Social Organization

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

Group	Name	Settlements
Klamath Marsh/Williamson River	'ewksikni	34
Agency Lake	goWadsdikni	2
Lower Williamson	dokwakni	7
Pelican Bay	gombatkni	8
Klamath Falls	'iWLaLLonkni	14
Upland (Sprague River)	blaykni	5
Chiloquin	mbosagsawa's

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,