American Indian Culture and Research Journal

The ”Incantation Songs of the Klamath Lake People,” recorded by Albert S. Gatschet, are a particular challenge to anyone who would understand them, for they generally do not exceed one line and often seem obscure in their references. Moreover, as Gatschet presents them, there is little to suggest why they were important to the Klamaths. Over and over in reading Gatschet’s transcriptions of these chants we face a mystery. How were they used? Are they fragments of longer incantations, or were they uttered as folk-wisdom in everyday conversation? Who spoke them, under what conditions and what were they referring to? The fact that the answers to these questions are forgotten (or unlearned) by the majority of the descendants whose ancestors used them forces one to alternative methods of understanding the sayings. The method I chose was to find someone with years of thoughtful learning and living in the Klamath area, an intelligent person sensitive to the cultural elements and interested in preserving them. I enlisted the help of Marie Norris, Klamath, whose age, experience and knowledge of the language made her particularly suited to the interpretation. Since I was working not far from her home in the summer of 1979, I drove to see her and to ask if my interpretations of the chants were correct. She asked for my copies of Gatschet’s transcriptions, and after several months she sent me her interpretations of the chants. While the interpretations do not reflect the original speakers, or the conditions under which the chants were uttered, they are valuable for their contributions to our knowledge of the Klamaths. Some unlock geographical references and afford glimpses of rich metaphoric imagination. Furthermore these interpretations were acceptable to someone with a lifetime in the Klamath culture. She stressed that other interpretations were possible, and this coincides with the insistence of the child “Mary,” Gatschet’s original informant. Marie was conscientious because I had promised to pass on what she gave me and to teach others. I offer them in that spirit, and out of respect for who she was, knowing they reflect her gifts for concision, directness, insight and humor.