The Book of Heaven

The Nez Perces, a Native American people living in what is now Idaho, longed to read the Bible. Someone—perhaps a fur trapper, perhaps a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition—had told them of a book that would teach people how to better serve their Creator. 

Six Nez Perces chiefs were sent east to find “the Book of Heaven.” Two died along the way and in 1831 four arrived in Saint Louis and were taken to meet the explorer General William Clark, who showed them the wonders of Saint Louis. While in the city, two of the four remaining chiefs died. Before going home to tell their people that they had not found the Book of Heaven, the last two chiefs were given a banquet in their honor by General Clark. One made this speech.

My people sent me to get the white man's Book of Heaven.  You took me where you allow your women to dance, as we do not ours, and the Book was not there.  You took me where they worship the Great Spirit with candles, and the Book was not there.  You showed me images of the good spirits and pictures of the good land beyond, but the Book was not among them to tell us the way.
      
I am going back the long, sad trail to my people of the dark land.  You make my feet heavy with gifts, and my moccasins will grow old in carrying them, yet the Book is not among them.  When I tell my poor blind people, after one more snow in the big council, that I did not bring the Book, no word will be spoken by our old men or our young braves.  One by one they will rise up and go out in silence.

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My people will die in darkness, and they will go on the long path to the other hunting grounds.  No white man will go with them, and no white man's Book, to make the way plain.  I have no more words.

The Nez Perce chiefs walked nearly two thousand miles home and had to wait almost fifteen years. The first printing press in Idaho printed portions of “the Book of Heaven” in Nez Perce in the 1840s.