Book Description
The life story of Ishi, the last Yahi Indian, lone survivor of an exterminated tribe, is unique in the annals of North American anthropology. For more than forty years, Theodora Kroeber's biography has captivated readers. Now recent advances in technology make it possible to return to print the 1976 deluxe edition, filled with plates and historic photographs that enhance Ishi's story and bring it to life.
Ishi stumbled into the twentieth century on the morning of August 29, 1911, when, desperate with hunger and terrified of the white murderers of his family, he was found in the corral of a slaughter house near Oroville, California. Finally identified as a Yahi by an anthropologist, Ishi was brought to San Francisco by Professor T. T. Waterman and lived there the rest of his life under the care and protection of Alfred Kroeber and the staff of the University of California's Museum of Anthropology.
Karl Kroeber adds an informative tribute to the text, describing how the book came to be written and how Theodora Kroeber's approach to the project was a product of both her era and her special personal insight and empathy.
Customer Reviews:
HUMANS-COME TOGETHER!.......2007-09-28
ALL humans can benefit from reading this fact based book. ISHI was a real MAN, and his humbleness and genuine qualities are what young people should strive to match!
Good Book, bad binding.......2007-07-23
I thoroughly enjoyed the book and the story of Ishi. However, the binding on the new paperback fell apart before I was half way through it.
very good.......2007-02-10
This book is very enjoyable, informative, and enlightening. If you are interested in Native Americans, this is a must read. It truly describes the last "Wild Indian" that was brought into modern society. It explains both the natural heritage of Ishi along with the typical exploration of finding the last "Wild Indian". Truly, a story that had to be told
An anthropologist on Mars.......2006-03-16
At the beginning of the 20th century a half-starved 50-year-old Indian was found in a remote farm in California. He was the last surving Yaki Indian. Before the arrival of white settlers there had been probably more than 2000 Indians of that tribe in the area. They were wiped out in less than 80 years by the diseases carried by europeans, the reduction of their natural environment and periodical retaliatory expeditions organized by band of vigilantes to revenge a stolen cow or horse or the killing of one white settler. The last surviving Yaki was lucky enough to be "adopted" by the curators of the Museum of Berkeley University. There the Indian lived happily for 5 years, working as janitor and a sort of living exhibit. The anthropologist studied him and his world, and he studied the world of whites, showing a remarkable degree of adaptability to modern American society. He was called Ishi (=man) by the staff of the museum because he always refused to say his own name. Loved by everybody and friend of everybody, he died of the tubercolosis that his natural defence did not recognize. The story was written 50 years after his death by the daughter of the museum's director through the notes of her father (she had never met Ishi). Even being a perfectly scientific book, it has the power of moving of a novel and contains a terrible caveat for the modern man.
The Story of a Man and an Epoch.......2006-01-24
This is a very important book and a very sad book. It tells an extraordinary story of a man who was last man of his tribe. It also an honest history of the white man's inhumanity to the red man in California during the second half of the ninetheenth Century.
The story is: Ishi hid in the mountains nearly all of his life. After his Yahi tribesmen died, he drifted into a small town. He was rescued by an anthropologist and lived the remainder of his short life on the grounds of a San Francisco museum.
Book Description
During the first half of the twentieth century, Japanese immigrants entered Brazil by the tens of thousands. In more recent decades that flow has been reversed: more than 200,000 Japanese-Brazilians and their families have relocated to Japan. Examining these significant but rarely studied transnational movements and the experiences of Japanese-Brazilians, the essays in Searching for Home Abroad rethink complex issues of ethnicity and national identity. The contributors—who represent a number of nationalities and disciplines themselves—analyze how the original Japanese immigrants, their descendants in Brazil, and the Japanese-Brazilians in Japan sought to fit into the culture of each country while confronting both prejudice and discrimination.
The concepts of home and diaspora are engaged and debated throughout the volume. Drawing on numerous sources—oral histories, interviews, private papers, films, myths, and music—the contributors highlight the role ethnic minorities have played in constructing Brazilian and Japanese national identities. The essayists consider the economic and emotional motivations for migration as well as a range of fascinating cultural outgrowths such as Japanese secret societies in Brazil. They explore intriguing paradoxes, including the feeling among many Japanese-Brazilians who have migrated to Japan that they are more "Brazilian" there than they were in Brazil. Searching for Home Abroad will be of great interest to scholars of immigration and ethnicity in the Americas and Asia.
