Walla Walla (), Walawalałáma ("People of Walula region along Walla Walla River"), sometimes Walúulapam, are a Sahaptin indigenous people of the Northwest Plateau. The duplication in their name expresses the diminutive form. The name Walla Walla is translated several ways but most often as "many waters". Many Walla Wallas live on the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Walla Wallas share land and a governmental structure with the Cayuse and the Umatilla tribes as part of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla. The reservation is located in the area of Pendleton, Oregon, United States, near the Blue Mountains. Some Walla Wallas are also enrolled in the federally recognized Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. History The people are a Sahaptin-speaking tribe that traditionally inhabited the interior Columbia River region of present-day northwestern United States. For centuries before the coming of European settlers, the Walla Wallas, consisting of three principal bands, occupied the territory along the Walla Walla River and along the confluence of the Snake and Columbia River rivers in a territory that is now part of northern Oregon and southeastern Washington state. From this zone, the Walla Walla followed a similar pattern of seasonal subsistence practices to that of the Yakama, Palouse, Umatilla, and Wanapum tribes. Contact with Europeans The first encounter with Euro-Americans for the Walla Wallas was the Lewis and Clark Expedition. At the first meeting in 1805, the Americans promised to Walla Walla chief Yellepit they would visit with the people after seeing the Pacific Ocean. The party returned in April 1806 and stayed at Yellepit's village, located on the Columbia River near the mouth of the Walla Walla River. During a transaction Yellepit presented Clark with a white horse in return for a copper kettle. The Americans had none in supply, however, so Clark gave Yellepit his own sword, along with a quantity of gunpowder and musket balls. Lewis and Clark also gave Yellepit a peace medal engraved with a portrait of President Thomas Jefferson, to be worn around the neck, and a small United States flag. Yellepit, Washington was later named after him. David Thompson of the Canadian-British North West Company (NWC) was the next European in the Walla Walla lands, arriving in 1811. About five miles upriver from Yellepit's village on the confluence of the Snake River and the Columbia, Thompson ordered a pole be placed. An attached letter to