8 INTliODUCTIOISr TO THE TEXTS. 



she has succeeded in jicquinng' more mental training than Indians usuall}' 

 acquire on reservations. 



4. Cliarlcs Preston, a pure-blood Klamath Lake Indian, born about 1840, 

 is now stationed as interpreter at the subagency of Yaineks. Preston had 

 previously sojourned five years at Oregon City on the Wilhimet River and 

 vicinity, and there he learned to converse in English quite fluently, acquir- 

 ing also the idiom of the Wasco Indians, of ■which he has furnished me over 

 three hundred of the most usual terms. During a stay of three weeks 

 which he made at the Klamath Lake Agency, 1 obtained from him valuable 

 grammatic and lexical information, texts, popular songs, and proper names, 

 and revised with him the Modoc dictionary. 



5. Sergeant Morgan, a pure-blood Indian, living at Kohdshti, born about 

 1830, and jocosely called ^'' SergeanV on account of his wearing an old 

 sergeant's uniform which he had obtained from soldiers at Fort Klamath. 

 From this good-natured, intelligent old Indian I obtained a few short texts 

 and some ethnologic information especially relating to m)^thologic and 

 shamanic subjects. 



6. " The Captain'''' or "Captain Jim", a pure-blood Indian, living at the 

 junction of Sprague and Williamson Rivers, about five miles from the Agency 

 buildings. When I saw him he was about fifty years old, and as he spoke 

 but Klamath and Chinook jargon, all the mythology which he remembered 

 was obtained through Minnie Froben. He received his nickname "Cap- 

 tain" from having been a help on a steamboat plying on the Willdmet 

 River, Oregon. 



7-11. Other informants of whose assistance I have availed myself are 

 mentioned at the head of the texts. They were Johnson, the head chief of 

 the Modocs at Yafneks; the conjurer Kdkash ov Doctor John ; and several 

 young Indians then scarcely over twenty -five years of age : Pete, Frank, 

 and Long John's Ben. All of them are pure-blood Indians. 



To facilitate the study of the Klamath language, and to increase the 

 popular interest in the acquisition of Indian languages in general, I have 

 inserted with the texts an interlinear translation, and subjoined to them a 

 variety of commenting notes of linguistic, ethnographic, and historic im- 

 port. The large majority of the Indian words could be rendered in their 

 literal meaning; but in some instances, where literal translation was nearly 



