XI
THE CENTRAL VALLEY
TEHAMA COUNTY
Tehama County lies at the extreme northern end of the great Central Valley of the state. There is a village of the same name in the county, on the Sacramento River, twelve miles southeast of Red Bluff.
The name Tehama was derived from an Indian tribe, but the meaning of it has not been ascertained. Two definitions have been offered,—“high water,” in reference to the overflowing of the Sacramento River, and “low land,” but these may be among those attempts to account for our names by making the name fit the circumstances, a method which has resulted in many errors. All that can be positively stated is that the word is of Indian origin.
COLUSA
Colusa is a county in the northern part of the Central Valley, and has a county-seat of the same name, situated on the west bank of the Sacramento River, sixty-five miles northwest of Sacramento.
This name appears as Colus on the land grant located at that place, and is said by Powers, in his Tribes of California, to be a corruption of Ko-ru-si, a tribal name, a more reasonable explanation than any other that has been offered. General Will Green, said to have known the tribe well, was of the opinion that Colusa meant “the scratchers,” in allusion to a strange custom among these people of scratching one another’s faces. While it is true that the prevalence of this custom is mentioned by the Spaniards, Captain Fages referring to it in terms of great distaste, there is no scientific corroboration of that definition for the word Colusa.