SSBMI Nisenan Storytelling Collection

The SSBMI Language Department and Exhibits & Collections Center are proud to present the SSBMI Nisenan Storytelling Collection!

Since at least the 1870s, linguists and anthropologists have worked with Nisenan speakers, including some of the Tribe's Ancestors, to record traditional narratives, personal recollections, and other stories. They went on to publish many of these stories in books that were intended for members of the academic community, while others remain unpublished and locked away in archival fieldnotes.

Today, the SSBMI Language Department and Exhibits & Collections Center are working to repackage many of these stories in a format that is more accessible to the SSBMI Tribal Membership, and to the members of the Nisenan community more broadly, as part of the SSBMI Nisenan Storytelling Collection. We published the first story, Booyéem Mowí K’ut’í Méyt’omatoy (Jackrabbit Gave Antlers to Deer), as an illustrated children's storybook in December 2023, and we are excited to share many more stories through the SSBMI Nisenan Storytelling Collection.

Please follow the links below to learn more about each story in the SSBMI Nisenan Storytelling Collection. There, you can listen to the stories, access a digital version of each storybook, view additional illustrations of each story, learn more about their original narrators, and more!

    More to come soon!

We encourage you to read these stories and to share them with your family. Whether you choose to read these stories in Nisenan or in English, by sharing them with your relations you are participating in Indigenous traditions of teaching and sharing knowledge through oral storytelling. You are actively participating in the revitalization and continuation of language and culture. Kɨɨpetím nisek’é meem! (We thank you!)

Esak’ábe mi? (Do you know?)

The SSBMI Language Department and Exhibits & Collections Center also host periodic Beeteyihí (Storytime) events, where we share traditional stories with Tribal Members and facilitate fun story activities like painting and language games! To learn more about Beeteyihí events, including to listen to these stories and see artwork that participants have created, please click here.

If you have a story that you would like to share at Beeteyihí, or if you would like to know more about these events, please contact the SSBMI Language Department at language@ssband.org and the SSBMI Exhibits & Collections Center at ecc@ssband.org.

Menekɨ́m siyéebe hedém website-í? (Who makes this website?)

This website is maintained by SSBMI Language Department staff in order to share Nisenan and Miwok language learning resources with the Tribal Membership and other learners. Our current team consists of: Jonathan Geary, Richenda Ervin, and Skye Anderson. The Nisenan and Miwok audio recordings that you will find on this website are recordings of Jonathan, Richenda, and Skye. We are all learners of the Nisenan and Miwok languages, and we hope that you will join us in learning Nisenan and Miwok too!