Nisenan
The Nisenan , also known as the Southern Maidu and Valley Maidu , are one of several indigenous groups in California's long valley .
Name and language
While the term “maidu” is still used in academic research on the Indians of North America , it is currently more of a simplification of a complex structure of smaller groups, clans and communities of Indians. The name Nisenan is derived from the ablative - plural - pronoun nisena · n , "those among us". Few Nisenan speak all Nisenan dialects. Some Nisenan are now counted as part of the Shingle Springs community of Miwok Indians, a legally recognized tribe.
Nisenan was never a political category, as is the case with many tribes in central California, but it is actually based on an "ordinary" language (actually a wide range of similar dialects). There was never a Nisenan tribe, but rather a number of clans that acted as small independent groups. Each clan or tribe spoke a different variant of what is known as the Nisenan language, which in turn led to some inconsistency in the linguistic data.
territory
The Nisenan lived in California's long valley between the Sacramento River in the west and the Sierra Nevada in the east. The southern boundary reached about the Cosumnes River north of Elk Grove and the Meadowview-and-Pocket areas of Sacramento and the northern area between the northern headwaters of the Yuba River and the southern headwaters of the Feather River .
Neighboring tribes are the Valley - and the Northern Sierra - Miwok in the south, the Washoe in the east, the Konkow and Maidu in the north and the Patwin in the west.
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Marianne Mithun: The Languages of Native North America . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001, ISBN 978-0-521-29875-9 , p. 455.
- ↑ "Our Heritage." Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians. . 2012. Archived from the original on January 3, 2014. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 31, 2012.
