The Klamath People of the Basin

Tribe: The Klamath

Meaning of Name: "Klamath" is a Chinook term, meaning unknown, but the Klamath people traded with the Chinook, so whatever it meant, at least it wasn't a term used by an enemy. One sources says that the Klamath called themselves "Maqlaq" or "Maklak" which means "People." Another source says that the Klamath called themselves "Eukshikni" or "Auksni" for short, which means "People of the Lake."

Location: The Klamath People have lived in Oregon, specifically, near Crater Lake and Klamath Lake in the Klamath Basin east of the Cascade Mountains, for 14,000 years. Their headquarters is located in Chiloquin, Oregon. Unfortunately, in 1954, the U.S. Congress, primarily in order to obtain prime Ponderosa Pine timber land, terminated their legal tribal status, which resulted in loss of education grants, health care, their entire reservation in Oregon, as well as a sense of tribal identity and self-respect. The Klamath People are currently attempting to get back what was taken from them in order to restore the environmentally-abused Klamath Basin. And a very small group of Klamath people live with the Karuk and the Shasta people on a reservation in Quartz Valley, north of Mount Shasta, in Siskiyou County in California, not far from the Oregon-California border.

Original Language: The Plateau-Pentian language family.

Tribal Affiliations: The Modoc, the Yahooskin, the Chinook. They also got along with the Molala, the Upper Umpqua and the Takelma, who were on the other side of Crater Lake.

Traditional Enemies: Originally, just the Achomawi, Atsugewi, Northern Paiute, Shasta and Takelma, but later and more recently, the U.S. Government, logging companies and whomever else has been grossly-polluting their old stomping grounds.

Traditional Style of Houses: Wickiups, dome or igloo-like dwellings make of branches, leaves, wood, and covered with mats. They were probably constructed and owned by the women. Klamath villages probably also had a town hall, smokehouses, sweat-lodges and menstrual huts.

Traditional Attire: Until the Klamath got in contact with the People of the Plains and white man, they wore mantles made of animal skins, and skirts, leggings and sandals made of tule with coyote fur mittens. After they met people with other fashion sensibilities, they wore buckskin shirts, skirts, breechcloths, skirts, and moccasins. The Klamath men and women also greased their hair with animal fat or fish oil, and wore their braids wrapped in otter fur. They also used otter, coyote, beaver, skunk, elk, deer or buffalo hide or fur for hats, which had earflaps against the cold. Both men and women pierced their noses and ears, and the shamans were the only ones in the tribe who were allowed to wear grizzly-bear claws.

Traditional Foods:  The Klamath men fished, hunted or trapped salmon, mullet, trout, elk, sheep, bear, baked and skinned grizzly-bear paws, deer and deer jerky, antelope, swans, ducks, geese, baked beaver, baked badger, baked porcupine, roasted and skinned beaver tail, otter, rabbits, martens, fishers, foxes, coyotes, groundhogs, mink, raccoon, squirrels, pelicans, brants, cranes, loons, gulls, mudhens, teals, and blackbirds.   The women roasted camas root, dried or raw "yampahs" or "ipos" (a kind of wild carrot), and foraged for Biscuit root, grass seeds which were made into mush, fresh young Tule shoots, goosefoot, amaranth, wild parsnips, mint, Indian potatoes, wild onions, cattails, hazelnuts, serviceberries, huckleberries, chokecherries, currants, elderberries, bush honeysuckle, strawberries, wild plums, wild rose hips and manzanita flowers and berries. Fish could be dried to be used later in soups and in fishcakes. The Klamath people also gathered the pods from giant yellow water lilies. After extensive preparation, the women extracted the seeds and either parched them as in parched corn, or prepared them as in acorn mush. Parched, the seeds tasted like parched corn or popcorn. Buckskin could be reconstituted and made into either jerky or stews. It was an engrained part of Klamath culture to share food with the other members of the tribe.

Position of Women: Klamath people, who seemed to be patriarchal, could marry within their own tribe and clans, but considering that their villages numbered only about fourteen people, all of whom were related, this could account for the frequent kidnapping women and children from other tribes. Klamath suitors who married within the tribe had to met the father's bride-price in order to marry his daughter. Once they married, the happy couple went to live with her mother, until their first child was born, and then they went to live with the groom's mother and father. Descent was reckoned through the father's line. Klamath women were responsible for food preparation and cooking, tanning, childcare, clothing production, housework, farming, gathering, and some hunting and fishing. The boys and men did the majority of the hunting.

Klamath Courtship: Like the Yurok and the Modoc, Klamath marriages were of two kinds: a half-marriage and a full-marriage. When a young man had decided on a mate, he and two of his male relatives would ask the father of the potential bride for a bride-price. The young Klamath man and his relatives would discuss this price, and if they could meet it, plans for a full-marriage would commence. However, if all that the young man and his relatives could scrounge up was half of the asking price, plans for a half-marriage would commence, and only if the father of the bride needed extra men in the family or if the father of the groom did not approve of the bride. Her social status and the social status of their children depended completely upon the bride price. The higher the bride-price as set by her father and paid by her groom-to-be, the more status she got. Her wedding dress, by the way, was of four colors: white for the east, blue for the south, orange for the west and black for the north. 

Interesting Tidbits:

The Klamath used fibers from a species of cannabis - hemp - in order to make fishing nets, fishing line and twine. They also used dried sap (latex) from the cannabis as chewing gum, and parts of the rest of the plant to make herb-based medicines, which, because it was extremely poisonous, had to be administered very carefully by the medicine-men (Shamans) who had more actual political and social power than the chiefs, who were just rich men with opinions that could be ignored. Partly because they lacked some kind of hierarchical organization and therefore political power, they were outmatched when it came to negotiations with the U.S. Government....

Part of the coming-of-age vision quests of young Klamath men seemed to have been the building of piles of rocks, like cairns....

Klamath people used spoons made out of the breast bones of swans, which resemble spoons, and made hairbrushes out of porcupine tails....

Pine pitch (sap) was used as Band-Aids. Sage brush mash, ingested, fixed diarrhea, and if slathered on aching body parts, was used a liniment....

The Klamath occupied the Klamath Basin since 12,000 BC, so they were there for the eruption of Mount Mazama in 4000 BC, which created Crater Lake.

The Klamath and the Modoc people were very close and often married each other. Their children eventually formed a different tribe, the "Kumbatatuash."

Traditional Religion: Traditional tribal religion.

Slavery and the Klamath: The Klamath engaged in raids on the Achomawi, the Atsugewi, the Northern Paiute, the Shasta and the Takelma for the purposes of acquiring women and children to be used as slaves. However, their slaves didn't live any better or any worse than your average poor Klamath, and was not purposefully degraded, so it may be that the Klamath engaged in kidnapping also for the purpose of adding to their population as well as enslaving captives for cheap labor. Two slave children, who could do some of the minor labor and be indoctrinated into the Klamath ways, were worth five horses, several buffalo hides, and some beads. A slave woman was worth a great deal more. Male captives taken in raids were just killed.

Current Population: There are currently approximately 4500 registered members of the Klamath tribe.

Current Sources of Tribal Revenue: The Klamoya Casino. ("Klamoya" refers to Klamath, Modoc and the Yahooskin tribes.  The Yahooskin were also called the "Snake Indians" and the "Snake Paiute.") There are still ongoing water rights, timber, land and restoration-of-tribal-status disputes.

Famous Klamath: None that I can ascertain.