Ishi

For other uses, see Ishi (disambiguation).

Ishi (c. 1861 – 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. Ishi, who was widely described as the "last wild Indian" in the United States, lived most of his life isolated from modern North American culture. In 1911, aged 50, he emerged at a barn and corral, 2 mi (3.2 km) from downtown Oroville, California.

Ishi
Born	c. 1861 Northern California Sierra Foothills, U.S.
Died	March 25, 1916 (age 55–56) University of California, San Francisco, U.S.^[1]
Occupation	Janitor

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.^[2] 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.

Ishi was taken in by anthropologists at the University of California, Berkeley, who both 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.^[3][4][5][6]

Biography

Early life

 

Ishi, August 29, 1911:
Deer Creek Indian
The Wild Man^[7]

In 1865,^[8] The Yahi were attacked in the Three Knolls Massacre, in which 40 of their members 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.^[9] Prior to the California Gold Rush of 1848–1855, the Yahi population probably numbered several hundred, while the total Yana in the larger region numbered around 3,000.^[10]

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 more scarce. The settlers brought new infectious diseases such as smallpox and measles.^[11] The northern Yana group became 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, white settlers attacked a group of Yahi while they were still asleep.^[12]

Richard Burrill wrote, in Ishi Rediscovered:

"In 1865, near the Yahi's special place, Black Rock, the waters of Mill Creek turned red at the Three Knolls Massacre. 'Sixteen' or 'seventeen' Indian fighters killed about forty Yahi, as part of a retaliatory attack for two white women and a man killed at the Workman's household on Lower Concow Creek near Oroville. Eleven of the Indian fighters that day were Robert A. Anderson, Harmon (Hi) Good, Sim Moak, Hardy Thomasson, Jack Houser, Henry Curtis, his brother Frank Curtis, as well as Tom Gore, Bill Matthews, and William Merithew. W. J. Seagraves visited the site, too, but some time after the battle had been fought.

Robert Anderson wrote, "Into the stream they leaped, but few got out alive. Instead many dead bodies floated down the rapid current." One captive Indian woman named Mariah from Big Meadows (Lake Almanor today), was one of those who did escape. The Three Knolls massacre is also described in Theodora Kroeber's Ishi in Two Worlds.

Since then more has been learned. It is estimated that with this massacre, Ishi's entire cultural group, the Yana/Yahi, may have been reduced to about sixty individuals. From 1859 to 1911, Ishi's remote band became more and more infiltrated by non-Yahi Indian representatives, such as Wintun, Nomlaki, and Pit River individuals.

In 1879, the federal government started Indian boarding schools in California. Some men from the reservations became renegades in the hills. Volunteers among the settlers and military troops carried out additional campaigns against the northern California Indian tribes during that period.^[13]

In late 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. ^[14]

 

A. L. Kroeber, Ishi^[15] (Cropped from: Sam Batwai, Alfred L. Kroeber, and Ishi, at Parnassus Heights in 1911) ^[10]

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^[16] slaughterhouse back corral^[17] near Oroville, California, after forest fires in the area.^[18][19] He was found pre-sunset^[20][21] 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.^[22] Witnessing slaughterhouse workers included Lewis "Diamond Dick" Cassings, a "drugstore cowboy". Later, after Sheriff J.B. Webber arrived, the Sheriff directed Adolph Kessler, a nineteen-year-old slaughterhouse worker, to handcuff Ishi, who smiled and complied.^{[23][24][25][26][27][28]}

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"^[29] to the Affiliated Colleges Museum (1903–1931),^[18] in an old law school building on the University of California's Affiliated Colleges campus^[30] on Parnassus Heights, San Francisco. Studied by the university,^[31] 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)^{[32][33][34][35]} the "London Songbird," known for "kaleidoscopic" costume changes. Lena gave Ishi a piece of gum as a token.^[36]

On May 13, 1914,^[37] Ishi, T. T. Waterman, A.L. Kroeber, Dr. 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,^[38] researching and mapping for the University of California,^[10][39] fleeing on May 30, 1914, during the Lassen Peak volcano eruption.

