Sitting Nez Perce woman; This Nez Perce Girl represents the tragic side of war as well as the tradition to have different successive names within the Nez Perce tribe. She lost her family during the ‘ickum’kiléelixpe (Battle of the Big Hole) in 1877. Severely wounded by a rifle shot through the shoulder a white soldier, or citizen volunteer, brutally hit her in the face with the butt of his rifle when she held on to his boot. Her wounds did not allow her to travel with qemúynuu (Chief Josephs band) and she was left behind. A chipped tooth, the result of the hit with the rifle butt, caused a change of her name. White Feather was called Broken Tooth, or In-who-lise by her tribe when she married a white settler. She was killed as Mrs. Andrew Garcia by ‘isq’óyxnix (Blackfeet) peoples while digging roots in 1878.
