Nisenanim ni - I am Nisenan

This year, thanks in part to a Local Impact grant from the California Arts Council, Nevada County Arts Council and Nevada City Film Festival are partnering with Nisenan Tribal members and our local community to create a film documenting the recovery of the Nisenan’s all but lost language. 

Through this unique partnership Nisenan Tribespeople are learning, through hands-on experience, important filmmaking and communication skills such as storytelling, cinematography, locations, self-financing, and documentary interview techniques. The Nisenan are controlling the film's voice and vision and are participating in all aspects of a unique filmmaking process.

Our partnership is testament to Nisenan language recovery as one of our most significant assets in rebuilding a resilient, diverse community on the Western Slope of the Sierra Nevada in Nevada County. As well as documenting efforts to revive an all but lost language, the Nisenan are also looking to their future. Twenty years from now, what will their homelands look like? What are our children being taught in schools? How will we – the broader community – experience Nisenan culture as a critical, valued part of our everyday story?

The Nisenan have lived on the Western Slope of the Sierra Nevada for over ten thousand years. Their most densely populated areas were what we now know as Nevada City and Grass Valley, though seasonal migration to the eastern slope of the Sierra was shared with the Washoe Tribe. The Gold Rush saw a near genocide of the Nisenan, but in 1913 they gained Federal recognition along with 76 acres of reservation. In 1964 this status was terminated along with 43 other California Rancherias, and the Nisenan's land sold at auction. Today, Nevada City Rancheria is one of only three - statewide - that remains unrecognized as a sovereign Nation.

The Tribe has 145 members where once it had over 7,000. All live within 33 miles of the old Reservation and can prove their pre-Gold Rush lineage. Through a partnership with Nevada City Film Festival we have been working with the Nissan over the last 18 months to define a project that would offer real local impact, and to better understand the tribe’s relationship to their own language. 

The story of Nisenan efforts to research national archives in rediscovering the long-forgotten words of their ancestors will be recorded, along with the efforts of Nisenan Elders with their younger members to preserve and pass on language, while they continue to work with linguists Dr. Sheri Tatsch and Dr. Tanis Thorne in capturing the Nisenan story. 

MAPPING THE NISENAN

In collaboration with the Nisenan, Nevada County Arts Council is mid-way through a project to identify key landmarks as part of our asset mapping for California Cultural Districts in Nevada County. 

FOREST ⇌FIRE

Forest-Fire is a touring museum-class public installation which shares the story of how our native peoples maintained our old growth forests for thousands of years, of our forests’ current ecological collapse, and of solutions to save them. 

BELONGING

This year Belonging manifests as HOME, and elicits perspectives on cultural identity from our less represented populations. Ideas of “home” are being explored through the lens of art salons, our gold country history, our recovering native population, and our recent immigrants. Critical bridge building tools are emerging through creative practices, as we meet.