NIMÍIPUU (NEZ PERCE) ETHNOGEOLOGY OF THE GREATER YELLOWSTONE REGION

Millennia before the arrival of Columbus, Nimíipuu (Nez Perce) Peoples established an engaged relationship with the SW Montana landscapes including the Yellowstone (mac’íspa, "The Bad Smelling Place") super-volcano‘s geologic features and rich natural resources. The Nimíipuu witnessed and have maintained an oral history with an invaluable record of long-term changes in the Yellowstone area geothermal system, as well as earthquakes, landslides, and floods, and Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene fauna and flora.

The evidence of the Nimíipuu long-term relationship with the Yellowstone Region, is manifested in, but not limited to, oral testimony, legend time oratory, significant place name designations such as wispayk'as, and unique uses of geothermal resources including ˀiyeq'iispe (hot springs) for collection of mineral/algae soil paint bases, heat and mineral therapy, and, finally as a natural and constant high-heat source needed to soften and unfurl robust bighorn sheep horns in order to make the coveted sheep horn short bows in demand by Tribes far beyond the Nimíipuu Homeland.

Stories that delineate geothermal features and events including earthquakes hundreds to thousands of years ago include the important Nimíipuu Legend Time narrative about the relationship between a Nimíipuu boy and x̣áx̣aac (Grizzly) along k’usey’neˀískit (Migrating Trail) that generated features of Bitterroot and Idaho batholith, and ˀislamíisnima (Missoula, MT & Bitterroot Valley.) Indigenous trails record locations of Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene features and shorelines of (Yellowstone Lake) and other bodies of water.

These Nimíipuu terms, place names and stories, as well as the Indigenous knowledge of other Tribes that utilized and observed the Yellowstone landscape including the ˀisúux̣e (Crow); weyíiletpu (Cayuse); ˀiskíicuˀmix (Coeur d' Alene); tiwélqe (Shoshone-Bannock); and ˀisqóyxnix (Blackfeet), provide an invaluable record of Yellowstone’s past. “Two-Eyed Seeing,” a collaboration between Indigenous knowledge and Western geological research could be employed to increase understanding of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene geologic events and change.