TRADITIONAL FOLK LORE. xli 



they are rather a cloddisli, indolent, ordinarily good-natured race, but 

 treacherous at bottom, sullen when angered, notorious for keeping Punic 

 faith. But their bravery nobody can deny."* 



THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD. 



Before the middle of the nineteenth century the Maklaks people was 

 unknown to mankind except to the nearest neighbors in Oregon and Cali- 

 fornia. We are thei'efore justified in beginning its period of documentary 

 history at that time, and in relegating to the domain of prehistorics all that 

 is known of their previous condition. The information upon these points 

 is furnished by thi'ee factors: tradition, archseologic remains, and language. 



A. TRADITION BEARING UPON HISTORY. 



Traditional folk-lore, when of the mythic order, generally dates from 

 an earlier epoch of fixation than historic traditions. The remote origin of 

 genuine mythic folk-lore is sufficiently evidenced by the archaic terms em- 

 bodied with it, by the repetition of the same phraseology for ages, and by 

 the circumstance that all nations tend to preserve their religious ideas in an 

 unchanged form. I am laying peculiar stress upon the term genuine, for 

 Indians have often mixed recent ideas and fictions with archaic, original 

 folk-lore and with ancient mythic ideas, the whole forming now one inextri- 

 cable conglomerate which has the appearance of aboriginal poetic prose. 



The Klamath people possess no historic traditions going further back 

 in time than a century, for the simple reason that there was a strict law 

 prohibiting the mention of the person or acts of a deceased individual by 

 using his name. This law was rigidly observed among the Californians m» 

 less than among- the Oregonians, and on its transgression the death penalty 

 could be inflicted. This is certainly enough to suppress all historic knowl- 

 edge within a people. How can history be written without names'? 



Many times I attempted to obtain a list of the former head chiefs of 

 the two chieftaincies. I succeeded only in learning the names of two chiefs 

 recently deceased, and no biographic details were obtainable. 



This people belongs to the autochthonic nations of America, called so 

 because they have lost all remembrances of earlier habitats or of migrations. 



* Coutributious to Amer. Ethnology, III, p. 253. 



