Nomlaki

The Nomlaki, or Central Wintu, were the middle member of the Wintun family, which linguistic and archaeological evidence suggests entered California from southern Oregon around 500, bringing the bow and arrow to the Sacramento Valley. Their land lay on the western side of the valley between the Wintu to the north and the Patwin to the south. They formed two divisions: the River Nomlaki along the Sacramento and the Hill Nomlaki in the foothills, and may have numbered more than two thousand before contact.

Individual oak trees could be owned outright; women and children gathered acorns, pine nuts, seeds and tubers. Families lived in houses bent from flexible saplings.

The malarial years of 1830 to 1833, which killed roughly three quarters of the natives of the upper and central valley, struck the Nomlaki villages along the river.