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 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.