MODOC COUNTY
Modoc, the county in the northeastern corner of the state, is notable as having been the home of the only California tribe that ever caused serious trouble to the United States Government. The Modoc wars are a matter of history.
The Modocs were a fierce tribe of Indians who lived at the head-waters of Pit River, and the name is thought by some persons to mean “head of the river,” or “people, community,” but ethnologists are of the opinion that it means “south people,” probably used by tribes living north of the Modocs. Bancroft, quoting from Steele, in Indian Affairs Report of 1864, page 121, says: “The word Modoc is a Shasta Indian word, and means all distant, stranger, or hostile Indians, and became applied to this tribe by white men in early days from hearing the Shastas refer to them by this term.” It does not appear that Bancroft had any genuine scientific authority for this statement.
Powers, in his Tribes of California, states that some persons derive this name from Mo-dok-us, the name of a former chief of the tribe under whose leadership they seceded from the Klamath Lake Indians and became an independent tribe. As it was common for seceding bands to assume the name of their leader, Powers is inclined to accept this explanation of the name.