Ishi

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Ishi (Template:Circa – March 25, 1916) was the last known member of the Native American Yahi people from the present-day state of California in the United States. The rest of the Yahi (as well as many members of their parent tribe, the Yana) were killed in the California genocide in the 19th century. Widely described as the "last wild Indian" in the United States, Ishi lived most of his life isolated from modern North American culture, and was the last known Native manufacturer of stone arrowheads. In 1911, aged 50, he emerged at a barn and corral, Template:Convert from downtown Oroville, California.

Ishi, which means "man" in the Yana language, is an adopted name. The anthropologist Alfred Kroeber gave him this name because in the Yahi culture, tradition demanded that he not speak his own name until formally introduced by another Yahi.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> When asked his name, he said: "I have none, because there were no people to name me", meaning that there was no other Yahi to speak his name on his behalf.

Anthropologists at the University of California, Berkeley, took Ishi in, studied him, and hired him as a janitor. He lived most of his remaining five years in a university building in San Francisco. His life was depicted and discussed in multiple films and books, notably the biographical account Ishi in Two Worlds published by Theodora Kroeber in 1961.<ref name="Fleras">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Japenga">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="nytimes-1978-TV">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=LAT>Template:Cite web</ref>

Biography

Early life

Ishi was likely born in the year 1861 within the heart of Yahi and Yana territory. At the time of Ishi's birth, the Yana were based in the Sierra Nevada Mountains area between the Pit and Feather Rivers, with the Yahi subgroup living in the southern portion. Written accounts from the 19th century suggest that the Yahi were hunter-gatherers who lived in small egalitarian bands without centralized political authority, chose to seclude themselves even from neighboring peoples, and fiercely defended their territory of mountain canyons. Like many indigenous tribes in California, the Yana and especially the Yahi suffered heavy population losses when European settlers entered their territory during the California Gold Rush of 1848–55; prior to this the Yahi probably numbered several hundred, while the total Yana in the larger region numbered around 3,000.<ref name="ucsf-Ishi-Chronology-Rockafellar"/>

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Ishi, August 29, 1911:
Deer Creek Indian
The Wild Man<ref name="Sometimes-Interesting">Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1865,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the Yahi were attacked in the Three Knolls Massacre, in which 40 of them were killed. Although 33 Yahi survived to escape, cattlemen killed about half of the survivors. The last survivors, including Ishi and his family, went into hiding for the next 44 years. Their tribe was popularly believed to be extinct.<ref name="mpress_ishi">Ishi: A Real-Life Last Of The Mohicans Template:Webarchive, Mohican Press</ref>

The gold rush brought tens of thousands of miners and settlers to northern California, putting pressure on native populations. Gold mining damaged water supplies and killed fish; deer became scarcer. The settlers brought new infectious diseases such as smallpox and measles.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The northern Yana group went extinct while the central and southern groups (who later became part of Redding Rancheria) and Yahi populations dropped dramatically. Searching for food, they came into conflict with settlers, who set bounties of 50 cents per scalp and 5 dollars per head on the natives. In 1865, settlers attacked a group of Yahi while they were asleep.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Richard Burrill wrote, in Ishi Rediscovered: Template:Blockquote

In 1908, a group of surveyors came across the camp inhabited by two men, a middle-aged woman, and an elderly woman. These were Ishi, his uncle, his mother, and a woman who was either a relative or Ishi's wife. The former three fled while the elderly woman tried to hide herself, as she was crippled and unable to flee. The surveyors ransacked the camp, taking fur capes, arrows, bows, and nets. When Ishi appeared near Oroville three years later, he was alone and communicated through mime that his three companions had all died, his uncle and mother by drowning.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

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A. L. Kroeber, Ishi<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (Cropped from: Sam Batwi, Alfred L. Kroeber, and Ishi, at Parnassus Heights in 1911) <ref name="ucsf-Ishi-Chronology-Rockafellar">Template:Cite web</ref>

