Qualla: Forty-Five Names on a Constitution

Forty-Five Names on a Constitution: Introduction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On November 23, 1941 -- exactly one month before Pearl Harbor would redraw the nation's attention entirely -- forty-five people signed a constitution. They were the Cachil DeHe Band of Wintun Indians, and the document they ratified on their small rancheria in Colusa County, California, was both an assertion and a survival act. The Wintun had lived in the Sacramento Valley for thousands of years before Spanish missions, Gold Rush settlers, and federal policy reduced their world to a fraction of what it had been. That forty-five people remained to sign anything at all was itself remarkable. That they chose to formalize self-governance, to insist on political existence at a moment when the country was about to look away, speaks to a persistence that defines this community still.

Forty-Five Names on a Constitution: The Valley Before the Rancheria

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Wintun people -- whose name the band carries -- inhabited the western Sacramento Valley long before European contact, part of a broader network of Wintun and Patwin-speaking communities that stretched from the valley floor into the foothills of the Coast Ranges. They spoke a ...

Forty-Five Names on a Constitution: A Scrap of Land, A Formal Name

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Colusa Rancheria was established in 1907, part of a federal program that purchased small tracts of land for California Indians who had been left without reservations. The rancherias were modest by any measure -- often just a few acres, rarely the fertile valley land the commu...

Forty-Five Names on a Constitution: The Roundhouse and the Language

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1969, the tribe began building a traditional roundhouse on the rancheria -- a structure central to Wintun ceremonial life, where dances, gatherings, and spiritual practices have taken place for generations. The roundhouse was refurbished in 1993, a physical statement that cult...

Forty-Five Names on a Constitution: Building on What Remains

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Today the Colusa Indian Community is headquartered in Colusa, California, governed by its elected tribal council. The tribe operates the Colusa Casino Resort, which includes Table 45 for casual dining, 37 Seventy for fine dining, and Jack's Place bar. The casino represents someth...