T.T. Waterman and A.L. Kroeber, director of the museum, studied Ishi closely over the years and interviewed him at length in an effort to reconstruct Yahi culture. He described family units, naming patterns, and the ceremonies that 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.^[40][41]

In June 1915, for three months,^[10] Ishi lived in Berkeley with the anthropologist Thomas Talbot Waterman and his family.^[42]

 

Ishi, 1912

In the summer of 1915,^[10] 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.^[43] These wax cylinders have had their sound recovered by Carl Haber's and Vitaliy Fadeyev's optical IRENE technology.^{[44][45][46][47]}

Death

Lacking acquired immunity to common diseases, Ishi was often ill. He was treated by Saxton T. 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.^{[48][49][1][50][51]} It is said that his last words were, "You stay. I go."^[52] Kroeber, who was in New York at the time of Ishi's final illness, 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. However, Saxton Pope, following hospital protocol, performed the autopsy regardless.

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.^[53] 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).^[54] 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."^[55] His remains were also returned from Colma, and the tribal members intended to bury them in a secret place.^[54]

Archery

Ishi used thumb draw and release with his short bows.^{[56][57][58][59][60][61][excessive citations]}

Possible multi-ethnicity

 

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.^[62] 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.^[62] 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.^[63] 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.^[63]

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 on March 20, 1916, five days before Ishi's death.^[64]

Legacy and honors

• The Last Yahi Indian Historical landmark, Oro Quincy Highway & Oak Avenue, Oroville, CA 95966^[65][66][67]
• 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.^[68]
• 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".^[69]
• 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".^[70]
• 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.^[71]
• Anthropologists at the University of California, Berkeley wrote a letter in 1999 apologizing for Ishi's treatment.^[72]

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.^[73][74]
• The Last of His Tribe (1992), with Graham Greene as Ishi, is a Home Box Office movie.^[75][76]
• Ishi: The Last Yahi (1993), is a documentary film by Jed Riffe.^[77][78][79]
• In Search of History: Ishi, the Last of His Kind (1998), television documentary about him.^[80]

Literature

• Apperson, Eva Marie Englent (1971). "We Knew Ishi". Red Bluff, California: Walker Lithograph Co.
  • daughter-in-law of "One-Eyed" Jack Apperson, who in 1908, sacked Ishi's Yahi village
• Collins, David R.; Bergren, Kristen (2000). Ishi: The Last of His People. Greensboro, NC: Morgan Reynolds. ISBN 978-1-883846-54-1. OCLC 43520986. (Young Adult Biography)^[81]
• Kroeber wrote about Ishi in two books:
  • Kroeber, Theodora; Kroeber, Karl (2002). Ishi in Two Worlds: a biography of the last wild Indian in North America. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-22940-2. OCLC 50805975.^[82]
    • 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,^[83][84] Berkeley, California.
    • a juvenile fiction version of his life.^[85]
  • Ishi the Last Yahi: A Documentary History (1981), edited by Robert Heizer and Theodora Kroeber, contains additional scholarly materials^[86]
• Merton, Thomas (1976). Ishi Means Man. Unicorn keepsake series. Vol. 8. Greensboro, N.C.: Unicorn Press.

Novels

• Othmar Franz Lang. Meine Spur löscht der Fluss^[87] (young adult novel in German)
• Lawrence Holcomb. The Last Yahi: A Novel About Ishi.^[88]

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."^[89]

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.^[90]

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).

