COLFAX-TODDS VALLEY CONSOLIDATED TRIBE
( Nisenan) Maidu & Miwok of the Colfax Rancheria
WHO WE ARE
WHO WE ARE
The Colfax-Todds Valley Consolidated Tribe of the Colfax Rancheria, is a California Tribe located in the Colfax/Placer County area. We are comprised of the (Nisenan) Maidu & Miwok people of the area. We strive for the protection of our sacred sites, traditional practices, language preservation, and the overall betterment of our tribal community.
Get Involved
If you think you might be as passionate about what we're doing as we are, please give us a shout and help us make a good way in the world for all of our relations. If you have time to volunteer (even if you're not a member of the tribe), a story to share about the Native community or just have a kind suggestion - it is welcome, so please don't be shy to reach out. We tend to be spread thin so be please be patient and don't give up if we don't get right back to you! Your thoughts matter to us! The wellness of ALL of our relations matters to us! Aho!!
Thank You
Whether you are a Tribal Member or generous neighbor, your help through monetary donations (tax deductible via our non-profit), volunteering of your time or spreading our mission through word-of-mouth, is a blessing to us. We couldn't accomplish our goals without the help of our community supporters like you and so we say on behalf of ALL of our members, a heartfelt THANK YOU!! With your help we are able to provide a very treasured Youth and Elders Day to our members, afford our website expense and plan for events in the near future just to name a few.
More About Us
The Indigenous Peoples of the great Sierra Nevada mountains have lived here for thousands of years. Living peacefully in unique harmony within the great waters and majestic mountains, hills and valleys of what was to come to be known as Placer County. As early as 1858, the US Government began signing treaties with the indians of the area through Chief Weemah (Weimar). In the 1905 Kelsey Census, over seventy indians lived in or around the Colfax/Todds Valley area. In 1915 the U.S. Government purchased Rancheria land in Colfax to provide for the homeless indians. However by 1966, against letters of protest by the indians, the Government sold the land which was the Colfax Rancheria and the indians of the area were wrongfully terminated under Congress's newly created and implemented "California Rancheria Act" of 1958. The Colfax Todds Valley Consolidated Tribe is comprised of generations of people who were born of Miwok and Maidu (Nisenan) ancestry. We come from generations of ancestors who lived in the Colfax/Foresthill (Todds Valley area). It is our hope to someday again become "Federally Recognized" so that we may receive benefits for our people that are currently unavailable to us. With Government assistance we may again obtain a land base for the Tribe, as well as gain health care, housing, educational opportunities, and a self-sustaining outlook for our generations to come. We currently maintain our culture and traditions with help from our Non-Profit organization; the Todd's Valley Miwok Maidu Cultural Association located in Foresthill. Bark houses were erected, and a ceremonial roundhouse is being constructed so that we may celebrate and honor our traditions from the past and share them with the future generations.
THE NISENAN PEOPLE
This article on the Nisenan people was prepared by NormanL.Wilson, retired State Archeologist with the State of California. Among many other credits, he was Coordinator of Native American Programs and his work on the Nisenan Indians was included in the Smithsonian Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 8, for which he received much acclaim as an authority on his subject. Mr. Wilson is also a Life member of the Placer County Historical Society.
"THE NISENAN PEOPLE OF THE MAIDU TRIBE OF CALIFORNIA INDIANS inhabited the valley plain and mountains at such historically familiar places as Sacramento, Marysville, Nevada City, Auburn, Coloma and Placerville. These natives, whose name simply means "People", were a vibrant nation of friendly, happy people who identified themselves by village rather than tribal name. Prehistorically, the Nisenan occupied the drainages of the American, Bear and Yuba rivers, from the Sacramento River in the west to the crest of the Sierras to the east. They spoke a dialect which identified
them from the Northern Maidu and they diverged into two distinct cultural groups known as the Valley Nisenan and the Mountain Nisenan. The Valley Nisenan lived along the valley drainages and were river oriented in their lifeways. Their ancestors had lived similarly in the same region for at least two thousand years. Villages were built on low mounds and sometimes numbered over five hundred people. Houses were dome-shaped, covered with earth or tule. Each large village had a dance house which was semi subterranean and sometimes measured over fifty feet in diameter. Other structures included brush shelters, sweat houses and acorn granaries. Villages with a population of over five hundred people are unusual for non-agricultural peoples, but the Central Valley supported many such Indian villages prior to the Anglo intrusion. Nowhere in Nisenan mythology or folklore is there mention of starvation which indicates a great natural abundance. Their food included acorns and seeds, tule roots, berries and fruits, Salmon, sturgeon, trout and other fresh-water fish that were obtained by using tule boats, and log canoes, weirs, nets and harpoons. Fresh-water shellfish, water fowl, game animals such as elk, deer and antelope and smaller species provided an abundant variety of food throughout the year. The Mountain Nisenan lived in the foothills and along the ridges of the steep Sierra canyons. Their food included acorns, seeds and game with less emphasis on the water fowl-fish foods of the valley people. These mountain villages were much smaller and it was common for small family groups to live away from the main village during the seasonal food gathering rounds. Their culture was much simpler than the valley people with whom they sometimes fought. The Nisenan, like most Central California Indians, made fine basketry, feather robes and elaborate ceremonial costumes. There was extensive trade between villages as well as surrounding groups including the Coastal Indians to the west and the Washoe to the east. The largest social-political unit was the village which had its headman or "captain" who usually inherited his office but could be chosen as leaders for such activities as hunting and warfare. Each village had a town crier who spoke to the people on social behavior and announced any news. Perhaps the most important persons of the village were the shamans or religious leaders, which among the Nisenan, could be either men or women. They cured the sick and practiced revenge, conducted elaborate religious ceremonies and attempted to control the natural environment with their magic. It was not a male dominated society with