On Thursday, more than 150 Nez Perce (Niimiipuu) people returned and blessed part of their homeland, a hundred years after the U.S Army drove them from the Wallowa Valley in eastern Oregon.
In direct violation of the 1855 Treaty of Walla Walla, the Nez Perce in 1877 were forced from their 7.5 million-acre homeland to a 750,000-acre reservation in Idaho.
The Nez Perce tribe purchased a 148-acre property in Joseph, known as Am'sáaxpa, or Place of Boulders, in December but could not formally perform a blessing ceremony until Thursday due to COVID-19 concerns.
Surrounded by the Wallowa Mountains, the property rights include the house near Airport Road built in 1884, barns, grassland and Wallowa River frontage where the Nez Perce would camp and catch sockeye salmon.
It also includes the ridge where Chief Joseph once held council.
https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2021/07/29/oregon-nez-perce-tribe-celebrate-reclaimed-reservation-land-history-treaty-chief-joseph-amsaaxpa/5424269001/
