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Title: Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America by Theodora Kroeber, Karl Kroeber ISBN: 0-520-22940-1 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 07 October, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.78 (9 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: AMAZING
Comment: I could write an enormous review, but I want to keep it very simple.
Just read the book!
The most intriguing part is when Ishi walked out of nowhere into "civilization".
AWESOME, AMAZING, GREAT, WONDERFUL.
Rating: 5
Summary: The last free Native American in California
Comment: This book is one of two I routinely give to people who move to northern California. The other one is The Ohlone Way, by Malcolm Margolin. Ishi was the lone survivor of a doomed tribe of Yahi Indians on the slopes of Mt. Lassen. Other members of his tribe were murdered by a planned campaign of genocide during the settling of the West. When Ishi stumbled out of the hills of his birth in 1911, he landed in the 20th Century, huddled in the corner of a cattle corral on a ranch, dressed in rags, starving, desperately lonely, and probably certain he would be killed. Instead, a wise sheriff in Oroville called on some anthropologists from Univ of CA in Berkeley, and Ishi eventually came under the benevolent but somewhat demeaning (he was made the centerpiece of a museum exhibit) protection of Alfred Kroeber. It is Kroeber's wife who wrote this touching, heartwarming, illuminating and ultimately tragic history of Ishi's life in the 'modern' world.
Most moving for me was a long middle section that recounted a magical summer when Ishi took Kroeber and his teenage son back to Mt. Lassen and showed them his native territory. They lived together as unspoiled and free Native Americans for the summer, hunting deer, swimming in cold streams, living in huts and caves, building fires, making bows and arrows... An experience that was destined never to be repeated.
Wonderful archival photographs supplement the imminently readable text.
Don't miss this very special and quintessentially Californian piece of history. But there's no rush: this book is destined to remain in print forever.
Rating: 5
Summary: Timeless
Comment: This was one of the most fascinating and thought provoking books I have ever read. It is a beautifully written book that brings with it an entire range of emotions from rage and disgust, to hope and forgiveness.
I thought that the best part about this book was the look into Ishi's Yahi and Yana culture, and its overview of California indian tribes in general. The myth that the Californian indians were a simple and childlike race subsisting on what they could dig from the ground is thoroughly debunked by this book.
California's varied geography produced one of the most culturally diverse places on planet earth prior to white settlement. Interestingly, this belief that California is made up of many sub-states still exists, and books have been written about the various regional differences within California. The same was true for the aboriginal tribes, and Kroeber brings amazing facts to light about this. According to Kroeber, California was made up of 250 distinct tribes, many with their own languages, culture, and customs. Of the six super-languauge groups of North American Indians, 5 were represented in California. According to best estimates, these five language groups divided themselves into 113 distict spoken languages. Only Sudan and New Guinea have comparable cultural and linguistic diversity. One fact that floored me was that the Yahi language was bifurcated between a male and female dialect. Males and females used these dialects when they were in groups of their own sex. When a male reached puberty, he was taken from the care of his mother and other women, and lived in almost an exclusively male world were he learned the male dialect and hunting skills.
Kroeber opens the book with this linguistic/cultural look at California indian culture just prior to white migration, and goes into great detail about Ishi's tribal culture in particular. (We even get a lesson on the term "glottochronology" which is the study of the roots of a particular language). About a third of the book is this background, and I found it to be absolutely fascinating.
The book also spends considerable time on the extermination of the Northern California indians and Ishi's tribe in particular. Of course, these accounts are horrible and no less disturbing than accounts of the Jewish holocaust. The indians were seen as varmits, and they were exterminated with the same attitude that the wolves, grizzlies, and other unwanted wildlife were exterminated. Of course, this was not the attitude of all whites, but not enough of them stood up to stop the carnage.
Beyond the stories of human slaughter, racism and genocide, the greatest tragedy was that cultures, which existed with amazing complexity and richness for centuries, were obliterated and replaced with a white mono-culture within 15 - 20 years.
The last third of the book deals with Ishi's discovery and how he lived his remaining days under the care of the authors husband, an anthropologist at UC Berkeley. The relationship between the anthropology department at Berkeley and Ishi was one of the only beneficial outcomes of the collision between Anglo and Native cultures. Ishi (not his real name, but a pseudonym he adopted after capture) is given a room at the anthropology museum and is made assistant janitor to help cover his living expenses.
It is during this time that he imparts his language and culture to save it from oblivion and to provide future generations, like myself, the ability to learn about Yahi life. Ishi is also treated with respect and dignity, and despite a life of mistreatment, Ishi shows no resentment or bitterness towards white society.
I believe the main injustice done to Ishi by Berkeley was that after his death they allowed the removal of his brain for study, in direct violation of his cultural beliefs about keeping the body whole for cremation. His brain was sent it to the Smithsonian Institute where it was kept in storage for almost 100 years. This was unnescesary, and it has taken almost an entire century to return his brain and provide final dignity to this man.
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Title: Ishi: Last of His Tribe (Bantam Starfire Books) by Theodora Kroeber ISBN: 0553248987 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 September, 1973 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Ishi the Last Yahi: A Documentary History by Robert Fleming Heizer, Theodora Kroeber, Robert F. Heizer ISBN: 0520043669 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1981 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title:Ishi - The Last Yahi ASIN: 6303402461 Publisher: Koch Vision/Shanachie Video Pub. Date: 03 February, 1995 List Price(USD): $19.98 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $19.98 |
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Title: Ishi's Brain: In Search of America's Last "Wild" Indian by Orin Starn ISBN: 0393051331 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: February, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Ishi in Three Centuries by Karl Kroeber, Clifton Kroeber ISBN: 0803227574 Publisher: University of Nebraska Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
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