Those who sought unscrupulous brawls were low and disgraced, all
traveled after death the broad road to Satan and are never given an
opportunity to go to Werse-on-now. There are many of the miserable
souls who lived a wasted life on earth, only to enter in the Spirit
Land, the wilderness of anguish.
In marriage the wife takes the husband’s name and the husband takes
the wife’s name, just as an exchange of names and the family names are
handed down from one generation to another. This is done by giving the
name to a daughter, son, cousin, etc., either the mother or father’s
name on both sides of the family. Sometimes the generation dies out
and there are none left of a near kindred, in this case they sometimes
give the name to a close friend and this custom is followed more by the
high families. As an example, some years ago an old man lived in the
Pec-wan village, his name was Ta-poo-sen. He died some thirty years
ago, and at this writing a middle aged man is living in the Cor-tep
village who adopted his name after his death, and he is known to every
one as Ta-poo-sen. There are quite a number of Indians living at the
present time who have taken the names of deceased relatives or friends.
The deceased has been laid at rest for at least one year before any one
takes his or her name.
The Klamath Indians are very much prejudiced against one taking their
own life. They look down on the act, and if one should take his own
life, which we call o-motch-ser-mer-yer, there is no chance for them to
be saved and they go down the broad road that leads to the old woman
and she gives them over to the man in the boat and he takes them over
and leaves them in the wilderness where they live in misery until the
judgement day and then are destroyed forever, there being no salvation
for them and the family will be looked down upon for many generations
to come and held back in taking part in any of their social functions.
The children will be shunned by their playmates. The Indian seldom
commits suicide and will avoid self-destruction by wishing that some
wild animal will take them while they sleep, and of such cases they
tell some very weird and touching tales. There was a girl taken by a
wild animal of which reference is made in another chapter. Another was
a young man of good family belonging to the Pec-wan village and he
wanted to marry a girl of the upper division. The young woman refused
him and this nearly broke his heart, so he went back into the mountains
all alone and there he busied himself by trapping and hunting until
he had accumulated great riches of valuable furs and other things
and was there for a number of years when he returned to his home. He
never married and lived to be an old man and all the children called
him grandpa. As he became old he also became blind but the children
all loved him and any of them were always ready to lead him wherever
he wanted to go, and he was always ready to give blessings to the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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