Arrival into European American society

After the 1908 encounter, Ishi spent three more years in the wilderness. It is unknown exactly when the rest of his family died. Starving and alone, Ishi, at around the age of 50, emerged on August 29, 1911, at the Charles Ward<ref>Archived at Ghostarchive Template:Cbignore and the Wayback Machine Template:Cbignore: Template:Cite web Template:Cbignore</ref> slaughterhouse back corral<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> near Oroville after forest fires in the area.<ref name="nytimes-1911-09-07">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was found pre-sunset<ref name="timeanddate-sunset-oroville">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>circa 7:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.</ref> by Floyd Hefner, son of the next-door dairy owner (who was in town), who was "hanging out", and who went to harness the horses to the wagon for the ride back to Oroville, for the workers and meat deliveries.<ref name="Kessler--Oroville-Mercury-Register" >Template:Cite news</ref> Witnessing slaughterhouse workers included Lewis "Diamond Dick" Cassings, a "drugstore cowboy". When Sheriff J.B. Webber arrived, he directed Adolph Kessler, a 19-year-old slaughterhouse worker, to handcuff Ishi, who smiled and complied.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Kessler1971Interview-corob_000234a">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Archived at Ghostarchive Template:Cbignore and the Wayback Machine Template:Cbignore: Template:Cite web Template:Cbignore</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The "wild man" caught the imagination and attention of thousands of onlookers and curiosity seekers. University of California, Berkeley anthropology professors read about him and "brought him"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> to the Affiliated Colleges Museum (1903–1931),<ref name="nytimes-1911-09-07" /> in an old law school building on the University of California's Affiliated Colleges campus<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> on Parnassus Heights, San Francisco. Studied by the university,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Ishi also worked as a janitor and lived at the museum the remaining five years of his life.

In October 1911, Ishi, Sam Batwi, T. T. Waterman, and A. L. Kroeber, went to the Orpheum Opera House in San Francisco to see Lily Lena (Alice Mary Ann Mathilda Archer, born 1877),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the "London Songbird," known for "kaleidoscopic" costume changes. Lena gave Ishi a piece of gum as a token.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On May 13, 1914,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Ishi, Thomas Talbot Waterman, Alfred L. Kroeber, Saxton Pope, and Saxton Pope Jr. (11 years old), took Southern Pacific's Cascade Limited overnight train, from the Oakland Mole and Pier to Vina, California, on a trek in the homelands of the Deer Creek area of Tehama County,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> researching and mapping for the University of California,<ref name="ucsf-Ishi-Chronology-Rockafellar"/><ref name="historynet-review-return-home-burrill">Template:Cite web</ref> fleeing on May 30, 1914, during the Lassen Peak volcano eruption.

Waterman and Kroeber, director of the museum, studied Ishi closely and interviewed him at length in an effort to reconstruct Yahi culture. He described family units, naming patterns, and the ceremonies he knew. Much tradition had already been lost when he was growing up, as there were few older survivors in his group. He identified material items and showed the techniques by which they were made.

In February 1915, during the Panama–Pacific International Exposition, Ishi was filmed in the Sutro Forest with the actress Grace Darling for Hearst-Selig News Pictorial, No. 30.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In June 1915, for three months,<ref name="ucsf-Ishi-Chronology-Rockafellar"/> Ishi lived in Berkeley with Waterman and his family.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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Ishi, 1912

In the summer of 1915,<ref name="ucsf-Ishi-Chronology-Rockafellar"/> Ishi was interviewed on his native Yana language, which was recorded and studied by the linguist Edward Sapir, who had previously done work on the northern dialects.<ref name="Sapir-AmAnthr-1916">Template:Cite journal</ref> These wax cylinders have had the sound recovered by Carl Haber's and Vitaliy Fadeyev's optical IRENE technology.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="IRENE-alumni.berkeley.edu">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Death

