The seeds of a relationship – UI graduate student conducts research with Nez Perce tribe

Wendy Wegner has a big passion for a little plant.

Wegner, an anthropology graduate student at the University of Idaho, has been working with the tule plant and its relationship to Nez Perce culture.

She’s in the beginning of her research. Wegner said she has been working on this project for the past year and a half. Right now, she’s waiting for approval to do interviews with members of the tribe.

“I wanted to work with a tribe and I wanted to work with a plant,” Wegner said.

When she started the project, she said everyone from professors to the tribe were excited about it.

Tule itself is a lightweight, reed-like plant that grows in wet, marshy areas. It can grow up to six feet tall. She said the Nez Perce often use it for their lawn, houses, food, babies and burial ceremonies. The plant has the unique property of expanding when wet, giving it many uses in Nez Perce architecture.

“It’s a utilitarian item with a huge social life,” she said.

So far, Wegner said the plant has been a bit of a challenge.

“I’ve been gathering everything I can about the plant — its biology, its ecology, the ecosystems where it grows,” she said.

The plant is hard to find. She said there’s no longer the nice, large, flat wetland areas in nature that tule likes to grow in. There’s also not a lot of research out there about the nature of the plant.

Wegner’s passion for anthropology goes beyond the Nez Perce and tule. Last summer, she was able to travel to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. There, she said she got to look at museum objects, something ethnographers don’t get to do often.

“We get to look at material and see how we can use it in our research,” Wegner said.

This inspired her to also start researching how people interact with museum collections.

“In the past, things weren’t done very well, the way collections were obtained was very questionable,” she said.

One of the ongoing projects at the Smithsonian connects the original host communities of the artifacts with the items. She said that some communities would like them back and that some let them stay, but either way it needed to be done.

“It’s a really daunting task — they have a lot of stuff,” she said.

She said another thing she noted in Washington D.C. was the difference between western and indigenous methods. One part of research involves indigenous methods. Wegner said that western methods are linear and compartmentalized.

“The Smithsonian is a perfect example of this,” Wegner said. “One was the museum support center, it’s very square and blocked. Next to that is the cultural resources center, which houses the Native American collection. The building is round, the landscape slows you down before you go inside. There’s an opening to the sky and to the ground because different tribes have different origin stories.”

Wegner, now 49,  recently became involved in anthropology. When she first went to college, she wasn’t so interested in the subject matter.

“It’s funny, because back then when I learned about anthropology I thought ‘Boy, I don’t want to be an anthropologist,’” she said.

Seven years ago, she unintentionally became involved in Native American culture though her personal relationships.

“I had such a good experience with that, when it came to my master’s degree, I wanted to give back because we have such a big debt to repay,” Wegner said.

Initially Wegner wanted to give something back to the community, but she said she feels gifted with all the friendships she’s made.

“This goofy little plant has changed my life for the last year and a half,” Wegner said.

Carly Scott

can be reached at

[email protected]

or on Twitter @Idaho_Scotty

Leave a Reply

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.