The Modoc lived in the cold dry northeast on the Modoc Plateau where pine and fir grow, but few oaks. Their economy centered around the many species of ducks and other waterfowl that came to their lakes. It is thought that the people who lived there in earliest times they used a bola, or stones attached to strings to ensnare the birds.

At Nightfire Island these stones were found in great numbers. They also used the atlatl, and later (around 400 A.D.), the bow and arrow, and of course, nets and snares to catch game. In the very earliest times they hunted the bison, but climactic change caused this animal to become extinct in their area about 3000 years ago. They also hunted big-horn sheep, antelope, deer, and elk, and also caught rabbits, marmots, beaver and otter. Birds and other game were dried and then pounded to a powder in stone mortars and cooked into a gruel or soup.

For their tools they used obsidian, most often from Glass Mountain (29 miles from Nightfire Island), but some from other sources, such as Sycan River (59 miles away), Buck Mountain (105 miles away), and Tucker Butte (32 miles away). Salmon were speared, and tui chub, which swarmed in great numbers may have been caught in the manner of the Klamath Indians of Oregon, in canoe-shaped traps baited with dry fish eggs. Nets may also have been used, because stones like net weights have been found. In addition to the tule raft, they also used a dugout of pine. They gathered and ate cattail roots, camas and ipo tubers, and gathered the seeds of the wocas or yellow waterlily. They also harvested the chokcherry, the plum, and wild onions. They gathered sugar pine seeds, serviceberries, elderberries, and huckleberries.

The tule was used for baskets, clothing, boats, mats and houses. Cattails were also used for baskets and mats. Thread and string were made from nettle fiber. They smoked tobacco, as was indicated from numerous pipes found at the Nightfire site. Some of these pipes were molded from clay. Their winter houses were round, semi-subterranean, and supported on 4 to 6 posts, to which horizontal timbers were connected. These supported rafters, reaching from the horizontal timbers at the center to the earth at the perimeter of the roof. A layer of brush was then covered with a layer of tule or cattail mats, and the whole was covered with earth. The entrance was through a central hole in the roof formed by the horizontal timbers, and the firepit was below this hole. If necessary, the hole could be covered with a mat. They also kept warm with blankets of rabbit skin or bird skin, woven into a cordage matrix.

While we may never know what spirits the ancient people of Nightfire Island believed in, their rock art, some of which was found in a cave overlooking Horse Mountain, and others at Petroglyph Point in the Modoc Lava Beds National Monument gives some indication. Also pointing to the spiritual life of these people are the mysterious stone figures called "henwas" or hanuash ("rock standing up"). These are about 1 foot tall, and vaguely human shaped, some modeled with male or female characteristics, and have a flat base so they can be placed upright. In "The Ancient Modocs of California and Oregon" Howe says that Lizzie Kirk, a Klamath Indian, who owned some of these stones, told Dr. Roy Carlson, then curator of the Klamath County Museum, that they had the power to travel under water, and were used by shamen. A smaller stone sculpture, the Yatish, look rather like triangular stone mortars, but apparently never had been used to grind anything. They were about 5 inches tall.

The Modoc cremated their dead. A cache of stones found a Nightfire Island, is thought to have been the sacred bundle of a shaman. It included 31 quartz crystals,agates and colorful stones, 29 old projectile points and 43 obsidian "needles", naturally occurring obsidian shapes, the nearest source of which would have been in Plum Valley, halfway between Lakeview, Oregon and Alturas, California. (Howe: 1979)

The Modoc are thought to have never been very numerous, estimated at 0.30 persons per square mile, as contrasted with the Yurok, estimated as having had a population density of 4.66 persons per square mile. They made a fighting armor of double elk-skins. The Anglo invaders had a particularly difficult time in subduing these people. In fact, Dolan Eargle, in "The Earth is Our Mother" says that "Indian resistance in California culminated in the Modoc War of 1872 to 1873, said to be the single most expensive campaign in the West." (p 22) Their most famous warrior, Captain Jack, held off hundreds of US. Army troops with less than 60 men for 5 months. He was hanged for being so intractably opposed to having his people's land appropriated. Remaining Modoc live primarily in Oregon.

The Modoc traded for dentalia with the Shasta, and then traded the dentalia to the Achomawi, and got shell beads, twined baskets, grass skirts and pine nut string skirts. They exchanged slaves with the Klamath to their north, and also gave the Klamath twined baskets, blankets, fish-hooks, beads, clothing, axes and spears.

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California Native Americans