Tribe Seeks To Retain Artifacts

The Nez Perce Tribe will seek a restraining order to keep the Spalding-Allen Collection of Indian artifacts in Idaho.

For the past 12 years, the collection of 19 artifacts has been on display at the Nez Perce National Historical Park’s visitor center at Spalding.

The items are on loan from the Ohio Historical Society, which acquired them from a descendent of Dudley Allen, who got them from missionary Henry Spalding.

Spalding worked among the Nez Perce in he mid-1800s and sent beaded dresses and shirts, moccasins, a saddle, cradle and ceremonial pieces to his friend in Ohio in exchange for other goods.

Earlier this year, the Ohio Historical Society notified the Park Service it wants the collection back and set a Dec. 31 deadline.

Richard Ellenwood of Lapwai, a tribal elder who has headed the effort to keep the collection, said the Ohio Historical Society has refused to negotiate a purchase price and even refused to communicate at all.

The tribe made an offer to buy the collection at the appraised price of more than $600,000, he said. But to the tribe, Ellenwood said, the collection’s spiritual and cultural value is priceless.

“It’s not right to put greed in front of something that sacred and put a price on it,” he said. “It’s like a loss of part of ourselves. There are no Nez Perce living in Ohio.”

The Spalding-Allen collection committee on Wednesday asked the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee to go to court to help keep the collection where it belongs.

The executive committee agreed and the restraining order will be requested, first from tribal court and then federal court, he said.