To the American Indian

The Old Klamath Bluffs Store, or fort, and in late years the Klamath Post Office, was built in 1855 or 1856, by a man named Snider. He conducted it as a trading post for Indians...

In a vision, the Indian through his mysterious eyes Sees yonder in the distant skies, A scene sublime of the past ages, That for aye will enchant bards and sages.

From the land of Cheek-cheek-alth, the mystic Eden of long ago, came our wandering tribe of people who long since inhabited North and South America; for we are all one people. A...

When the Indians first made their appearance on the Klamath river it was already inhabited by a white race of people known among us as the Wa-gas. These white people were found...

1st month: Caw-cha-witch. 2nd month: Nan-ah-wetch. 3rd month: Nachk-sa-witch. 4th month: Chaw-na-ah-wertch. 5th month: Mere-i-yaw. 6th month: Cauh-chow. 7th month: Chere-wer-ser...

There is a large and silent river that flows through the shadowy vale of death. On the banks of this awful and mysterious river dwells an old woman, called Sye-elth, and she kee...

Long time ago a mother and father resided in Cor-tep village, in the house of Metch-cher-rau, located about a half-mile up the river from the old Klamath Bluffs store. They had...

Many generations ago, there was a woman born and reared at a village called Os-sa-gon and which is located some six or seven miles south of the mouth of the Klamath river, on th...

The Klamath Indians in bringing down their legends from the creation of man until the present day, say that some were made to be good and honorable, some bad and some were real...

The fish dam being completed, all except the ones that are to stay there, Lock-nee, Normer, the Wah-clures and the Char-rahs now move down the river and go to their different ho...

The white man calls this dance the jump dance and this has caused the Indians to call it thus when they speak of it in the white mans tongue, but we call in our language Wah-nec...

A young woman of the Pech-ic-la’s, the upper division of the Klamath tribe, lived at Caw-ah-man, now known as Orleans Bar. She was the mother of Po-lich-o-quare-ick, our Christ,...

Kay-kay-my-alth-may, the Sampson of the Po-lick-la’s, (the lower Klamath Indians) and the Pech-ic-la’s (upper Klamath Indians), was born at the village of Auh-leek-kin on the ri...

It has been handed down from long ago that the people became so wicked, no good was found in anything, and human progress retrograded into destruction. Unwedded women became the...

The Talth are born under the highest marriages, and there has been at no time but very few of them, on account of the scarcity of cheek (money) to make the marriage. There had t...

When the fish dam is put in, they have very strict laws governing it. There are nine traps which can be used, one belongs to Lock and his relatives, one to Lock-nee and his rela...

Many of the houses of the Klamath River Indians date back to the prehistoric centuries of the long, long ago, and have been repaired and rebuilt many generations. Some of them a...

The Klamath Indians as a tribe, are like all other people that have a history dating back long before the great flood as their legends plainly tell. They have had wars and plent...

The Klamath Indians intermarry to some extent with the surrounding tribes. The upper and lower divisions of the Klamath tribes marry very freely, being the same tribe, with the...

The Indians play a game that is similar to the white man’s football game, with the exception that the Indians use sticks and the white man a ball, therefore this game has been t...

Pec-wan Colonel (his Indian name was Me-quin) had been for the last fifty or sixty years, the richest Indian among the lower Klamaths. When standing erect he was probably a litt...

The following is a true narrative of the way that the Humboldt Indians (Way-yets) have been treated and almost exterminated by the white man. Humboldt Bay being a harbor where v...

This happened during the early years of my grandmother’s life, and concerns principally a family at Reck-woy village, at the mouth of the river. On the south side of the river i...

This Indian was a Smith River, and the Klamath Indians in their tongue, called him, He-na Tom. In the year about eighteen hundred and sixty five, this He-na Tom, while living at...

The Klamath Indians say that a child born at the time the sun is at the farthest north and on the point which it is to turn back south, or as the white man counts time, would be...

This happened at my birth place and about one mile up the Klamath River from my mother’s birthplace, at Wah-tec village both places being on the north side of the river. At Pec-...

I will give the history of one Indian that was very wealthy, who belonged to the He-na’s. (Smith Rivers) This Indian while yet a very young man, had by inheritance, been left so...

Among the Klamath Indians there were many slaves, which we called Ki-elth, when the white man first came to our country. These slaves came about in many ways. Some were mixed bl...

This happened many years ago at the village of Mo-reck, which is situated on the north bank of the Klamath River, just below where we put in the fish dam. Up to within a few yea...

About sixty years ago there lived a girl in the Cor-tep village by the name of Mee-cher-us-o-may, and her parents urged her to marry a young man who lived farther up the river a...

The white race of people that the Klamath Indians found in this land had a weed they called tobacco, which we call Hah-koom, and taught them to use it by smoking it in the pipe...

The Klamath Indians tell of the Mermaid that they said could be seen at night come and sit on a rock out in the middle of the river, at a place called Ca-neck. This rock is in a...

Hundreds of years ago a young man and his wife resided at what is called Tu-rep village, which is located on the south side of the Klamath River about six miles from its mouth....