Lacking acquired immunity to common diseases, Ishi was often ill. He was treated by Pope, a professor of medicine at UCSF. Pope became a close friend of Ishi, and learned from him how to make bows and arrows in the Yahi way. He and Ishi often hunted together. Ishi died of tuberculosis on March 25, 1916.<ref name="obit-Sausalito-News">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="sfChronicleArchive1916">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="obit-Journal-Herald-Delaware-Ohio">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="obit1916-western-sentinel">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It is said that his last words were, "You stay. I go."<ref name="Starr2002">Template:Cite book</ref> Kroeber, who was in New York at the time of Ishi's death, tried to prevent an autopsy on his body, sending letters and telegrams strongly stating his objections. He believed Yahi tradition called for the body to remain intact. But Pope performed the autopsy, per hospital protocol.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Ishi's brain was preserved and his body cremated, in the mistaken belief that cremation was the traditional Yahi practice. His friends placed several items with his remains before cremation: "one of his bows, five arrows, a basket of acorn meal, a boxfull of shell bead money, a purse full of tobacco, three rings, and some obsidian flakes." Ishi's remains, in a deerskin-wrapped Pueblo Indian pottery jar, were interred at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Colma, California, near San Francisco.<ref name="NPS">"Ishi's Hiding Place", Butte County Template:Webarchive, A History of American Indians in California: Historic Sites, National Park Service, 2004, accessed November 5, 2010</ref> Kroeber sent Ishi's preserved brain to the Smithsonian Institution in 1917. It was held there until August 10, 2000, when the Smithsonian repatriated it to the descendants of the Redding Rancheria and Pit River tribes. This was in accordance with the National Museum of the American Indian Act of 1989 (NMAI).<ref name="SFC">Template:Cite web</ref> According to Robert Fri, director of the National Museum of Natural History, "Contrary to commonly-held belief, Ishi was not the last of his kind. In carrying out the repatriation process, we learned that as a Yahi–Yana Indian his closest living descendants are the Yana people of northern California."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> His remains were also returned from Colma, and the tribal members intended to bury them in a secret place.<ref name="SFC" />

Archery

Ishi used thumb draw and release with his short bows.<ref name="archerylibrary/Pope/1923/chapter02_2">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="thebicyclingguitarist/ishi/bow">Template:Cite web</ref>

Possible multi-ethnicity

File:Ishi 1914.jpg

Ishi with fire drill, 1914, Parnassus Heights

Steven Shackley of UC Berkeley learned in 1994 of a paper by Jerald Johnson, who noted morphological evidence that Ishi's facial features and height were more typical of the Wintu and Maidu. He theorized that under pressure of diminishing populations, members of groups that were once enemies had intermarried to survive. Johnson also referred to oral histories of the Wintu and Maidu that told of the tribes' intermarrying with the Yahi.<ref name="Shackley"/> The theory is still debated, and this remains unresolved.

In 1996, Shackley announced work based on a study of Ishi's projectile points and those of the northern tribes. He had found that points made by Ishi were not typical of those recovered from historical Yahi sites. Because Ishi's production was more typical of points of the Nomlaki or Wintu tribes, and markedly dissimilar to those of Yahi, Shackley suggested that Ishi had been of mixed ancestry, and related to and raised among members of another of the tribes.<ref name="Shackley">Template:Cite web</ref> He based his conclusion on a study of the points made by Ishi, compared to others held by the museum from the Yahi, Nomlaki and Wintu cultures.

Among Ishi's techniques was the use of what is known as an Ishi stick, used to run long pressure flakes.<ref name="Hunter">Template:Cite web</ref> This is known to be a traditional technique of the Nomlaki and Wintu tribes. Shackley suggests that Ishi learned the skill directly from a male relative of one of those tribes. These people lived in small bands, close to the Yahi. They were historically competitors with and enemies of the Yahi.<ref name="Hunter"/>

Similar case

Ishi's story has been compared to that of Ota Benga, an Mbuti pygmy from Congo. His family had died and were not given a mourning ritual. He was taken from his home and culture. During one period, he was displayed as a zoo exhibit. Ota shot himself in the heart with a borrowed pistol on March 20, 1916, five days before Ishi's death.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Legacy and honors

