there will be barren land.” Desert places

and rocks and numerous things. So every place that Coyote went,

something happened to him, whether it was good or whether it’s bad

depended on what was going to grow and what was going to propagate

itself.

And this is the way the people recognized and knew where the salmon

would spawn and where they would go and where they would come from.

And they’d know that just like the roots, the roots would grow up around

the Lewiston Valley and up around the Camas and around the Palouse, but

you will never find roots between Asotin Creek and Pomeroy in that area,

clear on over to Dayton, you won’t find roots because Coyote was

spurned by a beautiful woman.”

JEANETTE: Traditionally, winter was a good time to teach the youth

because they were not preoccupied with anything except listening to the

tales told by their grandparents sitting beside the fire. I can recall many

tribal elders talking about how animated the storyteller became and how

the grandparents from long ago used string, or hemp twine, to create

images like tipis and horses as they told the stories. I saw a string story

once and it was amazing how a piece of twine could come alive as a tipi

and shoot through the air as a spear. I do not believe there are any more

string storytellers left among the Nez Perce, as it was an ancient art form.

The late elders Mari Watters and Al Slickpoo, Sr., that you hear telling

these stories, they took it for granted because they were raised knowing

the Nez Perce Language. The stories we have left were preserved from a

time when Mari Watters and Al Slickpoo were kids.

Al Slickpoo, Sr. speaks about that filter which came into use after the

English Language became standard in the post-boarding school era:

AL SLICKPOO: To begin with, a lot of our stories were told in such a

manner that if they were to be repeated in English, in the English language,

they would probably be x-rated. Where on the other hand to the Native

American people, particularly to the Nez Perce people, our stories and the

words that were used in those stories were humorous to us. This is why

perhaps we have never adopted or never had very vulgar language as it is

in the English language. So when we told our stories and legends, they

were told more from the humorous point or from the humorous view.

Where on the other hand in the English language, it would probably not be

very acceptable or more embarrassing to the English-speaking people.

Our language is as such that whenever we have a conversation among

ourselves a lot of times about every other two-three words we’re laughing,

and this is what I’m saying about our language being as humorous,

acceptable to our society for our people than it would otherwise have

been in the English language.

JEANETTE: In some of these humorous stories, I can see how a

grandmother might be reluctant to tell how Coyote’s penis would keep

growing the more he stared at these beautiful women until it grew all the

way across the river where they were swimming. Or how telling the stories

of “Bed Wetting Boy” might be misconstrued. Although his name sounds

terrible, he brought many good lessons for listeners since his proper

kinship title had to be spoken in order to escape a threatening grizzly bear.

Children can interact with this story and learn kinship terms which are

numerous and complicated, but thanks to Bed Wetting Boy, become fun to

learn.

MARI WATTERS: All of these Coyote Stories are involved with during the

time when animals could speak and they’re preparing the world for the

coming of the human beings, the La-teet-al-whit or the Nah-teet-al-whit.

There’s two dialectical ways of saying it, one with an L and one with an N,

but they’re both correct. Each storyteller has a different version of the

same story, but there just may be a few things that are a little different. But

there are a lot of fun stories and when they’re told in Indian, they’re just

fine, but when you translate them into English, they become a little risqué.

At one time, I would change things around so that they weren’t risqué and

then I got to thinking that, “Why should I hide something that is natural?”

And so I told it like it is.

JEANETTE: The youth also learn how to live from the stories. Mari Watters

taught that in the past Coyote was considered to be a divine being with

many lessons to teach. One such lesson is that cheating in order to get

what one wants always ends in failure.

MARI WATTERS: No matter how hard you try to gain by cheating and

deceptions, everything will go wrong for you, and some of these stories

are lessons of being left with nothing in the end. If a child is mean to

others or disobedient to his parents, or disrespectful to elders, his friends

will leave him alone in the world, unwanted and become a lonely child. If a

person is greedy for more than his share, he’s apt to lose everything and

he should learn to share with others. Jealousy of a friend’s good fortune

can lead to a bad end and we should give encouragement instead of

ridicule. Even the strongest beings can be defeated by weaker but more

intelligent beings. One should not judge another or marry another by his

looks alone.

Too often, we are quick to judge and not realizing that it’s a person’s heart.

The strongest should learn to protect the freedom of the weak. And people

will help you if they believe you are sincere and have good intentions.

These Coyote stories also indicate numerous ways of the Nez Perce

culture and how we should behave and what grandmother does, what

mothers do, how elder brothers treat younger brothers and things like this.

How we care for the land and what Coyote does with the land. Coyote is a

trickster; he has powers and he can change things any way he wants to

and there are a lot of landmark stories about Coyote.

JEANETTE: I have seen the work of Coyote that continues among my

people. Whenever my uncle would see a coyote running across the

highway or along the road, he would yell out to him, “Good day, Coyote”

and always left tobacco. All those years of learning to love and care for the

Coyote has left me doing the same thing. And I have passed that down to

my own kids. We always greet the Coyote and leave him tobacco so that

he can smoke as he takes a break from going upriver. This is our modern

way of interacting with Coyote in the natural world, as we see him crossing

our path on the roadways. He is now the sign of a safe road trip.

Qeciyewyew, ‘Iceyeeye. Thanks, Coyote.

And thanks for listening. I’m Jeanette Weaskus.

OUTRO: THE VOICES OF THE WILD EARTH PODCAST SERIES IS

PRODUCED BY ME, JANE FRITZ, WITH PRODUCTION ASSISTANCE

AND ENGINEERING BY JUSTIN LANTRIP FOR THE IDAHO

MYTHWEAVER.

SPECIAL THANKS TO SCHOLAR AND NEZ PERCE PRODUCER

JEANETTE WEASKUS FOR TEACHING US ABOUT THE STORYTELLING

TRADITION OF HER TRIBE. BE SURE TO LISTEN TO HER OTHER

PODCAST — COYOTE BREAKS THE FISH DAM.

FUNDING FOR THIS SERIES COMES FROM THE IDAHO HUMANITIES

COUNCIL, AND THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES,

AS PART OF THE AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN ACT OF 2021. JOIN US

AGAIN NEXT TIME AT MYTHWEAVER.ORG

###