Pinkham, a Nez Perce elder and tribal historian, and Evans present the Nez Perce people’s own understanding of their critical encounter with the Lewis and Clark Expedition in September 1805. The article describes how the starving, exhausted Corps of Discovery stumbled out of the Bitterroot Mountains into Nez Perce territory and received life-saving hospitality from the Nimiipuu people. Drawing on oral traditions, the authors explain the Nez Perce decision to aid rather than attack the strangers, crediting Watkuweis, an elderly woman who had been captured by enemies and later lived among white people in Canada, with urging her people to treat the newcomers kindly. The article details the month-long stay among the Nez Perce during the spring of 1806, the care of the expedition’s horse herd, and the cultural exchanges that occurred. The authors also address the painful irony that the Nez Perce’s generosity was ultimately repaid with dispossession and the 1877 Nez Perce War.
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