The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1910-08-31
Children of Braves Who Fought
for Their Lands Years Ago Al
lowed to Go Back to California

And the children of Israel wan
dered in the wilderness for 40 years
until all of that generation which
came out of Egypt were dead. And
then they were allowed to enter into
the Promised Land"
1t was thus, so say the Old Tesla
ment and the Talmud, that the err
ing Israelites were dealt with in the
olden times And it was thus, al
most to the lapse of years, that the
government of the United States
dealt with the Modoc Indians. For
nearly 40 years the Modocs pined
and wasted, far from the Promised
Land of home and liberty. And,
now, when all of the generation with
which the government waged war
are dead, the Modocs have crept
back unhindered to their ancient
home, says the New York Sun.
Little has been said about the re-
turn of the Modocs. The interior de-
partment and the Indian bureau have
not blaZoned their action abroad A
few lines in the official records, q
few paragraphs in the report of the
department, a few remarks by the
agents at the points which the In
dams left and those to which they
have gone, a few changes in the ia
bles of Indian population for the year
and that is all. That is the sum
total of the attention officially paid
to the closing chapter of a mighty
drama-one of the most thrilling
stories that the great west has pro-
duced.
The official announcement says
that "inasmuch as the original Mo-
doc prisoners transported from Ore
gon to Indian Territory in 1873 are
now all dead, and as there seems to
exist no further enmity among the
inhabitants of their former homes
either to the Modoc tribe or to it's
being repatriated, the band of Mo-
docs now at Quapaw agency, Okla,
will be returned, as expediently as
possible, to klamath Agency, in Ore
gon, arrangements having been made
with the Indians of that agency for
the placing of these Modocs upon al
lotted lands"
That is all the governme nt has to
say about it, and that is the way in
of these Modocs upon allotted lands"
Thirty-seven years away from the
mountains and lakes; thirty-seven
years away from the land where the
old tribes roved and fought and died
like warriors; thirty-seven years dur
ing which the captives who were car
- Co., L
persisted to a man. And now a stray
Cling few, their children, come back
to the heritage of their fathers.
The story of the Modocs is an epic
written in blood and fame. 1t seems
incongruous that the last act should
have so tame an ending.
When the white man first swept
into southern Oregon and northern
California he found the Modocs,
never strong in numbers, but of
splendid fighting stock, living in the
land of lakes and hills that lies on
the border of the two states. The
Modocs were an offshot of the con-
quering Time race that swept down
from the north a thousand years ago.
That onrush of northern hunters
carried clear to Mexico. The Apache,
Navajo and Lipan were it's south
ern champions; the klamath, Hoopa
and Modoc were left behind in Ore
gon and California.
Fighters grim and great, men of
athletic frame and iron courage, the
Modocs, were also people of q dark
and gloomy character. They were
unlike most of the other California
tribes, far different from the merry
Wintoons and the amiable, legend
telling Kahroks who surrounded
them. They had a stern and I'M
happy mythology of their own; they
looked at life in a serious and sullen
fashion, and they seemed to have
but one real owe and one real
thought to stir their souls-love of
their native territory.
After much fighting between the
white man and the Modocs a portion
of the tribe agreed in 1864 to give up
a stretch of land they considered
their own and to be herded with the