See also

• Ishi Wilderness, Yahi tribe lands, now a wilderness area located in the Lassen National Forest
• Juana Maria, the last known member of the Nicoleño tribe
• Man of the Hole, the last known member of an uncontacted tribe
• Shanawdithit and Demasduit, the last known Beothuk
• Uncontacted peoples

Further reading

• Burrill, Richard L. (1983). Ishi: America's Last Stone Age Indian. Anthro Company. ISBN 978-1-878464-01-9.
• Burrill, Richard L. (2001). Ishi Rediscovered. Anthro Company. ISBN 978-1-878464-51-4.
• Burrill, Richard L. (2004). Ishi in His Second World: The Untold Story of Ishi in Oroville. Anthro Company. ISBN 978-1-878464-63-7.^[91][92] Ishi in Oroville, eight days and seven nights, August 28 to September 4, 1911.
• Burrill, Richard L. (2011). Ishi's Untold Story in His First World, Parts I & II. Red Bluff, Calif.: The Anthro Company. ISBN 978-1-878464-27-9.^[93][94]
• Burrill, Richard L. (2014). Ishi's Return Home: The 1914 Anthropological Expedition Story. Anthro Company. ISBN 978-1-878464-36-1.
  • "All ten original sketch maps and daily field note records...from the Bancroft Library..."
• Johnston-Dodds, Kimberly (2002). Early California Laws and Policies Related to California Indians. California State Library, California Research Bureau.^[95]
  • A report prepared at the request of Senator John L. Burton to the California Research Bureau that focused on four examples of early State of California laws and policies that significantly impacted the California Indians' way of life.
• Johnston-Dodds, Kimberly A. (2009). Bearing Archival Witness to Euro-American Violence Against California Indians, 1847–1866: Decolonizing Northern California Indian Historiography (PDF). California State University, Sacramento. Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master Of Arts in History (Public History)
• Kroeber, Karl; Kroeber, Clifton, eds. (2003). Ishi in three centuries. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-2250-2.^[96]
  • includes essays by Native Americans.
• Redman, Samuel J. (2016). Bone rooms: from scientific racism to human prehistory in museums. Cambridge, Massachusetts. ISBN 978-0674660410.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)^[97]
• Pope, Saxton T. (March 6, 1918). "Yahi Archery: An article on how Ishi, the last Yana indian, practiced archery: how he made his bow, his arrows, flaked arrow points, his method of shooting, how he hunted, etc". University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology. 13 (3): 103–152.
• Pope, Saxton T. (1923). Hunting with the Bow & Arrow. James H. Barry Company.
• Pope, Saxton T.. Hunting with the Bow and Arrow at Project Gutenberg
  • includes discussion about Ishi
• Pope, Saxton T. (December 1, 1974). "Hunting With Ishi – The Last Yana Indian". The Journal of California Anthropology. 1 (2).
• Starn, Orin (2004). Ishi's Brain: In Search of America's Last 'Wild' Indian (1st ed.). New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-05133-1.
  • recounts the author's quest to find the remains of Ishi. (In 2000, Ishi's brain was returned to the closest related tribes, who placed it with his cremated remains.)
• Vizenor, Gerald (2001). "Ishi Obscura". Hastings West Northwest J. Of Envtl. L. & Pol'y. 7 (3).
• Waterman, Thomas Talbot (January 1915). "The Last Wild Tribe of California". Popular Science Monthly. Vol. 86. pp. 233–244.
• Waterman, Thomas Talbot (1917). "Ishi, The Last Yahi Indian". The Southern Workman. Hampton, Virginia: Press of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. 46: 528–537. Retrieved February 11, 2021.
  •   Ishi, the Last Yahi Indian public domain audiobook at LibriVox
  •   Short Nonfiction Collection Vol. 026 public domain audiobook at LibriVox (2012).

