“I was a daughter,” Fanny Ball’s oration begins, “I was born. I was the daughter of one of those chiefs, the ones that don’t die of old age. Kientpaush was hanged.”
Kintpuash, Ball’s father, was also called Captain Jack. He was a Modoc leader who resisted militarized white settlers in defense of Modoc lands, now known as Northern California and Oregon.
“Kientpaush was hanged. He was hunted, and imprisoned. He was judged, and he was hanged. His wife and youngest daughter were removed from Oregon, with the rest of the Modocs after the war.”
The reedy voice speaking is not a direct recording of Ball, but a performance by Angie Morrill—an artist and member of Super Futures Haunt Qollective (SFHQ). Morrill embodies Ball, performing as an avatar, providing a gleam of alternate history to the remnants of Indigenous existence in the Pacific Northwest.