Social Organization

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Klamath villages were composed of one or more bilaterally extended families, headed by men of wealth and influence (laqi). Household membership was flexible, being formed on many principles. Such households could include the nuclear families of the senior male's son or daughter, his siblings and their kin, kin of his wife or wives, aged parents, and friends (Stem n.d.:28). The range of size of such villages is difficult to reconstruct. Assuming Stem's estimate of 70 Klamath villages and an aboriginal population of 1000, each village would have held on the average fourteen persons. Spier (1930:53-54) gives an example of a household centering on a male shaman, numbering twenty in all.

Marriage was accompanied by a payment of bridewealth, consistent with the rather attenuated form of the wealth complex to be found in the Plateau. Residence was usually uxorilocal (with the wife's parents) immediately after marriage, shifting to a virilocal (with the husband's parents) after children were born and substantial wealth accumulated (Stern nd:29: cf Spier 1930:53). There was no rule of village exogamy, though Spier noted a tendency for endogamy within the tribelet. Polygyny was permitted. Both the sororate (marriage with several sisters) and the levirate (marriage of a widow by the younger brother of a deceased husband) were considered appropriate though not obligatory (Spier 1930: 43-51; Spencer et al 1977:180-182)

Klamath society was ranked, insofar as "chiefs" were recognized and slaves were held. Nonetheless, the Klamath did not manifest the social differentiation known to Northwest Coast societies: chiefly rank was not hereditary, nor was there any class-like distinction of nobles and commoners. In traditional Klamath society the influence of such "chiefs" (or better, head-men) within each community or tribelet was strictly limited: "the Klamath made little of chiefs .... rich men, leaders in war, but they were speakers only, offering an example To the group by their success in wealth" (Spencer et al. 1977:180). (1) In contrast, shamans had great importance. As Spier noted, "The shaman himself is. or was, the outstanding figure of Klamath society. He had no rival in the chiefs, the rich man, until the coming of the whites brought a redistribution of emphasis in Klamath life" (Spier 1930:94)

Slaves were captured in war, and seeking slaves in fact provided a major motive for raids. Slaves were primarily Achomawi or Atsugewi, though Northern Paiute, Shasta, and some Takelma were also taken. However, the Indian (or at least Klamath) slaveholding cannot be equated in any simple terms with Euro-American practices. The term lo'ks meant equally "slave," "war captive," or simply "foreigner," and according to Spencer, did not imply a degraded status (Spencer 1952a:5). Spier commented that "It is suite likely that a slave's life is much like that of any poor Klamath" (Spier 1930:40).

Until the nineteenth century, at least, trade was probably of minor importance to the Klamath and following from that fact, the potential for differences in wealth comparatively limited. Spier noted the following wealth items mentioned by Klamath informants (in order of frequency):

slaves, horses, beads--and not always dentalium--food, archers' equipment, furs and hides, especially elk hides, Plains type garments, armor, large houses, buffalo skins, canoes. (Spier 1930:43)

Many of the items were trade goods, and scarce or unavailable until the expansion of the southern Plateau trade networks in the early nineteenth century (see Spier 1930:41-43; Stern 1956a:230-34)

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

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.