Contributors. Shuhei Hosokawa, Angelo Ishi, Jeffrey Lesser, Daniel T. Linger, Koichi Mori, Joshua Hotaka Roth, Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda, Keiko Yamanaka, Karen Tei Yamashita
Average customer rating:
- Children's book, Children's book, Novel, Fiction, tripe
- It's a historical novel
- Very good action
- Great story but really sad
- College Bound required reading
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Ishi, the Last of His Tribe (Bantam Starfire Books)
Theodora Kroeber
Manufacturer: Laurel Leaf
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Similar Items:
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Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America
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Ishi the Last Yahi: A Documentary History
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ISHI'S BRAIN: IN SEARCH OF AMERICA'S LAST "WILD" INDIAN
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The Last of His Tribe
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The Last Yahi: A Novel About Ishi
ASIN: 0553248987
Release Date: 1973-08-01 |
Book Description
[DESCRIPTION TO COME]
Customer Reviews:
Children's book, Children's book, Novel, Fiction, tripe.......2007-08-23
This is NOT historically correct, not a report of facts, it is in fact a novel, and not a historically correct novel, and it is aimed at children, not adults. If you are adult and think this is some kind of additional information on Ishi...take your money that you would spend on this and throw it out the window, you will be much happier. Not even close to reality.
It's a historical novel.......2007-02-04
I was disappointed to find that I had bought the wrong book. "Ishi: Last of His Tribe" is not a variant title for "Ishi: Between Two Worlds". This is a novelisation of Ishi's story aimed at younger readers, and one where Yahi culture is rather heavily idealised. I was looking for some solid anthropology, which, I suppose, is to be found in the other book.
Very good action.......2006-11-30
I liked this book, because firstly this book is a true story, and I was very suprised that a true story would be so good. This book has a lot of details, and the author tries to tell you the sounds that animals and nature makes. He also uses the Yahi tribe words telling you the names of things. The author also drew some pictures when the part of the book was very complicated. The author also uses a lot of words describing the environment so clearly that it seems as if you were there yourself walking beside Ishi and his tribe.
Great story but really sad.......2006-10-06
I read this book in school and I enjoyed it. It had a lot of good history in it and I think it's important that people know the horrible things which were done to Native Americans. This story is beautiful and touching but if you are a sensitive reader I suggest keeping a box of tissues nearby because parts of it are really sad. The writer creates a strong bond between Ishi and the reader and at times it was as if I was feeling his pain. Though it's an emotional story, I really think it's powerful and worth a read.
College Bound required reading.......2006-06-26
I was required to read this book when I took a freshman Anthropology Class many years ago. It is an eye-opening story about human struggle and love of life. Any student planning to attend college should read this book and understand what real difficulty has already been faced.
Book Description
A chronicle of the search for the truth about the life and death of a legendary Native American.
Captured in the hills of northern California in 1911, Ishi, the last stone-age Indian in North America, was brought to San Francisco by the famous anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, and became a living museum display until his death five years later.
Ishi's Brain is a first-person account by anthropologist Orin Starn, who sought to unravel the mystery of Ishi's true nature and to locate his brain in the archives of the Smithsonian museum in the hope of finally repatriating Ishi's remains. The trail to Ishi's brain leads Starn through the painful history of the extermination of the Indians, the strange and sometimes scandalous history of anthropology, and the changing, mixed-up world of Native California today.
This absorbing new portrait of Ishi, wild man of Deer Creek, museum curiosity, and last of his tribe, will appeal to anyone interested in Native America, a story of science and scandal, and the life and legend of California's most famous Indian. 15 illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting update on Ishi's history.......2006-12-19
I read the original Ishi written by Kroeber's wife back in the 1970s and this new updating of Ishi's history was interesting to read. I purchased these 2 books (Kroeber's wife's book & Ishi's Brain)for my father for Xmas as he had never heard or read about Ishi and he is a history buff.
A Moving Anthropological Saga.......2004-07-24
The story of Ishi is fairly well known. He was the mythologized last lonely "unconquered" Indian who was captured in California in 1911, then spent the last few years of his life as either a guest or prisoner at a San Francisco museum, looked over by scientists who were friendly but had suspicious motives. Since Ishi's death, rumors had persisted that his brain was removed for scientific study, and modern California Indians yearned for the brain to be reunited with Ishi's ashes (themselves kept in a San Francisco cemetery), so Ishi could be given a proper Indian burial in his mountain homeland. The author, modern anthropologist Orin Starn, was instrumental in finding the brain in an obscure Smithsonian storeroom, and for helping with the process of repatriation. This detective work is the main impetus for this moving book.
