SSBMI Environmental Department 2025 Calendar

The SSBMI Environmental Department created a 2025 calendar for Tribal Members celebrating some of the water bodies that are important to Shingle Springs Rancheria families. They collaborated with the SSBMI Language Department to share Nisenan words & phrases in the calendar, including names for seasons, days of the week, and some village sites, rivers, and Tribal celebrations as well as words/phrases of the month.

Here, you can listen to the Nisenan language in your 2025 Momím Wadaahám calendar and learn more about the language.

English

Water is Life

Nisenan

Momím Wadaahám


Season names

English

Spring

Nisenan

Yoomén


Summer

Okomén


Fall

Topmén


Winter

Tamás


Days of the week

English

Sunday

Nisenan

Tuminkú


Monday

Wítteepay


Tuesday

Péenpay


Wednesday

Sapwíypay


Thursday

C’ɨ́ɨypay


Friday

Máawɨkpay


Saturday

Saawalú

Esak’ábe mi? (Do you know?) The practice of dividing the week into 7 days (and of dividing the year into 52 weeks) is a recent innovation, which is reflected in how Nisenan speakers name the days of the week. The words Saawalú (Saturday) and Tuminkú (Sunday) were borrowed from the Spanish words Sábado (Saturday) and Domingo (Sunday), respectively, with speakers adapting them to sound like Nisenan words.

Speakers of many Native California languages borrowed words for Saturday and Sunday from Spanish. For example, the Northern Sierra Miwok words are Sáawalu and Tumíŋku, respectively; they sound so similar to the Nisenan ones because they were borrowed from the same sources.

On the other hand, the Nisenan names for the days Monday through Friday are derived by combining the numbers 1-5 with a word-ending -pay:

wíttee 'one (1)' + -pay --> Wítteepay 'Monday'
peen 'two (2)' + -pay --> Péenpay 'Tuesday'
sapwíy 'three (3)' + -pay --> Sapwíypay 'Wednesday'
c’ɨɨy 'four (4)' + -pay --> C’ɨ́ɨypay 'Thursday'
máawɨk 'five (5)' + -pay --> Máawɨkpay 'Friday'

Using number words like this is another common strategy that speakers of Native California languages have used to name the days of the week.


Village sites

English

Kadema

Nisenan

K’ademmá


Pushune

Pusúune


Verona Marina

Wóllok


Rivers

English

American River

(literal: East Water)

Nisenan

Nótowmom


Sacramento River

(literal: West Water)

Táamom

What do you call a river? English speakers today can find a river's official English name on maps and signs. Traditionally, Nisenan people named rivers descriptively from their own perspectives. The names that we share here come from Tom Cleanso, who lived at Pusúune at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers, and they describe these rivers from his point of view: Táamom ("West Water"; Sacramento River) and Nótowmom ("East Water"; American River). Other speakers, who live in other places, have other names that describe the rivers differently.


Tribal celebrations

English

Small Time

Nisenan

Huslá


Big Time

Lumáy

Esak’ábe mi? (Do you know?) Historically, Nisenan speakers used Lumáy to name all inter-community ceremonies and celebrations, all of which were called "Big Time" in English, and Huslá to name all ceremonies and celebrations held within one community or one family, all of which were called "Small Time" in English. Communities could hold multiple of these events in a year.

Today, we use the same names Huslá and Lumáy to name the Tribe's annual Small Time and Big Time celebrations, respectively.


Words and Phrases of the Month

The calendar also features twelve words/phrases of the month, which you can listen to below in order to learn more Nisenan.

You will notice that some words that appear multiple times in this section sound different depending on whether they are alone, like mom (water), or in a sentence, like Momí sitapaypé! (Let's take care of the water!). This is because the Nisenan language has various word-endings that link words together when they are used in sentences. If you have any questions about these sentences, please reach out to the Language Department, explore this website, and stay tuned for more language learning materials!

 

JANUARY

English

Water

Nisenan

Mom


FEBRUARY

Let's take care of the water!

(said to 2+ people)

Momí sitapaypé!


MARCH

Lake

Kayé


APRIL

Earth

K’aw


MAY

River otter

Kakí


JUNE

River

Mómti


JULY

Let's take care of the rivers!

(said to 2+ people)

Mómti sitapaypé!


