The Nez Perce

The Nez Perce indians are/were the dominat tribe in this area for several thousand years. The story of their relationship with the white man beginning with Lewis and Clark is a long and kinda tragic story. I won't get into all that but their influence is everywhere you look. The road I followed today along the Clearwater River is an ancient NP trail and there are many very intertesting informational sites along the way.

In Nez Perce lore the Coyote was the big dog so to speak. Nobody messed with him and won.

The info on the sign is about the natural rock arch in the distance on the left. If you look at it long enough it does sort of look like 2 insects going at it. The Nez Perce had a million stories about all aspects of the world around them,many involving Coyote, very interesting.

This is a place called The Heart of the Monster and is very sacred because it is where the Nez Perce tribe was created , by Coyote of course. The short version is that long ago when there were only animals on earth a very huge monster was killing everything. To save the world, Coyote lets himself get eaten by the monster so he can get inside the body and cut out the heart (with knives he snuck in with him). A lot of stuff happened while Coyote was inside the Monster but when the smoke cleared the monster was dead and this is the heart Coyote cut out. It turned to stone . From the droplets of blood from the monster Coyote created the Nez Perce Indians.
Nobody messed with Coyote --he was like Chuck Norris and The Fonz all in one.

So if you want to have your next Nez Perce party be a big success go heavy with a Coyote motif and you will be cool.