Friends Come Through For Tribe

Sat., June 1, 1996

By D.F. Oliveria daveo@spokesman.com (509) 319-0354

The Nez Perce Indian tribe has completed mission impossible - thanks to help from friends as diverse as Walt Disney’s widow, the rock group Pearl Jam and Boise schoolchildren.

After months of frantic fund-raising, the tribe raised $608,100 to buy 20 treasured artifacts held (for ransom) by the Ohio Historical Society.

Fittingly, the final $2,500 came from students at Boise’s Frontier Elementary School, who’d raised money selling pizza bread and collecting pocket change. The 150-year-old tribal treasures, after all, are as much a source of education for non-Indian America as they are part of the Nez Perce heritage.

The collection - including women’s dresses, a saddle, hemp bags, buckskin shirts and moccasins - have been on display since 1979 at the National Park Service museum at Spalding.

Although some tribal members contend that the valuables should have been returned without charge, the scramble for money had a good side. It permitted U.S. citizens to show their appreciation for Native Americans and their culture.

In expressing his thanks, tribal executive committee chairman Sam Penney captured this point eloquently:

“Today is a great day, not just for the Nez Perce Tribe, but for all Americans. … We have found partners and friends when we did not expect them. We have had an important part of our heritage restored, when we could not do it alone. And we have seen a light of respect and compassion which suggests a greater future for our United States.”

Money was contributed by the great and the small.

Lillian Disney, a player on the 1917 Lapwai High School girls’ basketball team, supported her roots by donating $100,000. Said a Disney spokesman: “She has very warm memories of growing up in the Spalding area and going to government schools in Lapwai with many Native Americans.”

An anonymous donor chipped in $150,000.

The country’s biggest alternative bands - Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Presidents of the United States of America and Pete Droge - helped out, too.

In the end, the tribe met today’s deadline for buying the artifacts or returning them to Ohio with only 48 hours to spare. It was a harrowing experience. But you learn who your friends really are when the chips are down.

The tribe has many friends.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board

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