women in a subservient role. Even though there were secret fraternal societies and restrictions on the use of the dance and sweat houses, in everyday life the women were respected and each person fulfilled a life role to make the village a vital unit. Ceremonies related to the seasons, harvesting of food and rituals centering around their origin, their Gods and rules of social behavior were very important to the Nisenan. These were performed through dances involving God impersonations and the enactment of mythical stories of the Nisenan past. The rituals surrounding death were very important to these people also. It was vital that they be buried at the village of their birth. There were family mourning ceremonies at the time of death involving the whole village. At the "second burning" a great amount of personal wealth was burned in memory of the dead. The Nisenan had brief contact with the Spanish when Moraga traveled through the valley in 1806, Father Duran in 1818, and with the Spanish and Mexican expeditions and escaping missionized Indians. (Continued next paragraph)
(Continued) Their first real contact with the Anglos came with the trappers such as Jed Smith and the Hudson Bay Company men after 1828. These contacts culminated in a devastating epidemic which wiped out over half of the Valley Indians in 1833, a blow from which they never recovered. Captain Sutter and other settlers after 1839 further disrupted the remnants of the Valley Nisenan culture but had little effect on the mountain peoples who carried on their prehistoric lifeways until the discovery of gold and the ensuing Gold Rush. They were an honest people who tried to remain friendly with the European newcomers. Yet, their nation was virtually destroyed by the ethnocentric attitude of the Anglo invaders who brought with them preconceived animosity toward all Indians. Lack of immunity to introduced diseases also hastened their demise. Unfortunately, the Mountain Nisenan villages occupied logical sites for gold camps and within two or three years those Indians who had not adapted to the ways of the Whites, were scattered throughout the less desirable areas in the mountains. Early settler accounts verify that the Nisenan were friendly people with the highest regard for the Americans, yet they were hunted down and killed indiscriminately, men, women and children, and their villages destroyed by the gold-seekers. This senseless killing was often for revenge when the Anglos could find no one else to blame. The Indians were scapegoats for the frustration of the newcomers as were most minorities during the California Gold Rush. Throughout this time of desecration and wanton destruction, a few of these proud people managed to
survive in more remote areas and at the edges of the gold towns, and carry with them the cultural values and lifeways of their ancestors. Those who could find work were employed in logging, ranching, construction and domestic pursuits. Many ceased to identify themselves as Indians to avoid harassment by the Whites. Today, the remaining Nisenan Indians are regaining the pride of their ancestry. We are only beginning to appreciate these proud and happy people who lived for thousands of years in harmony with their land and their resources."..
The following pages are taken from the novel, Red Dirt: A Journey of Discovery in the Landscape of Imagination, California's Gold Country by Gary Noy. Pages 219-221. All rights reserved. 2002 by Gary Noy:
.."A journey in the Sierra Nevada region is eternally lovely. The landscape is varied and invigorating -- bumpy hollows dressed with waving grass and the occasional prancing horse greet the eye, tree-lined lanes scoot through glittering farmland with mountainous vistas in the background, and around the bend awaits one wonderful surprise after another. It is hard to believe that anything bad could happen in this splendid spot. But, throughout the Sierra Nevada and Gold Country, evil once took root. It is the gloomy story of the native history of the region, the grievous toll of a shiny golden dream, and the promise of renewal. Ironically, the problems began with James Marshall. In 1847, an Indian escorted Marshall to the Maidu village of Collumah. It was there, at the renamed settlement of Coloma that Marshall decided to build his sawmill in partnership with John Sutter. Sutter’s Mill changed the direction of California and American history and forever altered the lives of the native population. In 1848, when gold was discovered, the Indian population was estimated at roughly 200,000. One of these was “Indian Jim,” a Maidu whom some claim was the actual discoverer of the gold for which Marshall gets credit. Gold was considered useless to most American Indian cultures, who saw much greater value in other minerals, such as obsidian, flint, and slate. But the yellow flake that drives men crazy would become a virtual death warrant for the California Indians. The influx of argonauts would mean disease and destruction for the region’s original inhabitants. Within a few years, more than half of California’s native population was dead from violence, epidemic, or starvation. In the flush early Gold Rush days, Indian miners outnumbered white argonauts, but, by 1850, El Dorado had become Hell for the natives. Thousands of gold seekers swept across the foothills like an ill wind. The results for the Indians were devastating. From 1850 to 1863, Indians and other non-whites could not testify against the dominant culture in court. This led to continually abusive and savage treatment at the hands of unscrupulous usurpers. It was open season on the legal rights of Indians. Three thousand Indian children were sold into slavery at $50 to $200 a piece. California's sanctioned “apprentice system” allowed white settlers to keep homeless or dispossessed Indians in a form of indentured servitude until the age of thirty. Jailed natives were auctioned to the highest white bidder. The Indians would then be compelled to work off their bail. When the indenture neared completion, it was not uncommon for the “master” to ply the Indians with alcohol, have them arrested for public drunkenness, bail them out, and start the cycle anew. Young Indian girls would be kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery. The natives knew that the gold had value to the argonauts, and many mined to purchase commodities for their families. Some mined, but were cheated. James Savage made $500,000 in 1851 by trading for goods with the Indians. His condition was that the items be paid for in their weight in gold -- five pounds of flour, five pounds of gold. In 1851, Congress ordered federal agents to negotiate treaties of “peace and friendship” with 402 California tribal leaders. Eighteen treaties were written and signed. They promised 8.5 million acres on ten protected reservations in exchange for the remainder of California’s territory. Tragically, the treaties were a gilded promise of security built on an underlying foundation of racism and exploitation."..