Modokni

The Modokni, better known as the Modoc, called themselves Moatokni maklaks, the southern people, to distinguish themselves from their Klamath kin, with whom they shared the Klamath-Modoc language of the proposed Plateau Penutian family. Their country lay south of the Klamath on the Modoc Plateau, around Tule Lake, Lower Klamath Lake and the Lost River, where three bands held fixed village sites.

In winter they built beehive-shaped earthen lodges by the lakeshores, catching salmon on the seasonal runs and harvesting wokas, the seeds of the yellow water lily.

Peter Skene Ogden's trade with the Klamath in the 1820s was their first indirect contact with Europeans, and through the 1830s their lakes still lay off the regular routes of overland travel.