References

1. "Ishi, Last of Old Tribe, Dies". Sausalito News. Vol. 32, no. 14. Sausalito, California: California Digital Newspaper Collection. April 1, 1916. from the original on December 9, 2022. Retrieved February 11, 2021. Sitting upon the side of his cot in the insane cell, Ishi, uncertain of his fate, answered "ulsi" (I don't understand) in the language of his tribe, to a broadside of questions in Spanish, English and half a dozen Indian languages. A few weeks later he was taken in charge by the department of anthropology and became a "scientific specimen" at the museum and later assistant janitor.
2. "ISHI: A Real-Life The Last Of The Mohicans". mohicanpress.com. from the original on March 3, 2021. Retrieved February 1, 2015.
3. Fleras, Augie (2006). "Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America". Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. 27 (3): 265–268. doi:10.1080/01434630608668780. S2CID 216112743.
4. Japenga, Ann (August 29, 2003). "Revisiting Ishi". Los Angeles Times. from the original on December 15, 2019. Retrieved January 31, 2019.
5. O'Connor, John J. (December 20, 1978). "TV: 'Ishi,' a Chronicle Of the Yahi Indian Tribe". New York Times. from the original on April 22, 2019. Retrieved January 30, 2019.
6. Higgins, Bill (March 20, 1992). "Makers of HBO's 'Tribe' Given a Warm Reception". The Los Angeles Times. from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved February 18, 2019.
7. O'Dell, Cary (April 4, 2015). . Sometimes Interesting. Archived from the original on December 1, 2020. Retrieved February 15, 2021.
8. "Butte". CA State Parks. from the original on October 23, 2017. Retrieved February 8, 2021.
9. Ishi: A Real-Life Last Of The Mohicans March 3, 2021, at the Wayback Machine, Mohican Press
10. Rockafellar, Nancy. "The Story of Ishi: A Chronology". A History of UCSF. from the original on July 4, 2018. Retrieved February 13, 2021. Yahi translator Sam Batwai, Alfred L. Kroeber, and Ishi, photographed at Parnassus in 1911...Deer Creek area of Tehama county...December 10, 1914 to Feb. 1, 1915: Ishi hospitalized for 62 days, First Tubercular Diagnosis in early 1915. Summer 1915: Linguistics work with Edward Sapir; Ishi stays with Watermans at Berkeley for three months and is "carefully looked after." August 22, 1915: Ishi hospitalized for six weeks, then moved to the Museum of Anthropology.
11. "Ishi". biography.yourdictionary.com. from the original on October 22, 2018. Retrieved July 21, 2018.
12. Thornton, Russell (292). American Indian Holocaust and Survival. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 110. ISBN 978-0806122205.
13. Burrill, Richard (2001). Ishi Rediscovered. Barron's art guides, Anthro Company. ISBN 978-1878464514.
14. Kamiya, Gary (September 6, 2014). "Ishi, last 'wild' Indian, found refuge in S.F." SFGate.com. from the original on November 16, 2020. Retrieved February 14, 2021. In the late 1860s, when Ishi was a small boy, a rancher named Norman Kingsley and three other whites shot 30 Yahi, including babies and young children, in a cave on Mill Creek. In the midst of the slaughter, Kingsley exchanged his .56 Spencer rifle for a .38-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver, because the rifle "tore them up so bad," especially the babies.
15. Kroeber, Alfred Louis Kroeber (September 8, 1911). "The Indian Ishi". Foundations of Anthropology at the University of California. bancroft.berkeley.edu. from the original on October 23, 2019. Retrieved February 11, 2021. In these notes, Kroeber summarized what was known of Ishi just four days after his discovery.
16. Archived at Ghostarchive and the : Burrill, Richard (December 6, 2009). "Ishi Discovery Site, at the Charles Ward Slaughterhouse, Oroville, CA". youtube. Retrieved February 11, 2021.
17. "sc26402: Ward's Slaughterhouse on Quincy Road, Oroville, California. Where Ishi was found. in the center of the photo there is a dog lying down in front of the fence". Northeastern California Historical Photograph Collection. Meriam Library. California State University, Chico. from the original on December 8, 2022. Retrieved February 11, 2021.
