The Klamath as a whole were united by a common language and a common culture, but did not share a single, integrated political organization. Rather, the Klamath people belonged to a series of geographically localized divisions or tribelets (cf Bean 1978:673) While summer camps might shift from year to year, the stability of the winter village settlements provided “a measure of political separatism to the several localities” (Spier 1930:11), To some degree tribal identity was ambiguous, as Spier noted:

The Klamath are not a single political entity. There are four or possibly five subdivisions or tribelets, each occupying a distinct district, and practically autonomous, This is separatism of the familiar Californian order Nevertheless, the cohesion rising from a common dialect, common culture, and a uniform reaction against all nontribesmen, which on occasion leads to jointly taking the field against them, produces a tribal solidarity resembling that of the Plains people. (Spier 1930:21)

Feuds were common between tribal divisions, but did not occur between the settlements of a single division. Further, such feuds “are carried on much as warfare with foreigners; property is destroyed, women and children enslaved” (Spier 1930:22). Similarly, the Klamath lacked integrating mechanisms through which the entire tribe could unite: “when it comes to war with outsiders, each group can act for itself, others may join if they wish” (Spier 1930:22).

By all accounts, the Klamath Marsh – Williamson River tribelet was numerically and perhaps culturally dominant; the Klamath Falls group was the next largest (see Table 3 – 3). These concentrations of population reflected the richer resources available along Klamath Lake and Klamath Marsh. There is disagreement regarding the precise number of divisions. Spier subsumed the eastern settlements along the Sprague River under the Klamath Marsh division (Spier 1930:13-23). Stern, however, considered the Upland Klamath of the Sprague River Valley to form a distinct tribelet, though noting a somewhat composite membership, consisting of “Klamath with some Modoc and Paiute elements” (Stem 1966:19). He also suggested that the tiny Agency Lake contingent was in fact part of the Klamath Marsh division. A Klamath tribal representative agreed with Spier’s analysis in viewing Lake as an autonomous group, but added to those groups already mentioned a seventh, centered at Chiloquin (G. Bettels, pers, comm).

Klamath Tribelets

The Klamath had the closest relationship with their southern neighbors the Modoc. Spier noted that “intercourse and marriage went on freely with the Modoc. They [the Modoc] were visited on Tule and Lower Klamath lakes, and joined for the fishing on Lost river near Olene” (Spier 1930:41-42). However, Verne Ray suggested that intermarriage between Klamath and Modoc was comparatively infrequent (Ray 1963:88) The interaction of the two peoples Ray described as “reasonably close and free,” though it could not, he added, “be called friendly” (Ray 1963:xii). The Klamath received baskets in trade from the Modoc (Spier 1930.42).

The Klamath traded with the Shasta, receiving beads in return for skins and skin blankets. There was also intermarriage, at least with the Klamath Falls tribelet, though Spier suggested that this practice may have dated only to the post-contact period (Spier 1930 41). The Klamath also traded with the Molala, meeting them on the Rogue River headwaters west of Crater Lake, obtaining buckskins from the Molala in return for wokas and beads (Spier 1930:41) The two groups also intermarried (Stem 1956a:234, n 16).

In contrast to the benign relations with the Modoc and Molala, the Klamath raided the Atsugewi and Achomawi for slaves Such raids, Gatschet noted,

had no other purpose than to make slaves of the females and children of the . . . Pit River Indians. . . . Adult men were not enslaved, but killed outright if captured. (Gatschet 1890:1:25)

To a lesser extent the Takelma, Shasta, and Northern Paiute were also subjected to Klamath slave raiding. Slaves were a valuable commodity, and their trade linked the Klamath to the wider intertribal networks of the Plateau (see Anastasio 1972:159-63). Trading centered on Warm Springs and the Dalles. As Spier noted,

Slaves, Pit River bows, and beads are taken there to trade for horses, blankets, buffalo skins, parfleches, beads (probably dentalium shells), dried salmon, and lampreys Two slave children are valued at five horses, several buffalo skins, and some beads. (Spier 1930:41)

The Klamath acquired horses relatively late: they were not a significant item of trade until about 1840. The addition of the horse to the Plateau trade network provided a strong incentive to the Klamath to increase trade, in particular stimulating the Klamath interest in slave raiding.

Klamath slave trading formed part of what Leland Donald has termed the “Columbia River Network”:

This network stretches from the west coast of Vancouver Island in the north to the present-day Oregon-California border in the south, … the flow of slaves was largely toward the Columbia River from both the northern and southern parts of the network.

Slaves [were] traded from the Klamath and Shasta of southern Oregon and northern California to Upper Chinook groups, especially in the region of the Dalles. Trade in slaves also came from these two groups via groups along the Willamette River to the Cowlitz and Lower Chinook at the Columbia River mouth. (Donald 1984:127)

The Klamath’s trade to the north proceeded along several well established trails:

While one branch of the Klamath trail led northward, probably down the Deschutes valley, the western branch led by way of the north fork of the Santiam River across the Cascades to the settlements of the Northern Molala, on the river of the same name, there merging with a trail running north from Mehama through Mulino and terminating at Oregon City. (Stern 1956a:233-34)

Other trails included one running past Huckleberry Mountain to the Rogue River, and another proceeding via Rocky Point and Lake of the Woods to what is now the town of Ashland (G. Bettels, pers, comm.).” For one informants accounts of Klamath raids on Rogue River (Takelma?). Pit River, and Snake Northern Paiute) groups, see Gatschet 1890:116-33

1 The expression of traditional leadership through the role of “speaker’ was also noted in tribal comments on this chapter.

 

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