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Performing Archive

Klamath

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Wokas, the seeds of the water-lily, Nymphaea polysepala, is harvested in the latter part of August and throughout September. The nearly ripe pods are plucked and deposited in the canoe, but the mature ones, having burst open, are too sticky to be plucked, and are scooped up in a tule ladle and placed in a basket. After the pods have fermented, the seeds are separated from the mass by stirring in water. They are then dried, parched, hulled, dried again, and stored in bags. Wokas was formerly a staple food, and is still much used as a luxury.
Crater lake, a body of water indescribably blue, occupies an extinct crater in the heart of the Cascade mountains of southern Oregon. It is on the boundary of what was formerly the territory of the Klamath Indians, who held it to be especially potent in conferring shamanistic power upon men who there fasted and bathed. An important Klamath myth seeks to account for the former absence of fish from Crater lake, a condition that was altered in 1888 by the introduction of trout.