18. "Find a Rare Aborigine; Scientists Obtain Valuable Tribal Lore from Southern Yahi Indian". The New York Times. San Francisco. September 6, 1911. from the original on February 26, 2021. Retrieved September 2, 2012.
19. Smith, Terria (December 6, 2011). "One hundred years with Ishi, the "last wild Indian" of North America". KALW Crosscurrents on sfgate. sfgate.com. from the original on December 7, 2011. Retrieved February 13, 2021.
20. "Sunrise and sunset times in Oroville, August 2021". Time and Date AS. Stavanger, Norway. from the original on September 28, 2022. Retrieved February 15, 2021.
21. circa 7:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
22. Kessler, Adolph (April 18, 2006). "Taken from the Butte County Historical Society Diggin's". Oroville Mercury-Register. from the original on December 8, 2022. Retrieved February 11, 2021. The Sheriff handed me a pair of handcuffs and told me (Adolph Kessler) to put them on him, and to hang on to him. Ishi made no attempt to run or resist the handcuffs but seemed very pleased. At no time did he seem to be real scared but he did a lot of smiling. He did not try to run away or get excited. The Sheriff put him in the buggy, accompanied by Constable John Toland and took him to the county jail. (Excerpts of article submitted by The Lady of Butte County, Alberta Tracy, with permission of the Butte County Historical Society (Vol. 5 No. 4))
23. "Ad Kessler Interview". California Revealed. californiarevealed.org. from the original on December 8, 2022. Retrieved February 11, 2021.
24. Swartzlow, Ruby (March 26, 1971). "Ad Kessler Interview: Discussion of Ishi and his appearance at the slaughterhouse in August 1911". Oroville, CA: Butte County Library. Retrieved February 11, 2021. via: archive.org
25. Archived at Ghostarchive and the : Lynch, Lee (March 14, 2014). "Discovery of Ishi, the Last of His Tribe". YouTube. Retrieved February 14, 2021. Adolph Kessler recounts his discovery of Ishi, the last Yahi Indian, at the Oroville slaughter house in 1911. Video-taped in 1973 at Red Bluff High School.
26. "sc3643: Ishi on the day of his discovery at the Oroville slaughter house by Adolph Kessler". Northeastern California Historical Photograph Collection. Meriam Library. California State University, Chico. from the original on December 8, 2022. Retrieved February 11, 2021.
27. Brown, David Brown; Leek, Nancy Leek; Reifschneider-Smith, Josie Reifschneider-Smith; Womack, Ron Womack (eds.). Conversations With The Past: Vibrant Voices From Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Modoc, Plumas, Shasta And Tehama Counties. Association For Northern California Historical Research. from the original on January 23, 2021. Retrieved February 11, 2021. These memories range from personal accounts about the Bidwells, family cattle drives, early days in Paradise and Chico, hitching canoe rides on riverboat barges, Chico's first teenage aviator, the discovery of Ishi in Oroville, western Colusa County Indian life and John Bidwell's explorations, herding geese (it's not what you might think it is), pioneer life in Orland and Newville including feuding Civil War veterans, memories of Modoc County, the town of Prattville and Big Meadows before Lake Almanor flooded the areas, railroad torpedoes, and President Kennedy's visit to Lassen Volcanic National Park in 1963.
28. . California Museum. Archived from the original on September 16, 2011. Retrieved February 13, 2021.
29. "Butte County Sheriff Letter of Transfer 4 September 1911". Foundations of Anthropology at the University of California. bancroft.berkeley.edu. from the original on October 23, 2019. Retrieved February 11, 2021. Butte County Sheriff: Ishi's Letter of Transfer J. B. Weber Sheriff W. H. White. Under-Sheriff of Butte County Oroville Cal., Sept. 4th, 1911 Received of Sheriff J.B. Webber of Butte county the person of an elderly Yana Indian, name and place of residence at present unknown, recently taken under the protection of the County of Butte, said person to be taken to the Univrrsity of California for linguistic and phonetic study. The welfare and comfort of this said person to be duly looked after until the disposition of his case by proper authority. Instructor and Assistant Curator University of California.
30. "History of UCSF". UC San Francisco. from the original on July 29, 2019. Retrieved February 11, 2021.
