The Nez Perce were the a darn ginormous tribe. Lewis and Clark met between the Missouri River and the Pacific Coast. They ranged across today's central Idaho, southeastern Washington , and northeastern Oregon, from the western base of the Rockies to the falls of the Columbia River.
In the 1830s there were an estimated 6,000 Nez Perce. "Nez Perce," (French for "pierced nose") referred to the nose pendants which some of the Indians wore.
As common plateau Indians, the Nez Perce fished the Clearwater and Snake Rivers and harvested camas roots. When Clark and other members of the expedition emerged exhausted and starved from their journey through the Bitterroot Mountains, the Nez Perce greeted them
