Valley Nisenan (Maidu) Educator's Guide

I finally had an opportunity to sit with the binder I purchased at the Roseville Maidu Indian Museum this spring. It was created by the Effie Yeaw Nature Center and the American River Natural History Association in 1988, and the version I have was from a 2002 revision.

Main sections of the book include:

• A 32-page teacher information section (concise and very helpful)
• Toys, activities, and games
• Stories
• Worksheets
• An appendix with a partial list of Nisenan uses of plants, California Native trial areas map, chart of the ecological types of California Indians (very cool), and the Maidu food resources chart

All in all, this nearly 90 page document is helping me add to my unit on regional Native American tribes. Two primary items I hope to use next year are a collaborative model of a Nisenan village and using the stories to create Reader's Theater scripts.

You can purchase The Valley Nisenan: Educator's Guide online at the American River Historical Society website, as well as at the Maidu Indian Museum gift shop. For those in the Sacramento area, I highly recommend visiting the museum. Our field trip included the nature trail, this spring, and it was amazing! Our guide told stories under the shade of oak trees and near Bear Rock, put ochre on volunteers hands/faces next to the river, showed us a beaver lodge, and much, much more!

By the way, for parents in the area, The Maidu Interpretive Center hosts special events all summer long. We'll be bringing our children to one of the campfires/story hours, to be sure!


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Related: California Native Americans