  The experimental observations of stripes in superconducting cuprates and
insulating nickelates clearly show the modulation in charge and spin density.
However, these have proven to be rather insensitive to the harmonic structure
and (site or bond) ordering. Using 139La NMR in La2NiO4.17, we show that in the
1/3 hole doped nickelate below the freezing temperature the stripes are
strongly solitonic and site ordered with Ni3+ ions carrying S=1/2 in the domain
walls and Ni2+ ions with S=1 in the domains.
