The Nisenan are a group of Native Americans and an Indigenous people of California from the Yuba River and American River watersheds in Northern California and the California Central Valley. The Nisenan people are classified as part of the larger group of Native Americans known as the Maidu, though some dispute the accuracy of this relationship. They have been delineated by their geographical location, and so in many texts they are further subcategorized as the Valley Nisenan, Hill Nisenan, and Mountain Nisenan.
Because of these geographical barriers, the people of each region have distinct and unique customs and cultural practices. Although they have existed in these regions prior to European encounter, the people are not recognized as a tribe by the US government. The Nisenan previously had federal recognition via the Nevada City Rancheria. Some Nisenan people today are enrolled in the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, a federally recognized tribe.
Name
The name Nisenan, derives from the ablative plural pronoun nisena·n,.
The Nisenan have been called the Southern Maidu and Valley Maidu. While the term Maidu is still used widely, Maidu is an over-simplification of a very complex division of smaller groups or bands of Native Americans.
Territory
The Nisenan live in Northern California, between the Sacramento River to the west and the Sierra Mountains to the east. The southern reach went to about Cosumnes River but north of Elk Grove and the Meadowview and Pocket regions of Sacramento, and the northern reach somewhere between the northern fork of the Yuba River and the southern fork of the Feather River.
Neighboring tribes included the Valley and North Sierra Miwok to the south, the Washoe to the east, the Konkow and Maidu to the north, and the Patwin to the west.
History
Gold Rush
The Nisenan were initially unaffected by European influence. In the early nineteenth century, their initial encounters with Spanish and U.S. expeditions were peaceful. In 1833, a severe malaria epidemic spread, which killed many of the Nisenan as well as other neighboring tribes.
The 1849 Gold Rush attracted hundreds of thousands of Europeans to the area, resulting in appropriation of their lands, decimation of their resources, more disease, violence, and mass murder. The influx of numerous migrants resulted in overuse of land, competition for game and water, and a strain on resources and the environment. When a drought took place, crops failed and people died of starvation.
The Nisenan population dropped precipitously from approximately 9,000 to 2,500 people by 1895. A fraction of the surviving Nisenan remained in the Sierra Nevada foothills and acquired low-wage jobs.
Customs
Birth customs
Documented history about customs can be contradictory and not always reliable, as early anthropologists were often researching several regions at once, often well after disruptions and trauma to tribes had already occurred due to European contact. According to some sources, if twins were born, they and the mother were often killed.
But Richard B. Johnson, current Tribal Chairman for the Nevada City Nisenan, said, "Our elders have said that twins were not killed, but were considered fortunate if both survived during infancy. Our tribe has ancestors who are twins."
Due to a high frequency of stillborn births, the people did not make cradleboards until after the successful birth of a child. An expectant mother close to giving birth avoided cold air, salt, meat, and cold water. The umbilical cord was cut with an obsidian knife, and the end of the cord was smeared with charcoal. The mother started breastfeeding her child two days after his or her birth, and children were usually weaned at two or three years old.
After a birth, the new mother and her child remained in the birthing hut for the first 16 days, with the husband maintaining a fire day and night. The new mother slept in a seated position for the first sixteen days after birth, with a heated flat stone placed on the belly to assist with passage of the afterbirth.
A feast was essential after the sixteen days; during which the child was celebrated with relatives and a name chosen. Naming the child after an elder or ancestor was common. If there were no more names left to choose in a particular lineage, a close friend might allow the parents use of his family lineage for names.