31. "Ishi Host at Reception to Indian Maids". The Call. San Francisco, CA: National Endowment for the Humanities. August 26, 1912. p. 14. from the original on December 8, 2022. Retrieved February 11, 2021. In addition to making fire for their edification Ishi sang several Indian songs for them. The particular songs they had never heard before, and they sang him one or two of their own tribal tunes in return. Whether they were love songs is an open question, but Ishi refused to smile at any time the rest of the day.
32. "Lily Lena (Alice Mary Ann Mathilda Archer)". National Portrait Gallery, London. from the original on September 1, 2023. Retrieved February 14, 2021.
33. Kroeber, Karl; Kroeber, Clifton B. (2003). Ishi in Three Centuries. U of Nebraska Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-8032-2757-6. from the original on August 5, 2023. Retrieved February 14, 2021. The climactic moment of the evening is Ishi's introduction to 'the silvery voiced and fascinating Orpheum headliner, Lily Lena of the London music halls.'
34. "Lily Lena Heads Orpheum Bill: English Singer and New Ballet Are Features of the Big Program". The Call. Vol. 108, no. 33. San Francisco. July 3, 1910. from the original on September 12, 2023. Retrieved February 14, 2021 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
35. Shaw, Kenneth (January 11, 2013). "Lily Lena's song, 'Have You Got Another Girl at Home Like Mary?' 1908". Footlight Notes. from the original on September 1, 2023. Retrieved February 14, 2021.
36. Wallace, Grant. "Ishi, the Last Aboriginal Savage in America Finds Enchantment in Vaudville Show". Sunday Call Magazine. San Francisco. from the original on December 8, 2022. Retrieved February 14, 2021.
37. Burrill, Richard. . ishifacts.com. Archived from the original on March 11, 2022. Retrieved February 15, 2021. On the evening of May 13, 1914, Ishi and his friends depart from the massive Oakland Mole railroad station, on Southern Pacific's Cascade Limited "overnight" passenger train. Their destination is Vina, in Tehama County, California, located 114 miles north of Sacramento. Ishi becomes the lead guide for a trip into the rugged and remote Yahi foothill country. They experience, in all, nineteen days of adventure, turmoil, challenges, discoveries, and some resolution. The group remains in the foothill country until the evening of May 30, 1914, when the sleeping volcano, Lassen Peak, awakens and starts erupting!
38. "Vina to Oro Quincy Highway & Oak Avenue". google maps. from the original on August 5, 2023. Retrieved February 13, 2021.
39. Staff (November 25, 2014). "Book Review: Ishi's Return Home, by Richard Burrill". HistoryNet. from the original on October 23, 2015. Retrieved February 13, 2021. One of the demons Ishi had to confront was the expedition's packer, "One-Eyed Jack" Apperson, who in 1908 was a Vina rancher who helped discover and sack Ishi's Yahi village...Along the way Ishi demonstrated his stone toolmaking ability, and the anthropologists documented his skills as a craftsman, fisherman and bow hunter. Ishi came to confide in Saxton Pope Jr., once telling the boy he "heard his family members calling him." Whatever ghosts there were, Ishi seemed to deal with them just fine.
40. Selig Polyscope Company (April 15, 1915). "Hearst-Selig News Pictorial, No. 30". IMDb. from the original on July 4, 2021. Retrieved February 15, 2021. San Francisco: Grace Darling visits Ishi, the famous old chief, last of the California Indians who has been an object of scientific study.
41. Olsson, Jan (2007). "7. "Whizz! Bang! Smash!" – Hearst, Girls, and Formats". Los Angeles Before Hollywood: Journalism and American Film Culture, 1905 to 1915. National Library of Sweden. pp. 289–292. ISBN 978-91-88468-06-2. from the original on September 1, 2023. Retrieved February 15, 2021. In the depths of Sutro Forest she (Grace Darling) had an encounter with Ishi, "the wild man, the primitive being who was captured in the remote wilderness of the Sierras by the scientific experts." The Los Angeles Examiner again depicted Darling's activities in registers embracing the wonders of modernity, giving her report on the alleged primitive a racist slant by treating Ishi as an exhibit. "From the last word in twentieth century mechanism to the crude beginnings of primitive life went Grace Darling today." The reporter from the Examiner vicariously translated Ishi's emotions: "All the gallantry that slumbers in the breast of the cave man awakened in Ishi when he met his fair visitor." (Los Angeles Examiner, 18 February 1915, I:8.)
