Klamath

Elderly Klamath woman by Edward S. Curtis, 1924

A Klamath man

The Klamath are a Native American tribe of the Plateau culture area in Southern Oregon. The Klamath Tribes, formerly the Klamath Indian Tribe of Oregon, are a federally recognized confederation of three Native American tribes who traditionally inhabited Southern Oregon and Northern California in the United States: the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin. The tribal government is based in Chiloquin, Oregon.

History

Pre-contact

Prior to the arrival of European explorers, the Klamath people lived in the area around the Upper Klamath Lake and the Klamath, Williamson, and Sprague rivers. They subsisted primarily on fish and gathered roots and seeds.

The staple article of food was the seed of the yellow water-lily (Wókas) gathered in the latter part of August and through the whole of September.

The Klamath were known to raid neighboring tribes (such as the Achomawi on the Pit River), and occasionally to take prisoners as slaves. They traded with the Chinookan people at The Dalles.

Contact

In 1826, Peter Skene Ogden, an explorer for the Hudson's Bay Company, first encountered the Klamath people, and he was trading with them by 1829.

Klamath people in dugout canoes, 19th century

Treaty with the United States

The United States, the Klamaths, Modocs, and Yahooskin band of Snake tribes signed a treaty in 1864, establishing the Klamath Reservation, to the northeast of Upper Klamath Lake. The treaty had the tribes cede the land in the Klamath Basin, bounded on the north by the 44th parallel, to the United States. In return, the United States was to make a lump sum payment of $35,000, and annual payments totaling $80,000 over 15 years, as well as providing infrastructure and staff for the reservation. The treaty provided that, if the Indians drank or stored intoxicating liquor on the reservation, the payments could be withheld and that the United States could locate additional tribes on the reservation in the future. The tribes requested Lindsay Applegate as the agent to represent the United States to them. The Indian agent estimated the total population of the three tribes at about 2,000 when the treaty was signed.

Post-treaty history

Since termination of recognition of their tribal sovereignty in 1954 (with federal payments not disbursed until 1961), the Klamath and neighboring tribes have reorganized their government and revived tribal identity. The Klamath, along with the Modoc and Yahooskin, have formed the federally recognized Klamath Tribes confederation. Their tribal government is based in Chiloquin, Oregon.

Some Klamath live on the Quartz Valley Indian Community in Siskiyou County, California.

A fictionalized account of historical events surrounding the 1961 tribal termination can be found in the 2005 Rick Steber novel Buy the Chief a Cadillac, winner of the 2005 Spur Award.

After signing the 1864 treaty, members of the Klamath Tribes moved to the Klamath Reservation. At the time there was tension between the Klamath and Modoc, and a band of Modoc left the reservation to return to Northern California. They were defeated by the US Army after the Modoc War (1872-1873), and were forced to return to Oregon.

In 1954, the US Congress terminated federal recognition of tribal sovereignty of the Klamath, part of an effort to assimilate American Indians judged ready to be part of mainstream culture. With the growth of Indian activism in the late twentieth century, the tribes reorganized their government and, in 1986, regained federal recognition. By this time, some members had sold their individual plots of land allocated in the 1950s, so the communal reservation land was broken up. A portion of that land was acquired by the government for the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges Complex.

A new reservation is in the planning stages. With support from The Trust for Public Land, the Klamath Tribes recently entered into an agreement to repurchase the 90,000-acre (360 km²) Mazama forest.

Culture

Klamath tule hut, Edward S. Curtis, Edward S. c1923

Language

The language of the Klamath tribe is a member of the Plateau Penutian family. Klamath was previously considered a language isolate.

The Klamath-Modoc (or Lutuamian) language has two dialects:

1. Klamath
2. Modoc

Both peoples called themselves maklaks, meaning people. When they wanted to distinguish between themselves, the Modoc were called Moatokni maklaks, from muat meaning "South." The Klamath people were called Eukshikni, meaning "lake people."