However, Starn describes much more than a dry academic detective story. While he tends to talk about himself a little too much and his philosophical explorations could use some editing, Starn fills this book with highly compelling coverage of modern cultural identity politics for all the parties involved in the Ishi saga. These include the modern California Indians and their divisive struggles to prove their ancestral connection to Ishi, modern whites who embrace stereotypical native mythology with misguided or even ulterior motives, and anthropologists (Starn's forbears) who have displayed shifting loyalties and ethics in their study of so-called "primitive" peoples. Starn also find inconsistencies in the knowledge of Ishi's life and background as espoused by caretaker anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and his wife Theodora, who wrote the famous but not entirely accurate biography "Ishi in Two Worlds." Most importantly, Starn also turns up new evidence and raises new questions about the mysterious Ishi himself, who was surely more complex and human than the semi-mythological image that surrounds his life and identity. This book is a strongly considered and moving look into the far-reaching cultural legacies of a single Indian, the decimation of his people, and the modern lives of Native Americans and all others who are concerned about these legacies. [~doomsdayer520~]
Peripatetic Scholarship and Engaging Mystery!.......2004-06-28
At its simplest, this book is a beautifully lucid and often poignant account of how the author, anthropology Professor Orin Starn, tracked down the mysterious whereabouts of the last "wild" Indian's brain some 80 years after it was excised from his lifeless body on a California autopsy table. As such, the book reads like a compelling mystery novel, one that will keep the most jaded and disinterested readers hitched to a twisting and ever-surprising cross-country chain of discovery until the very end. At its most complex, it represents a keen, engaging, and constantly balanced overview of classical anthropological history in the 20th century as Professor Starn carefully uncovers, interprets, and weighs the motives and actions of one of the field's first luminaries, Alfred Kroebur, the man responsible for Ishi's emergence as a museum curiosity and stark emblem of man's "uncivilized" nature. The book will therefore delight Native American historians, political activists, college and grad students steeped in social and culture theory, and even casual readers interested in 20th century Americana. But regardless of the reader's background or incentive, he/she will find Professor Starn's ease and clarity in recounting this captivating story an uncommon joy indeed. Highly recommended!
Themes of Reconciliation.......2004-04-19
Ishi's story is too well known to need to be recounted here. In 1911, wandering aimlessly -- or was he going somewhere? Ishi (which wasn't really his name), the last of the Yahi Indians-- or was he? early one morning -- or was it late one afternoon? was taken in by a white community -- or was that taken capture?
Theodora Kroeber turns out to have taken considerable liberties in writing her book about Ishi. In retrospect, I should not be surprised, considering the way she dressed California Indian tales in tuxedos and evening gowns for the Inland Whale.
But just who was Ishi? What does he represent? How should we envisage him? Starn, who did so much to put Ishi's body back together again, in this book helps us put Ishi back together with California history, so we can better appreciate where Ishi stood at this confluence. He approaches every question with great fairness and balance. Many of his investigations of possibilities and interpretations would not occur to the average reader, and help us round out the picture.
Although I say Starn writes with justice and balance, this is not a cold treatment of a dead man. He brings Ishi back to life for us, with bones beneath his flesh. He writes movingly about Grizzly Bear's Hiding Place. The whole book is beautiful, in writing style, in treatment, in reflection, in the care he takes. I, for one, am grateful for his detailed recitation of these events, because even though it may slow the book a bit, it shows proper respect for the importance of those events.
I can't believe I am writing a whole review without saying anything nasty about a book. Okay, the photos, although superbly reproduced, are jumbled together in no particular order that I could conceive, and I have questions about one caption: which one is Hi Good?
Great book, one that was never intended to supplant Ishi in Two Worlds, but complements it perfectly.
Eye-opening and thought-provoking.......2004-03-28
Somewhere in my early years I read Theodora Kroeber's books on Ishi and they have remained among my favorite books that I have occasionally reread. After reading Ishi's Brain, however, these books will keep their mystique but never have the same ring of truth.
I was amazed to learn that I am a member of what Orin Starn calls the "Ishi cult". I had no idea there were so many people as compelled as I am by Ishi's mythology. And now I have learned that Ishi may have been far more touched by "civilization" than I had formerly believed.
I recently published a novel, Treasure Forest, in which a character shapes his life according to the Ishi I believed in before reading Starn's book. Daggett grows up in San Francisco in the 30's and comes under the care of a man who had known Ishi through the museum. When Daggett runs away at age 14 to head north, it is to capture the freedom he believes that Ishi had as a lone survivor in the wilderness. My character succeeds living his own version of Ishi's life right up into his 70's, when -- I won't ruin the story for you. But as I wrote, I sometimes wondered what Ishi would have thought of the story, if he would have felt a kinship with Daggett, and I've often wondered how Ishi would have liked Daggett's underground version of Grizzly Bear's Hiding Place.
I would recommend that anyone who is fascinated by Ishi read Orin Starn's book. The discoveries it shares ground the Ishi mythology in very human details, bringing it closer to our own experience, coloring it with more authenticity. I am sure it will influence me as I continue to write the rest of my novel's trilogy.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent.......2004-11-18
I loved this book. It is one that I always recommend for those interested in California history, especially if you are familiar with the Oroville, Chico area.
