The Nez Perce Sikum

By editor

Lolo, Missoula County, Montana, September 1805

There is a profound kinship between a people and the animals that carry them through the world. To understand the Niimíipuu, the people the French misnamed the Nez Perce, one must first understand the Sikum. The horse was not merely a beast of burden to them; it was a partner in survival, a vessel of freedom, and the living embodiment of their genius. Long before the white man’s maps were drawn, the Niimíipuu had mastered the art of shaping life itself, breeding a creature perfectly suited to the harsh and beautiful country of the Columbia Plateau.

The horse arrived in the Northwest in the early years of the eighteenth century, a descendant of the Spanish stock brought to the Americas by conquerors. But the animal that emerged from the valleys of the Palouse and the Clearwater was no longer Spanish. It was uniquely Nez Perce. Unlike other tribes who allowed their herds to multiply freely, the Niimíipuu practiced a deliberate and rigorous science of selective breeding. They culled the weak, gelded the inferior stallions, and paired their finest stock to enhance endurance, intelligence, and the sure-footedness required to navigate the treacherous mountain passes. By the mid-nineteenth century, their herds numbered in the tens of thousands, living proof of their mastery over the natural world.

This mastery was on full display along the Lolo Trail, the ancient commerce highway that threaded through the Bitterroot Mountains. For generations, the Niimíipuu had traveled this route, crossing the high ridges to hunt buffalo on the eastern plains and gather camas roots in the valleys. It was a path of life, trade, and eventually, sorrow. As Samuel Penny, Chairman of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, would later recall, "This was our commerce trail. We followed this trail east to hunt buffalo. We came here for camas. We came here in our flight from the soldiers."

When the weary and starving men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition stumbled into the Nez Perce camps in the autumn of 1805, they were met not with hostility, but with the grace of a people secure in their wealth and power. The explorers, desperate for salvation, found it in the form of the Sikum. Meriwether Lewis, a man accustomed to the fine blooded horses of Virginia, was struck by the quality of the animals he saw. On February 15, 1806, as the expedition prepared for its return journey, he recorded his admiration in his journal:

"Their horses appear to be of an excellent race; they are lofty eligantly formed active and durable; in short many of them look like the fine English coarsers and would make a figure in any country."

Lewis noted the distinctive spotted coats of some of the horses, a trait that would later lead white settlers to call them "Appaloosas," after the Palouse River valley. But he could not fully comprehend the depth of the bond between the Niimíipuu and their horses. He saw fine animals; he did not see the generations of careful stewardship, the spiritual connection, or the way the Sikum had transformed the Nez Perce from a people of the river to lords of the plateau.

That bond would be tested in the fires of the 1877 war. When the United States government sought to force the Nez Perce onto a fraction of their ancestral lands, the people chose flight over subjugation. It was the Sikum that carried them on that agonizing ,170-mile journey across the mountains, evading the pursuing cavalry with a stamina that defied belief. But the war ended in tragedy, and the aftermath brought a deliberate attempt to erase the Nez Perce horse culture. The great herds were confiscated, dispersed, and crossbred with draft horses, driving the pure lines to the brink of extinction.

Yet, the spirit of a people, like the spirit of a noble horse, is not easily broken. Today, the legacy of the Sikum is being reclaimed. Through the Young Horseman Program in Lapwai, Idaho, the Nez Perce have renewed their ancestral calling. By crossing the Appaloosa with the Akhal-Teke, an ancient and hardy breed from Turkmenistan, they are restoring the athletic prowess, endurance, and toughness that once defined their herds. The Niimíipuu are riding again, honoring the memory of the spotted horses that carried their ancestors across the mountains, and ensuring that the hoofbeats of the Sikum will continue to echo through the valleys of their homeland.

See also

• The Nez Perce Sikum at Lolo, Missoula County (Erected by Lolo National Forest, erected 2010)
• Lolo, the historic crossroads of the Bitterroot Valley