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WE DO NOT WANT TO
BECOME AND END LIKE ISHI
Ishi was the last
surviving member of the Yahi tribe. He was born about 1862. The Yahi
were related to the Yana Indians who once lived in northern California
of todays USA. Contact with whites began with the California Gold Rush
of 1849, which led to struggles over land, raids on white settlements,
and devastating counterattacks. Two massacres of Yahi Indians at Mill
Creek in the 1860s all but wiped them out. The remaining survivors hid
themselves away completely and were thought to have died
until Ishi, starving and alone, appeared at the town of Oroville in
1911.
News of his appearance reached two anthropologists, Alfred Kroeber and
Thomas Waterman, who came to Oroville to learn more about him and his
people. Ishi showed how the Yahi survived in the wilderness and shared
with them the songs and stories of his ancestors. Kroeber brought Ishi
to San Francisco, where he lived in the Museum of Anthropology. Ishi
died of tuberculosis in 1916.
OUR LAND IS NOT FOR
SALE LIKE THE ONE GRABBED FROM ISHI
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