The Last Yahi Indian Historical landmark, Oro Quincy Highway & Oak Avenue, Oroville, CA 95966<ref name="ohp.parks.ca.gov-809">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="noehill-cal0809">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Ishi is revered by flintknappers as probably one of the last two native stone toolmakers in North America. His techniques are widely imitated by knappers. Ethnographic accounts of his toolmaking are considered to be the Rosetta Stone of lithic tool manufacture.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Kroeber and Waterman's 148 wax cylinder recordings (totaling 5 hours and 41 minutes) of Ishi speaking, singing, and telling stories in the Yahi language were selected by the Library of Congress as a 2010 addition to the National Recording Registry. This is an annual selection of recordings that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Writer and critic Gerald Vizenor led a campaign to have the courtyard in Dwinelle Hall at the University of California, Berkeley renamed as "Ishi Court".<ref name="Lee2000">Template:Cite book</ref>
The Ishi Wilderness Area in northeastern California, believed to be the ancestral grounds of his tribe, is named in his honor.
Ishi Giant, an exceptionally large giant sequoia discovered by naturalist Dwight M. Willard in 1993, is named in his honor.
Ishi was the subject of a portrait relief sculpture by Thomas Marsh in his 1990 work, Called to Rise, featuring twenty such panels of noteworthy San Franciscans, on the facade of the 25-story high-rise at 235 Pine Street, San Francisco.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Anthropologists at the University of California, Berkeley wrote a letter in 1999 apologizing for Ishi's treatment.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Representation in popular culture

Films

Ishi: The Last of His Tribe, aired December 20, 1978, on NBC, with Eloy Casados as Ishi, written by Christopher Trumbo and Dalton Trumbo, and directed by Robert Ellis Miller.<ref name=venturabreeze>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Last of His Tribe (1992), with Graham Greene as Ishi, is a Home Box Office movie.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Ishi: The Last Yahi (1993), is a documentary film by Jed Riffe.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Ishi: The Last Yahi (1992) documentary synopsis</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In Search of History: Ishi, the Last of His Kind (1998), television documentary about him.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Literature

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- daughter-in-law of "One-Eyed" Jack Apperson, who in 1908, sacked Ishi's Yahi village
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Kroeber wrote about Ishi in two books:
- Template:Cite book<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
  - A mass-market, second-hand account of Ishi's life story, published in 1961, after the death of her husband Alfred, who had worked with Ishi, but had refused to write or talk about him.
- Ishi: Last of His Tribe. Illus. Ruth Robbins. (1964). Parnassus Press,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Berkeley, California.
  - a juvenile fiction version of his life.<ref name="nytimes-1964-Books">Template:Cite news</ref>
- Ishi the Last Yahi: A Documentary History (1981), edited by Robert Heizer and Theodora Kroeber, contains additional scholarly materials<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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Novels

Othmar Franz Lang. Meine Spur löscht der Fluss<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> (young adult novel in German)
Lawrence Holcomb. The Last Yahi: A Novel About Ishi.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Stage productions

Ishi (2008), a play written and directed by John Fisher, was performed from July 3–27, 2008, at Theatre Rhinoceros in San Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle review said the work "is a fierce dramatic indictment of the ugliest side of California history."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Music

Depicted in the video for "Blue Train Lines," a song by Mount Kimbie and King Krule. The video follows the story of the two anthropologists falling out. One proceeds to sell all of Ishi's possessions on eBay.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Comics

Osamu Tezuka: The story of Ishi the primitive man, (first appeared in Weekly-Shonen-Sunday, Shogakkan in Japan, issue of October 20, 1975, total 44 pages).

References

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External links

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Richard Burrill. "Synopsis of Ishi's Life" Template:Webarchive, Ishi Facts Website
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Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology

"A Compromise between Science and Sentiment: A Report on Ishi's Treatment at the University of California, 1911–1916", University of California, San Francisco
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Template:Cite web (photos of Ishi and tools made)
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Metadata

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