MYTHS OF THE MODOCS

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 [vi]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 [vii]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 [viii]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 [ix]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.

M. A. Curtin.

Pasadena, California,
March, 1912. [xi]