Ishi

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Lore & Background

Ishi, which means "man" in the Yana language, is an adopted name given by anthropologist Alfred Kroeber because in Yahi culture tradition demanded that he not speak his own name until formally introduced by another Yahi. When asked his name, he said: "I have none, because there were no people to name me." He was likely born in 1861 within Yahi and Yana territory. The Yahi were hunter-gatherers who lived in small egalitarian bands without centralized political authority, secluded themselves even from neighboring peoples, and fiercely defended their territory of mountain canyons. Prior to the California Gold Rush of 1848–55 the Yahi probably numbered several hundred, while the total Yana numbered around 3,000. In 1865, 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. 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 wife of Ishi's. The former three fled while the elderly woman tried to hide herself, as she was disabled 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.

In Their Own Story

After the 1908 encounter, Ishi spent three more years in the wilderness. Starving and alone, at around age 50, he emerged on August 29, 1911, at a slaughterhouse near Oroville after forest fires in the area. The sheriff had Ishi handcuffed; he smiled and complied. The "wild man" caught the imagination of thousands of onlookers and curiosity seekers. University of California, Berkeley anthropology professors read about him and "brought him" to the Affiliated Colleges Museum in an old law school building on the Affiliated Colleges campus on Parnassus Heights, San Francisco. Studied by the university, 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, the "London Songbird," who gave Ishi a piece of gum as a token. On May 13, 1914, 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, researching and mapping for the University of California, fleeing on May 30, 1914, during the Lassen Peak volcano eruption. Waterman and Kroeber 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. 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. In June 1915, for three months, Ishi lived in Berkeley with Waterman and his family. In the summer of 1915, Ishi was interviewed on his native Yana language, which was recorded on wax cylinders and studied by linguist Edward Sapir.

Reader's Guide

Ishi died of tuberculosis on March 25, 1916. It is said that his last words were, "You stay. I go." 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. 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. 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, in accordance with the National Museum of the American Indian Act of 1989. 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." His remains were also returned from Colma, and the tribal members intended to bury them in a secret place.

Did You Know?

• Ishi's name means 'man' in the Yana language, and was given by anthropologist Alfred Kroeber because tradition forbade him from speaking his own name until formally introduced by another Yahi.
• When asked his name, Ishi said: 'I have none, because there were no people to name me.'
• In 1865, 40 Yahi were killed in the Three Knolls Massacre; 33 survived but cattlemen killed about half of them.
• Ishi's last words were reportedly 'You stay. I go.'
• Ishi's brain was preserved and sent to the Smithsonian in 1917, and was repatriated to the Redding Rancheria and Pit River tribes on August 10, 2000.