In a new book, Coming Home to Nez Perce Country: The Niimíipuu Campaign to Repatriate Their Exploited Heritage (Washington State University Press), librarian and historian Trevor James Bond describes an invaluable ethnographic collection and an astonishing campaign to bring it back to its rightful owners. Here, the author summarizes that story from his perspective.
On Saturday, June 27, during a Nez Perce (Niimíipuu) ceremony in Spalding that included a horse parade, drumming, singing, and speeches, my wife Robin and I were left in tears. We had just witnessed a celebration of the renaming of the most remarkable ethnographic collection in Idaho, which had been taken from the tribe 174 years earlier. In 1847, the missionary Henry Spalding shipped an array of Nez Perce items to a friend and benefactor in Ohio. It remained in that state for more than 130 years, when most of it returned to Nez Perce country on loan. And then in 1996, the Nez Perce Tribe mounted a sophisticated fundraising campaign that garnered $608,100 to enable the purchase of the collection from an Ohio museum. Finally, on this day in June, after careful deliberation, the tribe had commemorated the twenty-fifth anniversary of buying back the Spalding-Allen Collection by renaming it Wetxuuwíitin’, which translates to “returned after period of captivity.” Nakia Williamson-Cloud, director of the Nez Perce cultural resources program, said at the event, “The renaming of this collection is a step to reclaiming ownership of one of the most significant ethnographic collections in existence. More importantly, renaming helps us in rejecting colonialism and its impacts on our way of life.” Wetxuuwíitin’ was one among thousands of such collections that were shipped away great distances—but it was unusual, because most of it eventually came back on loan. The vast majority 6 IDAHO magazine
of the other collections assembled by government officials, soldiers, and missionaries have never returned to their home communities, and remain stored in museums and private collections. When I first heard about the collection at the start of my postgraduate studies in history, I was surprised to learn that the tribe had raised such a staggering sum to buy it back. And I wondered, why did they have to pay for it in the first place? The fact that one of my favorite bands, Pearl Jam, played a small role in the fundraising effort was also intriguing. I began to research the story, and discovered that Wetxuuwíitin’ was the largest and earliest documented surviving collection of Nez Perce cultural material. It included beautifully made dresses and shirts with elaborate decorative elements. The items were not only in exquisite condition and extremely rare but they also served as an important bridge between contemporary Nez Perce culture and how the Nez Perce lived during early contact with white people. Two barrels of “Indian curiosities” had been shipped in 1847 by Henry Spalding to Dr. Dudley Allen in Kinsman, Ohio. The barrels contained exquisite Nez Perce shirts, dresses,
