6 INTEODUCTION TO THE TEXTS. 



The following is a list of the most important contributors : 

 1. The Riddle family, consisting of Frank Tazewell Riddle, a native of 

 Kentucky, born about 1836; his wife Toby, a pure-blood Modoc woman, 

 who was, as stated in her biographic notice, bora in 1842, and their son 

 Jeff. C. Davis Riddle, born about 18C2. Among several texts of linguistic 

 importance I obtained from them a circumstantial chronistic account of the 

 Modoc war of 1873, in which Mr. and Mrs. Riddle had served as interpre- 

 ters of the Peace Commission. Having been introduced to them in Decem- 

 ber, 187.'>, in New York City, by Mr. A. B. Meacham, late Superintendent of 

 Indian Affaii's in Oregon, w^hen they travelled with him in the eastern States 

 in connection with the Meacham Lecturing Company, I took down the 

 contents first in English from Mr. Frank Riddle, then added the transla- 

 tion from the other members of the ftimily. Mr. Riddle had no intention 

 of giving a full and authentic account of that desperate struggle, but merely 

 wished to render his own impressions, and to relate in the plainest words 

 the events witnessed by himself. Here we have the opportunity of hearing 

 also the Modoc side of the contest. 



The wording of the other Modoc texts was the almost exclusive work of 

 the boy Riddle, who speaks the language perfectly well, and only in the more 

 difficult portions was he assisted by his mother. From the Riddles I obtained 

 also several hundred sentences, over sixty songs, and about two thousand 

 three hundred vocables, which we're twice revised with their assistance in 

 New York City, and twice again with the efficient help of such natives at the 

 Klamath Lake Agency as were conversant with the Modoc dialect. 



2. Bave Hill, a dusky, pure-blood Indian, subchief of the Klamath Lake 

 tribe and interpreter, born about 1840. Having been a prominent war- 

 rior of Ills tribe up to the treaty of 1 864 and a scout in subsequent expedi- 

 tions against hostile Indians, he has also seen much of the white man's waj-s 

 by staying for years in Northwestern Oregon and by traveling East with Mr. 

 A B. Meacham on his lecturing tour in 1875. How he was then kidnapped 

 in New York City, confined in a cellar, restored to liberty, and how he 

 worked his way home, is related with full particulars in Meacham's Wincma, 

 pages 95-102. In the Modoc war (1872-73) he was put in command of 

 the auxiliary forces oi his chieftaincy, which were detailed to observe the 



