CHAPTER XXVIL. 
THE MO/-DOK. 
Some persons derive this name from Mo’-dok-us, the name o a former 
chief of the tribe, under whose leadership they seceded from the Klamath 
Lake Indians and became an independent tribe. Others assert that it was 
originated by the Shastika, being at first pronounced Mo’-a-dok, and that 
it denoted “aliens”, applying in its earlier usage to all the enemies of the 
Shastika, and subsequently narrowed down to this one tribe. The first 
derivation is the more probable, for there are other instances in California 
where a seceding fragment of a tribe gradually came to be called by the 
name of the chief who led the movement. 
Their proper habitat was on the southern shore of Lower Klamath 
Lake, Hot Creek, Clear Lake, and Lost River. They ranged as far west 
in summer as Butte Creek to dig cammas, and at long intervals made an 
incursion into the unoccupied and disputed territory around Goose Lake. 
The great plains south, east, and west of this lake were thickly inhabited 
of old, as is demonstrated by the number of stone mortars, fashioned with 
a sharp point, to be inserted into the ground, which have been found on 
Davis Creek and elsewhere; but within the historical period they have been 
deserted. The Indians relate that, long ago, the Modok, Pai-u-ti, and Pit 
River tribes contended for their possession in many bloody battles, but 
none of them ever gained a permanent advantage, and at last they 
abandoned the ferocious and wasting struggle from sheer exhaustion. 
Always afterward, even when the all-equalizing Americans had arrived, 
none of them ever ventured into this Golgotha, except now and then a 
band of warriors on a brief hunting or fishing excursion, armed to the 
teeth, and slipping through with haste and with stealth. 
They present a finer physique than the lowland tribes of the Sacra- 
ono 
