The majority of Americans know who the Modocs are and where they live,
for on a time their bravery and so-called treachery gave them
widespread notoriety; but for those who do not know, the following
sketch may be helpful.
The Old Modoc Country was the valley of Lost River in Oregon, and the
country adjacent to the shores of Little Klamath Lake, and Tula Lake
which in main lies within the boundary of California.
The country around Tula Lake is of volcanic formation and at the
southern end of the lake are the lava beds about which so much was
written during the Modoc War of 1872–1873. Along the rivers and lakes
the scenery is pleasing and in places, grand. Lake Klamath, nearly
surrounded by mountains, is as beautiful as are the famed lakes of
Italy and Switzerland. Mount Pitt, which, from a distance, seems to
rise from the very shore of the lake, is snow-crowned except for a few
weeks in midsummer. Mount Shasta is seen from its summit to the snow
line.
The Modoc people believe that Kumush created the world—the world in
Modoc myth means the country inhabited by the Modocs and the tribes
they come in contact with.—He made the mountains, lakes and rivers and
gave them names. We are not told about the creation of the “first
people,” those wonderful beings who inhabited the world before man was
created and were “so numerous that if a count could be made of all the
stars in the sky, all the feathers on birds, all the hairs and fur on
animals, and all the hairs on our heads, they would not be as
numerous.” No man knows how long those “first people” lived, but after
countless ages a time came when they were transformed into beasts,
reptiles, birds, fishes, insects, plants, stones, snow, earthquake,
sun, moon and stars, in fact into every living thing, object,
phenomenon and power outside of man. This transformation took place
about the time that Kumush created the Modoc and other Indian tribes
and gave them names, told them where their homes would be—designated
the Klamath country for the Modocs—and established the present order of
things.
For the Modocs the valley of Lost River and the lands around Klamath
and Tula Lake are sacred. We, who endeavor to trace our origin back to
a monkey or, still farther, to a bit of protoplasm, or who believe in
and search far and wide for the Garden of Eden, cannot revere a country
which is ours simply by chance of birth as the Indian reveres the
country where his tribe originated. We cannot estimate the love an
Indian has for his country. His holy places are not in far-off
Palestine; they are before his eyes in his own birthplace, where every
river, hill and mountain has a story connected with it, an account of
its origin. No people could be more religious than were the Indians
before the advent of the white man; they had no observance, rite, or
custom which they did not believe to be God-given.
Into this country that Kumush gave to the Modocs came white settlers.
To protect the lives and property of the intruders it was necessary for
the United States government to establish a fort and garrison it.
Thenceforth the Indians could not subsist by fishing and hunting. At
last, to obtain food, supplies and annuity, they were forced to sign
the Treaty of 1864. That treaty outlines the limits of a reservation
where the Modocs can live, take fish and gather edible seeds, roots and
berries. As a payment for lands they gave up they received eight
thousand dollars per annum, for a period of five years, five thousand
per annum for the next five years, and three thousand per annum for the
five years next succeeding. The treaty provided thirty-five hundred
dollars for removing the Indians to the reservation, giving them
rations for the first year, and furnishing them with clothing, tools
and teams. It reserved the right to the government to provide each
Indian family with land in severalty to the extent of from forty to a
hundred and twenty acres.
The Modocs pledged themselves to commit no depredation upon the persons
or property of the settlers.
The amounts stipulated were insignificant for a body of Indians
considered as numbering two thousand, and they were to be paid only
after the Senate and the President had ratified the treaty, which did
not take place till five years after the Indians signed it. The Modocs
were not forced to leave their land, now ceded to the United States,
till 1869. At the end of that year, two hundred and fifty-eight
dissatisfied and unhappy Indians were on the reservation. In April,
1870, rations gave out, and a considerable number of the reservation
Indians went back to Lost River Valley; others went to Yaneks on
Sprague River. They were permitted to stay in their old homes till the
autumn of 1872, then steps were taken to drive them to the reservation.
They resisted, and the President ordered the commander at Fort Klamath
to have them removed from Lost River Valley: “peaceably if you can,
forcibly if you must.”
November 29, 1872, troops surrounded the Modoc camp on Lost River. When
the men escaped to the hills, soldiers and settlers fired upon the
unprotected women and children of a camp farther north. The Indians
retaliated by killing fourteen settlers, then they retreated to the
lava beds south of Tula Lake and selected as headquarters a cave called
Ben Wright. There they remained undisturbed till January 17. Then, in
spite of a fog so dense that the lake and lava beds were shrouded as
with a pall, Colonel Wheaton ordered an attack. Four hundred men moved
against seventy, but fog forced them to withdraw.
After this defeat, General Gillen was placed in command, and his troops
were reenforced by four companies from San Francisco. The new commander
decided to negotiate for peace. A few of the Indians were willing to
listen to overtures; others, having no confidence in the promises of
the United States government, were opposed to wasting time in parley,
but at last April 11, 1873, was appointed for a peace meeting. But
before the day came, Kintpuash’s ponies were captured by the troops, in
spite of General Canby’s promise of a total suspension of hostilities.
That act so roused and enraged the chief that he determined to kill the
peace commissioners, whom he now thought to be planning treachery in
place of peace. General Canby and Doctor Thomas were murdered; the
others fled. Wright’s Cave was bombarded on April 16, 17 and 18. On
April 19 the Modocs left the cave. At Sand Hill, April 26, an encounter
took place which was more disastrous for the troops than for the
Indians, but at a battle fought May 10 the Indians were forced to
retreat.
May 25 a number of the warriors, dissatisfied with their leader and
considering their cause hopeless, surrendered to General Davis, who was
then in command of the government troops. June 1 Kintpuash, and the men
who had remained faithful to him, betrayed by an Indian, gave
themselves up to a scouting party of cavalry.
The men who killed General Canby were condemned and hung; those
accessory to the deed were incarcerated at Fort Alcatraz; the other
warriors, with their wives and children, numbering about one hundred
and forty-five, were removed to the Quapaw Agency in the Indian
Territory (now Oklahoma) and are still there.
Exile for the Modocs was a crushing sorrow. When I saw them, in 1884,
they were still mourning over their changed condition, and for the
Klamath country,—the country Kumush created and gave to them.
A large number of the myths in this volume were related to Mr. Curtin,
in 1884, by one of the exiles, Ko-a-lak′-ak-a, a woman who was then old
and feeble, but who as late as Aug. 1, 1912, was still living, the
oldest woman of the Klamath-Modoc tribe of Indians. At the time she
told the myths she was remarkable for her intelligence and her
wonderful memory. In childhood her grandfather had instructed her in
the religion of her people, in other words, taught her all the myths of
the Modocs, and to old age her tenacious memory retained many of them.
For years Ko-a-lak′-ak-a was the most unhappy of all the exiles.
Later in 1884, Mr. Curtin visited the Modocs who were left in the
Klamath country. There is much that could be written regarding the
treatment those poor, unhappy creatures were receiving from the
professedly Christian men and women who were in power on the
reservation. Such abuses existed, that Mr. Curtin mentioned them to the
proper officials in Washington, and changes were made.
Sconchen, the oldest Indian there, related to Mr. Curtin a number of
the myths which are in this volume, and also told him a good deal about
the customs of the Modocs. Though old and infirm, his mind was still
clear and active. For years, in the prime of his life, he was chief of
his people, and in his old age they revered him.