THE SLAVES. Among the Klamath Indians there were many slaves, which we called Ki-elth, when the white man first came to our country. These slaves came about in many ways. Some were mixed blood of Klamath and Hoopas, some were all Hoopas, and some were mixed blood of the Klamath and Smith River’s, and consisted of both men and women, but most of them were Klamaths themselves. Slavery was brought about by wars, famines, and contagious diseases. In case of a famine there would be a shortage of acorns, and no run of salmon in the river for two or three years, and sometimes longer, when the winters were long and cold, or dry, with but little rainfall. All the land and fishing places belonged to the wealthy families, who would gather it all for themselves, leaving little or none for the poor families, which would leave whole families hungry and starving. They would go to some rich man’s house and offer themselves as slaves, and these offers were usually accepted. In other cases there would be sickness start in a well-to-do family, and often be a death or doctor bills to pay, and no chance to gather acorns or fish or hunt until they would be reduced to poverty and become hungry and offer themselves as slaves to some rich family or some big doctor, which was most of the time accepted. (This is something like what the white doctor is doing today among his own people.) Sometimes in war or fighting they would take them and let them be slaves in other ways. Now these wealthy families would have very large and commodious houses, and a house would be full to over-flowing in numbers and all would be mixed up in conversation, and at the time of eating the slaves were first waited on, while their own children sat back or helped to attend to their wants, and they were served with as good as their own family had, and were treated in a way that made them feel at perfect ease in every way. Often times when the houses would become too crowded they would build another house and let them move into it, as these wealthy families kept close touch with their relations or kindred so as not to marry those that were their own kindred. Sometimes there were families that had slaves that were not good to them, fed them poorly and refused to doctor them. These are not hard to select, as one will hear it mentioned at all times. I have seen and known many of them that were slaves and were born of slave parents, and some of these slaves were so well treated by their masters that they at this time claim kindred with the children of the masters and the families of the masters are so tender in speaking to them of it that they do not let them know, unless they become too familiar or make the claim too bold, when a few, very few words will halt them in their claim for all time. These slave children are the kind that are mostly the Indians that are left today, and trying to make themselves and the white man believe that they