author
Lucullus Virgil McWhorter
1860–1944
A rancher, self-taught historian, and advocate, he spent decades preserving Native oral histories and records of the Yakama and Nez Perce peoples. His work helped bring firsthand Indigenous perspectives into the written history of the American West.
1 Audiobook
The Discards
by Lucullus Virgil McWhorter
About the author
Born in Virginia in 1860, he later settled in Washington state, where he became a rancher in the Yakima area. Over time he devoted much of his life to documenting Native history and culture, especially among the Yakama and Nez Perce, and he built close working relationships with Native elders and veterans whose memories might otherwise have been lost.
He is best known for collecting oral testimony, correspondence, photographs, and battlefield research connected to the Nez Perce War of 1877. Working with Yellow Wolf, he published Yellow Wolf: His Own Story in 1940, and his larger manuscript was published after his death as Hear Me, My Chiefs!.
McWhorter died in Prosser, Washington, in 1944. His papers, photographs, and related collections remain important archival resources for the history of the Columbia Plateau and for readers interested in how Indigenous voices were preserved in print during the early twentieth century.