Last Updated on October 16, 2011 by Dennis
Wallawalla Indians (‘little river’). A Shahaptian tribe formerly living on lower Walla Walla river and along the east bank of the Columbia from Snake river nearly to the Umatilla in Washington and Oregon. While a distinct dialect, their language is closely related to the Nez Percé. Their number was estimated by Lewis and Clark as 1,600 in 1805, but it is certain this figure included other bands now recognized as independent. By treaty of 1855 they were removed to the Umatilla Reservation in Oregon, where they are now (1910) said to number 461, but are much mixed with Nez Percé, Umatilla, and Cayuse. In the Wasco treaty of 1855, by which the Warm Springs Reservation was established, a number of Shahaptian tribes or bands are mentioned as divisions of the Walla Walla which had no real connection with that tribe.