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. 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. Their tribe was popularly believed to be exterminated. The gold rush brought tens of thousands of miners and settlers to northern California, putting pressure on native peoples. Gold mining poisoned water supplies and killed fish; deer became scarcer. The settlers brought new infectious diseases such as
smallpox and
measles. The northern Yana group was wiped out while the central and southern groups (who later became part of
Redding Rancheria) and Yahi suffered drastic losses. 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. Richard Burrill wrote, in
Ishi Rediscovered: 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 1911'')
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 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 and attention of thousands of onlookers and curiosity seekers.
University of California, Berkeley anthropology professors read about him and "brought him" to the
Affiliated Colleges Museum (1903–1931), 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 (Alice Mary Ann Mathilda Archer, born 1877), the "London Songbird," known for "kaleidoscopic" costume changes. Lena 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, 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. In June 1915, for three months, In the summer of 1915,
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. 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. This was in accordance with the
National Museum of the American Indian Act of 1989 (NMAI). 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. ==Archery==