Overview Legend Times Daily Life Transport and Trade Contact and Change All Image Gallery
Horse Blanket - NEPE 2304
Basket with Dentalium Shell - NEPE 1784 Horse Collar - NEPE 2253
The Nimiipuu were skilled participants in a vast trade network that extended west to the Pacific, east through the Great Plains, south to Mexico and north into the Canadian sub arctic.
Trade was a complex arrangement that involved the exchange of commodities, the sharing of resources, marriage, alliances, and the diffusion of new ideas from other cultures. It was not just an economic activity in the Euro-American sense. The distribution of food and animal hides, for example, benefited an entire village rather than one individual.

The trade network allowed for the flow of valued decorative items such as dentalia, cowry and clam shells from the west. Buffalo robes, dried meat, and pipestone came from the Plains in the east. Baskets, berries, salt, herbs, dried salmon, furs, hides, roots, stone for tool making, and later, horses were moved freely through this vast network.

For generations, trade routes followed the river systems of the Nimiipuu homeland, the Snake, Clearwater, and Columbia Rivers. Dugout canoes made it easier to transport goods and people quickly and safely. Given the alignment of trade networks along river systems, trading centers such as Celilo Falls on the Columbia River, near present day The Dalles, Oregon became the primary centers of Plateau trade.

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Saddle - NEPE 162 Parfleche Bag - NEPE 184 Parfleche Bag - NEPE 184 Dress - NEPE 392 Necklace - NEPE 402 Meat Bag - NEPE 1030 Canoe Paddle - NEPE 1090 Toy Canoe - NEPE 1114 Belt Patches - NEPE 1885, 1886
Saddle Pad - NEPE 1907 Cornhusk Bag - NEPE 1925 Decorative Panel - NEPE 1982 Necklace with Pendant - NEPE 2188 Choker and Bracelet NEPE 2194 and 8762 Bracelet - NEPE 2197 Necklace - NEPE 2212 Crupper - NEPE 2239 Horse Blanket - NEPE 2249
Necklace - NEPE 2359 Necklace - NEPE 2361 Moccasin - NEPE 2383 Quirt - NEPE 8750 Tools - NEPE 8851 Coat - NEPE 8894 Woman's Saddle - NEPE 8896 _Elk-Teeth.jpg