Editing Nez Perce (section)

===European contact===

In 1805 [[William Clark (explorer)|William Clark]] was the first known Euro-American to meet any of the tribe, excluding the aforementioned French Canadian traders. While he, [[Meriwether Lewis]] and their men were crossing the [[Bitterroot Mountains]], they ran low of food, and Clark took six hunters and hurried ahead to hunt. On September&nbsp;20, 1805, near the western end of the [[Lolo Trail]], he found a small camp at the edge of the camas-digging ground, which is now called [[Weippe Prairie]]. The explorers were favorably impressed by the Nez Perce whom they met. Preparing to make the remainder of their journey to the Pacific by boats on rivers, they entrusted the keeping of their horses until they returned to "2 brothers and one son of one of the Chiefs." One of these Indians was ''Walammottinin'' (meaning "Hair Bunched and tied," but more commonly known as Twisted Hair). He was the father of [[Hallalhotsoot|Chief Lawyer]], who by 1877 was a prominent member of the "Treaty" faction of the tribe. The Nez Perce were generally faithful to the trust; the party recovered their horses without serious difficulty when they returned.<ref name="josephy">{{cite book |last=Josephy |first=Alvin |title=The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1971 |isbn=0-300-01494-5 }}</ref>

Recollecting the Nez Perce encounter with the Lewis and Clark party, in 1889 anthropologist Alice Fletcher wrote that "the Lewis and Clark explorers were the first white men that many of the people had ever seen and the women thought them beautiful." She wrote that the Nez Perce "were kind to the tired and hungry party. They furnished fresh horses and dried meat and fish with wild potatoes and other roots which were good to eat, and the refreshed white men went further on, westward, leaving their bony, wornout horses for the Indians to take care of and have fat and strong when Lewis and Clark should come back on their way home." On their return trip they arrived at the Nez Perce encampment the following spring, again hungry and exhausted. The tribe constructed a large tent for them and again fed them. Desiring fresh red meat, the party offered an exchange for a Nez Perce horse. Quoting from the Lewis and Clark diary, Fletcher writes, "The hospitality of the Chiefs was offended at the idea of an exchange. He observed that his people had an abundance of young horses and that if we were disposed to use that food, we might have as many as we wanted." The party stayed with the Nez Perce for a month before moving on.<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 21, 2017}}</ref>