Nisena'n

The Nisena'n, usually recorded as Nisenan, were the southernmost of the Maiduan-speaking peoples, holding the drainages of the Yuba and American Rivers between the Sacramento and the Sierra Nevada, from the Cosumnes River in the south to the Feather River in the north.

Often called Southern Maidu by early writers, they were themselves split into Valley, Hill and Mountain bands speaking as many as thirteen dialects. They lived in dome-shaped houses of tule, earth and poles, with larger semi-subterranean dance lodges whose doors faced east.

Spanish and Mexican expeditions passed through peacefully in the early nineteenth century, and mission patrols only rarely entered their land chasing runaways, so the Nisena'n kept their old life largely intact until 1833, when a malaria epidemic swept the Sacramento Valley and killed great numbers of them and their neighbors.