42. Ishi in Two Worlds, 50th Anniversary Edition. University of California Press. from the original on July 21, 2018. Retrieved August 28, 2012.
43. Sapir, Edward (1916). "Terms of Relationship and the Levirate". American Anthropologist. 18 (3): 327–337. doi:10.1525/aa.1916.18.3.02a00030. Retrieved February 11, 2021. ...himself is not named so as to refer to the levirate, it is highly significant as indicative of this custom that he was said by Ishi to address his wife's children as his own children, thus implying a potential fatherhood in himself...
44. . Examples and Comparisons of 3D Optical Scans and Stylus Playback. IRENE/3D optical scanning project. August 31, 2011. Archived from the original on October 6, 2015. Retrieved February 13, 2021.
45. "To Hear History: High-Tech Project Will Restore Recorded Native Americans Voices". Cal Alumni Association. August 27, 2015. from the original on April 21, 2021. Retrieved February 13, 2021. Among its best known is Ishi's retelling of the Story of Wood Duck, the only recording of the extinct Yahi language. Ishi was recorded between 1911 and 1914 by Berkeley anthropologist T.T. Waterman, who began translating the story but didn't finish because the fuzzy sound quality made the words too difficult to discern.
46. "Sound Check: Berkeley Rescuer of Old Recordings Garners MacArthur "Genius Grant"". Cal Alumni Association. October 23, 2013. from the original on September 21, 2020. Retrieved February 13, 2021. The new technique, developed by Berkeley Lab physicist Carl Haber, goes back to the sound's source: It takes high-res images of the wax cylinders' ridges
47. Haber, Carl. . Sound Reproduction R & D. Archived from the original on April 6, 2016. Retrieved February 13, 2021. Currently the research centers around two efforts. IRENE (top image above) is a scanning machine for disc records which images with microphotography in two dimensions (2D). It is under evaluation at the Library of Congress. For cylinder media, with vertical cut groove, and to obtain more detailed measurements of discs, a three dimensional (3D) scanner is under development (bottom image). It is planned to begin evaluating this device at the Library of Congress in 2009.
48. Miller, Johnny (March 16, 2016). "Items have been culled from The Chronicle's archives of 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago". San Francisco Chronicle. from the original on December 9, 2022. Retrieved February 11, 2021. Thin, hungry and clad only in a cast-off undershirt, Ishi was discovered in August 1911, at a slaughterhouse four miles from Oroville. A few weeks later he was taken in charge by the department of anthropology of the University of California and became a "scientific specimen" at the museum and later an assistant janitor. With two twigs Ishi produced fire out of thin air; with nimble fingers he produced monstrous nets; fashioned with flakes of elk antler the finest arrowheads. According to Professor T. T. Waterman, Ishi was one of a small party of survivors who fled to the hills east of Sacramento in 1865 after suffering almost complete extermination at the hands of an armed band of whites.
49. "Tribe Now Dead". Delaware Daily Journal-Herald. Delaware, Ohio. June 5, 1916. p. 5. from the original on September 1, 2023. Retrieved February 11, 2021.
50. "The Stone Age Man..." The Western Sentinel. Winston-Salem, North Carolina. April 28, 1916. p. 6. from the original on December 9, 2022. Retrieved February 11, 2021.
51. Olson, Ryan (March 25, 2016). "Friday marks 100th anniversary of Ishi's death". Chico Enterprise-Record. MediaNews Group, Inc. from the original on December 9, 2022. Retrieved February 11, 2021. The story also notes Ishi's emergence near Oroville and how he became a "scientific specimen" and later assistant janitor at the University of California Affiliated Colleges Museum from 1911 to 1916. The museum was located on what is now UC San Francisco's main campus.
