Curly Headed Doctor and the Medicine of the Lava Beds
Curly Headed Doctor, the Modoc curer whose Ghost-Dance-rooted war medicine held through the January 1873 Lava Beds battle — and what it meant when the medicine broke.
Notes from the record
Plain, sourced writing on Kintpuash, the Modoc War, and the documented history beneath the novel Captain Jack & The Original Renegades. The story, kept true.
Curly Headed Doctor, the Modoc curer whose Ghost-Dance-rooted war medicine held through the January 1873 Lava Beds battle — and what it meant when the medicine broke.
How the 1864 treaty and removal to the Klamath Reservation drove Kientpoos (Captain Jack) and the Modoc back to Lost River, and how the war began.
A military commission tried Kintpuash and five Modoc men for the killing of General Canby. Four were hanged at Fort Klamath on October 3, 1873, and the surviving band was exiled to Indian Territory.
July 19, 2026
Winema, cousin to Kintpuash and interpreter for the peace commission, warned the men who were killed at the peace tent on Good Friday, 1873, and saved Alfred Meacham's life. A Modoc woman who stood inside the war and tried to stop it.
June 29, 2026
Inside the broken basalt at Tule Lake, roughly 150 Modoc people, fighters and their families, held off a far larger U.S. Army force for months through the winter and spring of 1872–73. A close look at the ground they chose and what it cost them.
June 25, 2026
On April 11, 1873, Kintpuash killed Brigadier General E.R.S. Canby at a peace parley under a flag of truce. The record of what drove him there is more complicated than the word murder ever captured.
June 20, 2026
A clear, respectful introduction to Kintpuash, the Modoc leader settlers called Captain Jack, and the Modoc War of 1872–73.
June 20, 2026
A concise, accurate overview of the Modoc War: its causes, the stand at Captain Jack's Stronghold, the killing of General Canby, and the aftermath for the Modoc people.
June 16, 2026
A plain account of the 1872–73 Modoc War, from the Lost River to the Lava Beds, and why this small, bitter conflict still carries weight today.