The Klamath were first contacted by Whites in 1826. Since there were few fur-bearing animals in the area, Whites remained uninterested in the Klamath for some time. It is reported that even by the middle of the nineteenth century, there was only one gun among the Klamath. In 1864, the Klamath ceded most of their land to the U.S. Government and, with the Modoc and Paiute, were placed on the Klamath Reservation. Due to extensive intermarriage and migration, the Klamath constituted an "ethnic minority in the communities where they resided, even within the reservation." There were 2,118 members of the Klamath tribe in 1955, and 40 percent of them lived off the reservation. As of 1963, 70 percent of the members were less than one-half Indian, and less than one-sixth were full-bloods (Clifton and Levine 1963: 6).
In 1954, the membership voted for termination of federal administration of the reservation. Stern feels that as a result of this termination, the Klamath have become virtually extinct as a people. The cultural position of the Klamath was the subject of much debate among the authors of the 1930s, when tracing origins and the diffusion of cultural elements was a primary concern of anthropologists. This debate never resulted in any definitive conclusions. It is sufficient to know that features from cultures in the Great Basin, the Plateau, the Northwest Coast, and California were present in Klamath culture. The Klamath derived most of their subsistence from rivers and marshes. Fish was the staple of their diet, and pond lily seeds were also important. Roots were gathered to some extent. Deer and other game were of minor dietary importance. Permanent settlements of earth and mat lodges were located on the banks of rivers. These settlements were occupied during the winter months. They ranged in size from "several score" to one or two lodges. In the early spring, the people left the villages for fish runs. In the summer, small bands of two or three families occupied the prairies to collect roots and berries and other edible plants. Toward the end of the summer the pond lily seeds ripened, and the people gathered together at the marshes to harvest them. They returned to the same winter villages year after year. In spite of the fact that the environment had relatively abundant foodstuffs, the population was not very large. It has been estimated that aboriginally the Klamath numbered between 800 and 1,400. There were five or six geographical divisions of the Klamath. The largest one was in the vicinity of Klamath Marsh. Other groups lived in the vicinity of Agency Lake, the lower Williamson River, Pelican Bay, Klamath Falls, and the Sprague River Valley. There was some tendency toward endogamy within these divisions, but there was no political unity. On the reservation, these divisions completely disappeared. Warfare, feuds, and slave raiding took place between the subdivisions of the Klamath and with non-Klamath. Most reports state that the Klamath conducted slave raids yearly against the Achomawi and other Pit River Indians. Kroeber (1953: 319-320), however, felt that these reports were very exaggerated. Headmanship of the villages was weakly developed, and some settlements did not even have chiefs. The chiefs were people who had acquired prestige through warfare, were wealthy, were good speakers, and had had some spirit experiences. Most of Spier's (1930) informants indicated that shamans were of greater importance to the community than chiefs. Every Klamath sought spiritual power in vision quests, which took place at life crises such as puberty and mourning. The spirits were ill-defined, but primarily took the form of nature spirits or anthropomorphic beings.