AUGUST

River people

Mómtim péwinan


SEPTEMBER

Fish

Palá


OCTOBER

Fisherman

P’ɨlɨpém máydɨk


NOVEMBER

Salmon

May


DECEMBER

Let's cook salmon!

(said to 2+ people)

Mayí tokispé!

Esak’ábe mi? (Do you know?) The word for river that we shared in the calendar, mómti, is specific to the Valley dialect of the Nisenan language which SSBMI Matriarch Pamela Cleanso Adams and her brother Tom Cleanso spoke. In the foothill dialects, such as Southern Hill Nisenan which SSBMI Matriarch Annie Hill Murray Paris and her relations spoke, the word for river is sew:

English

River

(Valley dialect)

Nisenan

Mómti


River

(Southern Hill dialect)

Sew

When words are strongly linked to place like these words are, the Language Department prefers to share the word that is most closely tied to a project's location. For example, you may recognize mómti from the titles of the Mómtim Péwinan exhibit at the Sacramento History Museum and Mómti Market; both of these events take place in the Sacramento Valley, and so we shared the Valley dialect word. And you may know sew from the title of the Sewín Tuulémɨsén Ha art show that took place at the Shingle Springs Rancheria; Southern Hill Nisenan has been spoken here on the lands on which the rancheria now stands since time immemorial, and so we shared the Southern Hill dialect word there.


What about month names?

While the practice of dividing the week into 7 days is new, Nisenan speakers did traditionally divide the year into month-like periods of time and we have some month names from the Tribe's close relations. For example, SSBMI Matriarch Pamela Cleanso Adams' brother Tom Cleanso called the period roughly corresponding to December Máatmen (acorn bread time), which he derived from the word maat (acorn bread).

Crucially, these periods of time do not correspond exactly to the 12 months of the Gregorian calendar. Rather, many Nisenan month names are based on natural phenomena like seasonal weather conditions, and because these conditions can differ drastically in the valley versus the lower foothills versus the higher mountains speakers from different places often disagree as to what calendar month a given month name refers to.

Additionally, the documentation of the language that we have to consult for month names contains many gaps. For example, we know what Tom Cleanso called most of the 12 months of the Gregorian calendar in Nisenan but not what he called September, October, or November. Moreover, we know that some Nisenan speakers traditionally named only the six winter months and did not distinguish other months of the year.

For these reasons, we cannot readily give any one speaker's names for all twelve months of the Gregorian calendar.


Do you want to know more?

About the calendar: This calendar was designed by the Environmental Department in collaboration with the Language Department and showcases some of the waterbodies and village sites that are special to us and the members of Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians (SSBMI).

Each month is lined with environmental facts and cultural facts in relation to the SSBMI history and ancestry. The photos in the calendar were taken by Environmental staff when conducting water quality surveys/samples on multiple waterbodies that the tribal members fish, swim, and harvest materials from. Water is sacred because it is the blood of Mother Earth, and it is important we take care of it because it is a part of our spirituality, identity, and culture.

About the language: The Nisenan language that we share is from speakers of the Valley dialect of Nisenan like SSBMI Matriarch Pamela Cleanso Adams and her brother Tom Cleanso as well as speakers of the Southern Hill dialect like William Joseph, Ida Hill Starkey, and Charlie Hunchup.

Valley Nisenan and Southern Hill Nisenan are very similar to one another in terms of their words and grammar. Aside from the differences that we noted above, all of the words and phrases that we share here are shared by or would be understood by the speakers of both dialects.

The Tribe has ancestral ties to the Nisenan language through the Tribe's Matriarchs, Pamela Cleanso Adams and Annie Hill Murray Paris. Pamela, Annie, and many of their close relations spoke Nisenan and shared their language with researchers in the early 1900s. The knowledge they shared provides us with a pathway to reconnect with the Nisenan language today. The Tribe also has significant connections to ancestral Nisenan villages like Pusúune, K’ademmá, Wóllok, and Yáales, where the Nisenan language has been spoken since time immemorial.

We hope that you will join our departments in reconnecting with this part of the Tribe's heritage. Nisenáanweypé! (Let's speak Nisenan!)

For questions, please contact the Environmental Department at mrtayaba@ssband.org or the Language Department at language@ssband.org.

Webpage last updated: 2025-01-15