Koloma

Koloma, also rendered Cullumah, was a Nisenan village in the valley of the South Fork American River in California's Sierra Nevada foothills. The name is associated with the valley's beauty. River water, oak-covered slopes and nearby higher country offered different resources within reach of the settlement. Bedrock mortars at the village site preserve the work of Nisenan women who processed acorns into food.

Acorns were gathered, dried and stored, then pounded into meal and leached to remove bitterness. Fish, particularly salmon and lamprey, also mattered to the wider Nisenan economy. Exchange linked foothill and valley communities: upland groups supplied black-oak acorns, pine nuts, dried meat and hides, while lower-river groups provided fish and other lowland products. Seasonal movement and stored harvests sustained village life through the winter. These connections gave Koloma an established place in an Indigenous social landscape long before outside settlement. Its earlier history rests in the river, food-processing places and relationships between elevations that supported a permanent community and its seasonal journeys.