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Modoc NF History, 1945 -- Chapter II, Early History
*Please do not assume this content reflects current Forest Service attitudes and/or practices. Neither should it be regarded to represent current scientific knowledge, policies, or practices.
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Indian Use and Occupancy
It is probably no exaggeration to say that the Modoc country supported an aboriginal population equal to or perhaps exceeding the total permanent population of the present time. Records left by the earliest white explorers and extensive remains of Indian occupancy substantiate this statement. In the summer of 1924 a party of forest officers traversed the south and southeast shoreline of Tule Lake, from parts of which the waters had just recently receded due to reclamation development. In places the bed of the lake was literally covered with human bones for several hundred yards out from the old shoreline - remains of former Indian occupants of the region. In a very short time these bones disintegrated from exposure to the air but gave mute evidence of the swarming population which must have existed in that section. There is hardly a township of land anywhere within or adjacent to the Modoc Forest which has not given evidence of Indian use and occupancy.
The country to the east and Surprise Valley generally was occupied by the fierce Paiutes pushing down from the Idaho mountain country. This numerous tribe of the Shoshone Indian nation was distinctly divorced from the Digger Indians, also ranging through Western Nevada and pushing over into Eastern Modoc. The Modocs were part California and part Oregon Indians - to use present day geographical distinctions. They occupied northwestern Modoc County around Clear and Tule Lakes, the Lost River section and extended along Sprague River in Oregon. Originally they were an offshoot of the Klamaths whose hunting grounds were located further to the west. They ranged south and southeast well into what is now Modoc County. Although sprung from the Klamath tribe, a fairly peaceful people as Indians went, the Klamaths and Modocs were bitter enemies, such enmity probably having something to do with the Modocs' separation from their parent tribe, many years before the coming of the first white men.
The Pit tribe of Indians - sometimes called Pit Rivers - was one of the most populous of California. Joaquin Miller, who lived among them for several years in the 1850's mentions their large population. They ranged from the headwaters of both forks of Pit River all along the reaches of the stream into Fall River Valley. Sandwiched between the fierce Paiutes on the east and the even fiercer and more warlike Modocs on the northwest, the Pits lived in deadly terror of their neighboring foes, the Modocs in particular. The latter tribe had a regular habit of making raids on the rather peaceful Pits, killing their warriors and carrying off their women into captivity.
The numerous artifacts found in that section point to a heavy Indian population in Goose Lake Valley. There were none there when the white men came and the puzzle of their absence was solved partly by Indian legend and partly by later visual observation. The Indians, evidently a branch of the Pits, had migrated from Goose Lake Valley during one of its periodic dry ups, probably early in the eighteenth century. During the periods when this lake was full of water it was a great fish and game country. The same can be said of the entire Modoc section, the general Indian term for the entire country so well stocked with fish and wild life meaning, as nearly as possible in its English translation, "The Smiles of God."
While more an Idaho and Nevada tribe rather than Californian, the Paiutes considered the present Surprise Valley area as their hunting grounds and bitterly contested for decades the white man's invasion of their territory, just as they had formerly waged war against encroaching tribes in pre-American days. In habits and culture they were the typical inland Indians of the far West.
Sandwiched between the Paiutes and Modocs, life was not pleasant for the Pits even though they occupied an immense stretch of country, well watered and abounding in fish and game. In their aboriginal state the Pits appear to have been a peaceful people, taking the raids of the Paiutes and Modocs as one of the regular risks of their existence. While they were sometimes guilty of massacres of small emigrant parties and on occasion individual Pit Indians joined renegade bands in battling American soldiers, they offered no organized resistance to white aggression but rather apparently welcomed the protection afforded them against their more warlike neighbors. They were proficient basket makers and although skillful hunters sometimes perished by the hundreds during hard winters because of their improvidence.
The Modoc tribe of Indians are somewhat of an enigma. Certainly they etched their name deeply into American history and in their dying struggles as a tribe precipitated the only Indian war of consequence ever fought on California soil. Numerically they were not a large tribe. When
they usurped the territory in which the first white men found them and became an independent people, they probably absorbed remnants of other tribes. The Klamaths, from whom they separated themselves, always remained their constant enemies.
There are scant records of a tribe called the Rock Indians who inhabited the lava caves south of Tule Lake, and many evidences exist of a more populous tribe formerly occupying the Modoc' s hunting grounds. During the Modoc Indian War Army officers interrogated a very old Indian relative to the elaborate carvings on nearby cliffs of which the Modocs of that time seemed to stand in superstitious awe. To emphasize their antiquity, the old Indian told his questioners that they had been inscribed by "my papa's, papa’s, papa’s papa,” repeating the word “papa” until he was almost out of breath.
According to A. E. Meacham, for years Indian Commissioner of Southern Oregon and who had lived among the Modocs for years, the tribe had a somewhat fixed belief in a Messiah similar to that of the Christian faith. He also asserted that their legends included incidents paralleling those of the Christian Bible, such as the Biblical story of the Great Deluge and that of Lot's wife. Once in every so often a red-haired, light-skinned child was born into the tribe and Boston Charley, a pureblooded Modoc, hanged for his part in the Modoc War, was distinctively light complexioned.
The Modocs in their aboriginal state built hewn plank houses; they were found wearing warm clothing of buckskin and fur; manufactured quite elaborate rabbit skin blankets, and used dugout canoes on the streams and lakes within their hunting grounds. They were quite provident, drying large quantities of epau roots and fish for winter food. As in the case of the neighboring tribes, the numerous deer of the region furnished them with a large part of their food and clothing.
Cruel and bloodthirsty, brave to the point of fanaticism, the Modocs gave battle to the first white men to invade their domain and fought the white invaders until the members of their tribe were exterminated, or departed to a residence in the Indian Territory. As a matter of fact, not a single Modoc Indian has lived in the present Modoc County since the early seventies, although a considerable number are domiciled in Oregon.