52. Kevin Starr (2002). The Dream Endures: California Enters the 1940s. Oxford University Press. p. 330. ISBN 978-0-19-515797-0. from the original on September 18, 2023. Retrieved November 19, 2018.
53. "Ishi's Hiding Place", Butte County July 16, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, A History of American Indians in California: Historic Sites, National Park Service, 2004, accessed November 5, 2010
54. Fagan, Kevin (August 10, 2000). "Ishi's Kin To Give Him Proper Burial: Indians to bury brain in secret location in state". San Francisco Chronicle. p. A-5. from the original on November 29, 2011. Retrieved July 21, 2018.
55. "NMNH – Repatriation Office – The Repatriation of Ishi, the last Yahi Indian". Anthropology.si.edu. from the original on June 26, 2018. Retrieved August 11, 2013.
56. "How Ishi made his bow and his method of shooting, from: Hunting with the Bow and Arrow by Saxton Pope, 1923". archerylibrary.com. February 11, 2019. from the original on April 2, 2023. Retrieved April 2, 2023.
57. "Description of a bow made by Ishi, the Last Yahi". thebicyclingguitarist.net. from the original on April 2, 2023. Retrieved April 2, 2023.
58. "The Story of Ishi". A History of UCSF. UCSF. from the original on July 4, 2018. Retrieved April 2, 2023.
59. . Archery Hall of Fame and Museum. Archived from the original on January 18, 2022. Retrieved April 2, 2023.
60. "Archery history: Tribal use of the bow and arrow through the modern day". World Archery. September 3, 2020. from the original on April 2, 2023. Retrieved April 2, 2023.
61. Pope, Saxton Temple (1923). Hunting with the Bow & Arrow. from the original on April 2, 2023. Retrieved April 2, 2023. gutenberg.org
62. Kell, Gretchen (February 5, 1996). "NEWS RELEASE: Ishi apparently wasn't the last Yahi, according to new evidence from Steven Shackley, UC Berkeley research archaeologist". Public Information Office. University of California, Berkeley. from the original on July 29, 2018. Retrieved February 11, 2021. Arrowpoints made in the historic Yahi sites excavated by the Department of Anthropology in the 1950s and housed at the museum are quite different from Ishi's products," said Shackley. "But tools and arrowpoints made at historic Nomlaki or Wintu sites also housed at the museum bear striking resemblance to those made by Ishi.
63. "Some Inferences For Hunter-Gatherer Style and Ethnicity". Arf.berkeley.edu. from the original on July 21, 2018. Retrieved August 11, 2013.
64. Kroeber, Karl; Kroeber, Clifton B., eds. (2003). Ishi in Three Centuries. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-0803227576. from the original on September 1, 2023. Retrieved November 1, 2020.
65. "Discovery Site of the Last Yahi Indian". CA State Parks. from the original on February 28, 2021. Retrieved February 15, 2021.
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External links

• Richard Burrill. "Synopsis of Ishi's Life" November 27, 2021, at the Wayback Machine, Ishi Facts Website
• "Ishi at Deer Creek, 1914, 221 Photographs". California Ethnographic Field Photographs. Calisphere.
• Bauer, William (September 23, 2014). "Stop Hunting Ishi". Boom California. 4 (3). Fall 2014
• "This Day on August 29, 1911: A Survivor of American Indian Genocide Walks Out of the California Wilderness". California Historical Society. August 29, 2016.
• Elliott, Jeff (October 20, 2014). "FINDING ISHI". Santa Rosa History.
• "Ishi, Indian, Oroville, California, 1911". The Bakersfield Californian. Bakersfield, California. September 2, 1911. p. 10.
• Le Guin, Ursula K. (August 31, 2017). "This week in 1911 that Ishi emerged from the Sierra foothills. See bottom of linked NY Times article". Twitter.

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
• "Ishi". Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.
• "Portrait of Ishi, April 1911 (15-5414)". Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.
• "Maker: Ishi". Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. (photos of Ishi and tools made)
• "Maker: "Gene" Eugene R. Prince, (Ishi photographer)". Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.

Metadata

• "Ishi". IMDb.