Maidu

The Maidu inhabited the Sierra Nevada and its foothills, including the watersheds of the Feather and American Rivers. In the northern mountains, Big Meadows held several Maidu villages amid meadow, forest and streams. Kinship and trade connected its inhabitants to other Mountain Maidu communities and to the Sacramento Valley. Bear dances brought people together from across Maidu country, joining the scattered settlements in a shared ceremonial life.

In 1833 an epidemic, believed to have been malaria, took a heavy toll among Maidu populations. It reached a region where villages had long maintained their own ties across the mountains and valleys. The loss of so many people brought profound disruption to those communities before the great influx of settlers later in the century.