That the Pierced Noses had taken the war trail was astonishing news. For one hundred years they had held the hand of the white man. Their proudest boast said: "The Nez Percés have never shed white blood."
They spoke truly. During the seventy years since the two captains Lewis and Clark had met them in 1805, only one white man had been killed by a Pierced Nose. That was not in war, but in a private quarrel between the two.
Hunters, traders and missionaries had always been helped by the Pierced Noses. The white man's religion had been favored. The Good Book had been prized.
Young Chief Joseph was now the leader of the Pierced Noses upon the war trail. His Indian name was Hin-ma-ton Ya-lat-kit—Thunder-rising-from-the-water-over-the-land. But his father had been christened Joseph by the missionaries; so the son was called Young Chief Joseph.
A tall, commanding, splendid-looking Indian he had grown to be, at forty years of age. He was every inch a chief, and had a noble face.
His people were the Lower Nez Percés, who lived in the beautiful Wallowa Valley—their Valley of the Winding Waters, in northeastern Oregon. Here they raised many horses, and hunted, but put in few crops. Old Chief Joseph had believed that the earth should not be disturbed; the people should eat only what it produced of itself. The earth was their mother.
He believed also that nobody owned any part of the earth. The earth had been given to all, by the Great Creator. Everybody had a right to use what was needed.
Twenty years ago, or in 1855, Old Chief Joseph had signed a paper, by which the United States agreed to let the Pierced Noses alone on their wide lands of western Idaho, and eastern Oregon and Washington.
But it was seen that the Pierced Noses did not cultivate the better portion of this country; the white men wanted to plough the Valley of Winding Waters; and eight years later another treaty was made, which cut out the Winding Waters. It narrowed the Nez Percés to the Lapwai reservation in Idaho.
Old Chief Joseph did not sign this treaty. Other chiefs signed, for the Nez Percés. The United States thought that this was enough, as it considered the Pierced Noses to be one nation. The Valley of the Winding Waters was said to be open to white settlers.