Cvi ETHNOGKAPHIG SKETuH. 



times over them or by blowing at tliem, an act wliich is supposed to impai't 

 life. 



CONCLUDING WORDS. 



The limited space allowed for this ethnographic sketch forces me to 

 suppress the larger part of the matter for the present and to relegate it to a 

 future volume. A few points characteristic of the two tribes may, however, 

 be added on the last page of this Report. 



The Klamath Indians are absolutely ignorant of the gentile or clan 

 system as prevalent among the Haida, Tlingit, and the Eastern Indians of 

 North America. Matriarchate is also unknown among them; every one is 

 free to marry within or without the tribe, and the children inherit from the 

 father. Although polygamy is now abolished, the marriage tie is a rather 

 loose one. This tribe is the southernmost one of those that flatten their 

 infants' skulls, this practice continuing about one year only after birth. 



Cremation of the dead has been abolished since 1868, though during 

 tlie Modoc war tliese Indians burned several of their dead. The custom of 

 suppressing the personal names of the dead is rigidly kept up at the present 

 time. Art never had any encouragement or votaries among the Klamaths, 

 and the only objects seen that could be regarded as art products were a 

 lew rock paintings and a head-board on a grave near the Agency build- 

 ings, which was painted in the Haida style and represented a human face 

 flattened out to the right and left. Some baskets are artistically formed. 

 As there is no clay to be found on or near the reservation, pottery could 

 never become an art among these Indians. Their songs and poetry are also 

 artless, but nevertheless instructive, and several songs have beautiful tunes 

 that should be preserved. The musical and sonorous character of the lan- 

 guage fits it well for poetic composition; but a national poetry, to be of 

 success, would not have to adopt the rhyme as a metrical factor. Allitera- 

 tion, assonance, or the prosody of the ancients would be more suitable to 

 this upland language, with its arsis and thesis, than the artificial schemes 

 which poets are devising for the modern European tongues. Who will be 

 the first to teach the Muses the Klamath language? 



