![Big River California](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Big_River_California.jpg)
Buldam is a former
Pomo
The Pomo are an Indigenous people of California. Historical Pomo territory in Northern California was large, bordered by the Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to Clear Lake, and mainly between Cleone and Duncans Point. One small ...
settlement in
Mendocino County
Mendocino County (; ''Mendocino'', Spanish for "of Mendoza) is a county located on the North Coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 91,601. The county seat is Ukiah.
Mendocino County consists whol ...
,
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
.
It was located on the north bank of
Big River, near the mouth of the river and east of the present town of
Mendocino; its precise location is unknown.
Following the standard conventions of the Pomo people, in which a community of the Pomo was named by adding "-pomo" to the name of their principal site, the community at Buldam was called Buldam-pomo.
According to some Pomo sources, it was founded in around 1851 by people from the Mitom Pomo who had been driven out of Nabo and other inland valley settlements by European settlers. Its founding sparked a war between the Mitom Pomo and the Pomo from
Point Arena, possibly over ownership of the area.
However, this chronology is brought into question by other sources, who claim that cargo from the wreck of the
Frolic in 1850, roughly north of the Big River, was salvaged by Pomo from Buldam. A different story about the cause of war between the Point Arena Pomo and the Buldam Pomo involves an incident in which one of the Point Arena Pomo was poisoned.
References
Former settlements in Mendocino County, California
Former populated places in California
Lost Native American populated places in the United States
Pomo villages
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