Editing Nez Perce (section)

== Name and history ==
[[File: Edward S. Curtis Collection People 007.jpg|thumb|Nez Perce baby in cradleboard, 1911]]
Their name for themselves is ''nimíipuu'' (pronounced {{IPA|sal|nimiːpuː|}}), meaning, "we, the people", in their language, part of the [[Sahaptin language|Sahaptin]] family.<ref name="aoki">Aoki, Haruo. ''Nez Perce Dictionary''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. {{ISBN|978-0-520-09763-6}}.</ref>

''Nez Percé'' is an [[exonym]] given by [[French Canadian]] [[fur trade]]rs who visited the area regularly in the late 18th&nbsp;century, meaning literally "pierced nose". English-speaking traders and settlers adopted the name in turn. Since the late 20th century, the Nez Perce identify most often as '''Nimíipuu''' in Sahaptin.<ref name=aoki/> This has also been spelled Nee-Me-Poo. The Lakota/Dakota named them the ''Watopala'', or ''Canoe'' people, from ''Watopa''. After Nez Perce became a more common name, they changed it to ''Watopahlute''. This comes from ''pahlute'', nasal passage, and is simply a play on words. If translated literally, it would come out as either "Nasal Passage of the Canoe" (Watopa-pahlute) or "Nasal Passage of the Grass" (Wato-pahlute).<ref>Buechel, Eugene & Manhart S.J., Paul "Lakota Dictionary: Lakota-English / English-Lakota, New Comprehensive Edition" 2002.</ref> The Assiniboine called them ''Pasú oȟnógA wįcaštA'', the Arikara ''sinitčiškataríwiš''.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://zia.aisri.indiana.edu/~dictsearch/cgi-bin/testgetdetailsNP.pl?pass=&hasfont=&database=assin&onelang=&host=zia&key=Assin003942&glossnum=1&srchstring=tribe&sndformat=mp3&nexthit=0&maxhits=20&data=examples| title = AISRI Dictionary}}</ref> The tribe also uses the term "Nez Perce", as does the United States Government in its official dealings with them, and contemporary historians. Older historical [[Ethnology|ethnological]] works and documents use the French spelling of ''Nez Percé'', with the [[diacritic]]. The original French pronunciation is {{IPA|fr|ne pɛʁse|}}, with three syllables.

The interpreters [[Sacagawea]] and [[Toussaint Charbonneau]] of the [[Lewis and Clark Expedition]] mistakenly identified this people as the Nez Perce when the team encountered the tribe in 1805. Writing in 1889, anthropologist [[Alice Fletcher]], who the U.S. government had sent to Idaho to allot the Nez Perce Reservation, explained the mistaken naming. She wrote,

{{blockquote|It is never easy to come at the name of an Indian or even of an Indian tribe. A tribe has always at least two names; one they call themselves by and one by which they are known to other tribes. All the tribes living west of the Rocky Mountains were called "Chupnit-pa-lu", which means people of the pierced noses; it also means emerging from the bushes or forest; the people from the woods. The tribes on the Columbia river used to pierce the nose and wear in it some ornament as you have seen some old fashioned white ladies wear in their ears. Lewis and Clark had with them an interpreter whose [[Sacagawea|wife was a Shoshone or Snake woman]] and so it came about that when it was asked "What Indians are these?" the answer was "They are 'Chupnit-pa-lu{{'"}} and it was written down in the journal; spelled rather queerly, for white people's ears do not always catch Indian tones and of course the Indians could not spell any word.<ref>{{cite web|title=Selections from WITH THE NEZ PERCES Alice Fletcher in the Field, 1889–92 by E. Jane Gay|url=http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/eight/fletcher.htm|website=PBS|access-date=September 20, 2017}}</ref>}}

In his journals, [[William Clark (explorer)|William Clark]] referred to the people as the Chopunnish {{IPAc-en|ˈ|tʃ|oʊ|p|ə|n|ɪ|ʃ}}, a transliteration of a Sahaptin term. According to D.E. Walker in 1998, writing for the [[Smithsonian]], this term is an adaptation of the term ''cú·pŉitpeľu'' (the Nez Perce people). The term is formed from ''cú·pŉit'' (piercing with a pointed object) and ''peľu'' (people).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Walker |first=Deward |title=Plateau |series=[[Handbook of North American Indians]] v. 12 |publisher= [[Smithsonian Institution]] |year=1998 |pages=437–438 |isbn=0-16-049514-8 }}</ref> By contrast, the ''Nez Perce Language Dictionary''<ref>University of California Press, 1994</ref> has a different analysis than did Walker for the term ''cú·pŉitpeľu''. The prefix ''cú''- means "in single file". This prefix, combined with the verb ''-piní'', "to come out (e.g. of forest, bushes, ice)". Finally, with the suffix of ''-pelú'', meaning "people or inhabitants of". Together, these three elements: ''cú''- + -''piní'' + ''pelú'' = ''cú·pŉitpeľu'', or "the People Walking Single File Out of the Forest".<ref>{{cite book|last=Aoki|first=Haruo|title=Nez Perce Dictionary|year=1994|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley|isbn=978-0-520-09763-6|pages=52, 527, 542}}</ref> Nez Perce [[oral tradition]] indicates the name "cú·pŉitpeľu" meant "we walked out of the woods or walked out of the mountains" and referred to the time before the Nez Perce had horses.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/L3/ShowOneObjectSiteID34ObjectID79ExpeditionID.html|title=Since Time Immemorial|work=Lewis & Clark Rediscovery Project|publisher=Nez Perce Tribe|access-date=May 23, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160403104923/http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/L3/ShowOneObjectSiteID34ObjectID79ExpeditionID.html|archive-date=April 3, 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref>