 |
|
     |
|
|
Ishi was not his real name. His name was given by chance, not by a vision or natural presence. Collective memories are in a name, but his were not, and yet that museum nickname, more than any other, represents to many readers the tragic victimry of Native American Indians in California. The lonesome spirit of this native hunter, captured almost a century ago, has been dutifully repatriated to his ancestral home. His remains have been united at last, his brain returned to his body, and by sorrow and past regrets he has been buried in a secret place near Mount Lassen. “He was the last of his tribe,” wrote Ashe Miller in the San Francisco Call, September 6, 1911. “Probably no more interesting individual could be found today than this nameless Indian.” Overnight he was christened the last of the Stone Agers; later he became the decorated orphan of cultural genocide, and then the curious savage of a vanishing race overcome by modernity. Ishi was alone but never contemptuous, servile, or the romantic end of anything. His stories did not play to victimry. He was a native humanist, a master of survivance. Ishi had endured the unspeakable hate crimes of the miners, various racial assassins, bounty hunters, and government scalpers. His family and friends were murdered, the calculated victims of civilization. Truly, the miners were the savages. California natives barely survived the Gold Rush, the cruelties of colonial missions, and early settlement in the state. Only about fifty thousand natives, or one in five, were alive at the turn of the twentieth century. Ishi, so named by anthropologists, never revealed his sacred name or any of his nicknames. He never concealed his humor or humanity, however, and told many tricky wood duck stories to his new friends. This gentle man, rescued by scientists, lived and worked for five years in the museum of anthropology at the University of California. Alfred Kroeber, the eminent academic humanist, pointed out that Ishi “has perceptive powers far keener than those of highly educated white men. He reasons well, grasps an idea quickly, has a keen sense of humor, is gentle, thoughtful, and courteous and has a higher type of mentality than most Indians.” The Bureau of Indian Affairs sent a special agent to advise Ishi that he could return to the mountains or live on a government reservation. Kroeber wrote that Ishi “shook his head” and said through the interpreter that he would “live like the white people from now on. I want to stay where I am. I will grow old here, and die in this house.” And by that he meant the museum. Ishi died of tuberculosis five years later, on March 25, 1916. His brain was removed during an autopsy, and the rest of his cremated remains were stored in a black urn at the Mount Olivet Cemetery in Colma, California. Kroeber was in New York when he learned that Ishi was gravely sick. He wrote that he would consent only to a “strict autopsy” to determine the cause of death. “If there is any talk about the interests of science, say for me that science can go to hell. We propose to stand by our friends.” His letter and cautionary advice, however, arrived too late. Ishi had died in the museum and his brain had already been excised as a racial artifact. Edward Gifford, a curator at the museum, explained to Kroeber that the brain had been removed. “The matter was not entirely in my hands,” he wrote. What happened “amounts to a compromise between science and sentiment with myself on the side of sentiment.” Ishi had earned the favors and sentiments of science at the time, but not enough to secure his spirit at the autopsy. Orin Starn, professor of anthropology at Duke University, discovered a letter in the Bancroft Library written by Alfred Kroeber to Ales Hrdlicka, who was the curator of physical anthropology at the Smithsonian. “I find that at Ishi’s death last spring his brain was removed and preserved,” Kroeber wrote to Hrdlicka. “There is no one here who can put it to scientific use. If you wish it, I shall be glad to deposit it in the National Museum Collection.” Kroeber was not sentimental enough and anthropology was not ethical enough at the time to consider the spiritual unity and repatriation of his good friend, the gentle man he named Ishi. --By Gerald Vizenor |
| |||||||||||
| About
CAA Contact
Us
Update
your Address CAA Career Opportunities Privacy Policy |
©2009 California Alumni
Association. All Rights Reserved For questions about CAA: info@alumni.berkeley.edu Technical inquiries: web@alumni.berkeley.edu
|
Alumni House Berkeley, CA 94720-7520 Toll-Free: (888) CAL-ALUM Phone: (510) 642-7026 Fax: (510) 642-6252
|