Classifications

The Klamath people are grouped with the Plateau Indians—the peoples who originally lived on the Columbia River Plateau. They were most closely linked with the Modoc people.

Klamath tribes

The Klamath Tribes, formerly the Klamath Indian Tribe of Oregon, are a federally recognized confederation of three Native American tribes who traditionally inhabited Southern Oregon and Northern California in the United States: the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin. The tribal government is based in Chiloquin, Oregon.

After signing the 1864 treaty, members of the Klamath Tribes lived on the Klamath Reservation until the United States Congress terminated its recognition of tribal sovereignty in 1954. In 1986, federal recognition was restored, but some of the tribe's original land had been sold. A portion of that land is now part of the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges Complex. A new reservation is in the planning stages.

Demographics

There are currently around 3,500 enrolled members in the Klamath Tribes, with the population centered in Klamath County, Oregon. Most tribal land was liquidated when Congress ended federal recognition in 1954 under its Indian termination policy. Some lands were restored when recognition was restored. The tribal administration currently offers services throughout the county.

Economy

The Klamath Tribes opened the Kla-Mo-Ya Casino in Chiloquin, Oregon in 1997. It provides revenue which the tribe uses to support governance and investment for tribal benefit.

Klamath Indian Reservation

The present day Klamath Indian Reservation consists of twelve small non-contiguous parcels of land in Klamath County.^{[citation needed]} These fragments are generally located in and near the communities of Chiloquin and Klamath Falls. Their total land area is 1.248 km² (308.43 acres). As is the case with many Native American tribes^{[citation needed]}, few of the Klamath tribal members actually live on reservation land; the 2000 census reported only nine persons residing on its territory, five of whom were white people.

Water rights dispute

Upper Basin Klamath Tribes demonstration in Portland in 2006.

In 2001, an ongoing water rights dispute between the Klamath Tribes, Klamath Basin farmers, and fishermen along the Klamath River became national news. As of 2006, the water rights issue is still controversial. To improve fishing for salmon and the quality of the salmon runs, the Klamath Tribes are pressing for dams to be demolished on the upper rivers, as they have reduced the salmon runs.

By signing the Treaty of 1864, 16 Stat. 707, the Klamath tribe ceded Template:Convert/e6acre of land but retained Template:Convert/e6acre and the rights to fish, hunt, trap, and gather from the lands and waters as they have traditionally done for centuries.

As part of an effort at assimilation, in 1954 the US Congress had terminated the federal relationship with the Klamath Tribes, but stated in the Klamath Termination Act, "Nothing in this [Act] shall abrogate any water rights of the tribe and its members... Nothing in this [Act] shall abrogate any fishing rights or privileges of the tribe or the members thereof enjoyed under Federal treaty."

The states of California and Oregon have both tried to challenge Klamath water rights, but have been rebuffed. Local farmers tried unsuccessfully to claim water rights in the 2001 cases, Klamath Water Users Association v. Patterson and Kandra v. United States but these were decided in favor of the Department of Interior's right to give precedence to tribal fishing in its management of water flows and rights in the Klamath Basin. In 2002 U.S. District Judge Owen M. Panner ruled that the Klamath Tribes' right to water preceded that of non-tribal irrigators in the court case United States vs. Adair, originally filed in 1975.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Hale, Horation. 1892. "The Klamath Nation: the country and the people." Science, Vol. 19, No. 465.
• Hodge, Frederick Webb. 1907. Handbook of American Indians north of Mexico. Washington: Government Printing Office.
• Mithun, Marianne. 1999. The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
• Pritzker, Barry M. 2000. A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture, and Peoples. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195138771
• Sides, Hampton. 2006. Blood and Thunder. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-50777-1.
• Waldman, Carl. 2006. Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. New York, NY: Checkmark Books. ISBN 978-0816062744.

• 1865. Annual report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior for the year 1865: Reports of Agents in Oregon Washington: United States Office of Indian Affairs.

External links

All links retrieved

• Guide to the Klamath Tribal Council papers (1933-1958) at the University of Oregon
• The Klamath Tribes

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