Ishi, The Last Yahi

Duration: 00:56:00 After hiding in the woods for 40 years in 1911 Ishi walked into modern world in Oroville, California, when the last of the survivors of his tribe died. First he was put in a cell for the insane to be decided later what to do with him. He became a sensation as a primitive savage un...

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Bibliographic Details
Other Authors: Riffe, Jed, Roberts, Pamela
Institution:Open Society Archives at Central European University
Language:English
Published: Rattlesnake Production 1994
United States
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10891/osa:065444aa-5cce-488f-9653-5f2aa858462b
Description
Summary:Duration: 00:56:00 After hiding in the woods for 40 years in 1911 Ishi walked into modern world in Oroville, California, when the last of the survivors of his tribe died. First he was put in a cell for the insane to be decided later what to do with him. He became a sensation as a primitive savage untouched by civilization. From 1911-1916, Ishi resided at the Anthropology Museum of the University of California, sharing knowledge about his culture and beliefs with anthropologists Alfred L. Kroeber and Theodore T. Waterman, as well as Surgeon Saxton T. Pope. Ishi provided insight about his language, a dialect presumed lost until his emergence from the Mill Creek region of California. Free to return to his homelands, Ishi chose to remain at the museum as a living interpreter of his culture. Exposed to a society hosting diseases foreign to the Yahi, Ishi contracted tuberculosis and died on March 25, 1916, at the medical college on Parnassus. Ishi left behind a legacy of invaluable information about his people, and provided a shining example of a courageous human spirit bridging the divide between two worlds.
Published:1994