Introduction - Nez Perce The land of the Nez Perce or Nimipoo people is a land of forests, green meadows, deep canyons, and rushing clear streams. It forms what we know as northern Idaho, eastern Washington and Oregon, and a small portion of western Montana. Here this Indian people developed a folklore based on the land in which they lived, weaving their tales to tell why the sun shone, why rocks were certain shapes, why deaths occurred. The Nimipoo believed that many, many moons ago, before there were any Indians on earth, there was a kingdom of the animals, ruled by Itsayaya, the coyote. The animals held their councils in Siminikum, the magic meadow, where the clear Koos-coos-ki and the great roaring Te-well-ka-koos ran together. In this meadow now stands the town Lewiston, Idaho; the Koos-koos-ki, now called the Clearwater River, and the Tw-well-ka-koos, now the Snake, still flow through the mountains and valleys where the coyote and his friends had their adventures, long before the coming of mankind. In the magic place of Siminikum, all the animals were friends. No one harmed another. Their ruler, Itsayaya, was powerful. He was not particularly strong or handsome, nor was he always good. Sometimes he slipped, and was not exactly the kind of hero he should have been. But he held his position because of great cunning, his magic medicine. These stories have been handed down from generation to generation. They have, of course, changed in the telling, so that no one version can be called exactly right. There are many different stories about the same happenings, as many as there are tellers. In assembling and rewriting these legends, I have used the differing versions I found and tried to work out the best from all of them. If some of you read them and say, "That's not the way I heard it," I am sure you will understand that this is but one way of telling the stoires. I am indebted to many people for help in gathering these stories. First of all I should like to thank Mr. D.E. Warren of Moscow, Idaho, for the whole project was his idea. He helped gather the material by recording the wonderful stories of Mr. Albert Pinkham, a Nimipoo man from Spaulding, Idaho; and by arranging an appointment with Mrs. Elizabeth Wilson, a delightful Nimipoo woman from Kamiah, who told me stories of her people. May all of you have a magical adventure in the land of the Nimipoo with Itsayaya, the coyote, and all the animal people who lived on this earth before the coming of mankind. Taken from Tales of the Nimipoo - From the Land of the Nez Perce Indians, Eleanor B. Heady, 1969