Book Description
Ishi in Three Centuries brings together a range of insightful and unsettling perspectives and the latest research to enrich and personalize our understanding of one of the most famous Native Americans of the modern era—Ishi, the last Yahi. After decades of concealment from genocidal attacks on his people in California, Ishi (ca. 1860–1916) came out of hiding in 1911 and lived the last five years of his life in the University of California Anthropological Museum in San Francisco.
Contributors to this volume illuminate Ishi the person, his relationship to anthropologist A. L. Kroeber and others, his Yahi world, and his enduring and evolving legacy for the twenty-first century. Ishi in Three Centuries features recent analytic translations of Ishi’s stories, new information on his language, craft skills, and his personal life in San Francisco, with reminiscences of those who knew him and A. L. Kroeber. Multiple sides of the repatriation controversy are showcased and given equal weight. Especially valuable are discussions by Native American writers and artists, including Gerald Vizenor, Louis Owens, and Frank Tuttle, of how Ishi continues to inspire the creative imagination of American Indians.
Book Description
On August 29, 1911, a barefoot, half-starved, gaunt Indian gave himself up to White civilization at a slaughterhouse in Oroville, California. We never learned his name, but we soon learned of his tragedy: mainly that he was the last member of his tribe, the Yahi, to be alive in the wilderness. However, he became known to the world as Ishi, the last human to live freely in the Paleolithic Stone Age on the North American Continent. Through Ishi we can imagine a mythological, primeval view of Manifest Destiny and look back, as if with a telescope through time, into the interior of the mind and into the evolution of human thought. Through Ishi we can discover the decency of humanity, and perhaps we can forgive ourselves for our ancestors’ hateful genocide, especially against the Native Americans of Northern California.
Customer Reviews:
Too complex to reduce to a brief title.......2005-10-28
I discovered this book a few months ago while browsing Amazon and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to buy a copy. I have been intrigued by the story of Ishi and his Yahi people since I read Theodora Kroebers' book "Ishi, the Last of his Tribe" as a child in the late 1970's.
To put in a historical perpective the Yahi were a small Native American nation living in the foothills of Mount Lassen on the eastern bank of the Sacramento River in Northern California. The Goldrush of 1849 brought thousands of Euro-Americans to California and conflicts with the Native American nations soon broke out. The Yahi earned a particular reputation as 'savages' due to their ability to frequently outsmart and inflict death and injury upon the white settler/ miner population in reprisal to massacre and abduction inficted upon their people. Many of the surrounding Native American nations in comparison were either quickly subjugated or exterminated. The Yahi held out for years. The Yahi/ American conflict reached its peak in the 1860's and by the time Ishi had reached ten years of age in the early 1870's the Yahi had been reduced to little more than a dozen survivors. These people survived in their isolation for a further 40 years.
The bulk of Lawrence Holcombs book is set in the 1860's through to the 1880's and gives personalities, names, personal histories and identities to the Yahi people. Of course these people meet their deaths, usually prematurely and almost always at the hands of the surrounding Euro-American population. I have read most of what there is to read about the history of the Yahi people therefore as I read this book I was aware of what was about to happen to the Yahi next - one tragedy after another. This made the book a difficult read for me - fictionalization of history makes it all the more real as you deal with people and not numbers.
Lawrence Holcomb is intimately aware of Ishi's world as he lived there for many years; in the same places where the Yahi lived and died. This too infuses the book with realism.
This is not an easy read, even for a comparitively un-emotional person like myself. I have tried to contact Lawrence Holcomb via his publisher but have had no success. Mr Holcomb if you ever read this please find a way to contact me - I'm going to be in the USA for much of 2006 and would love to talk with you while walking to Black Rock and along Deer and Salmon Creeks.
Product Description
From back cover:
In the early 1900s, a small band of California Indians of the Yahi tribe resisted the fate that had all but wiped out their people--violent death at the hands of the invading white man. Throughout their ordeal and their final realization that they could survive only by becoming a hidden people, this tiny group held to the gentle moral and religious code of their ancestors. In time, one by one of the tribe died, until there remained a single survivor--the man who became known as Ishi.
Customer Reviews:
The Real Story of the Last of the Mohicans .......2007-06-06
This is a great short classic on the fate of a native american in the early 20th century.By 1911,Ishi was the sole survivor of the California gens tribe called 'Yahi'.And now,Ishi was slowly starving to death.His tribe's indian hemp and indian tobacco(nicotiana bigelovii) were renowned among the confederate tribes,on the West coast from SoCal to Oregan.Yet,they were gatherers and hunters,and not masters at farming crops.He was captured by a rancher and a sheriff while trying to eat and hide among some penned cattle.Ishi was jailed and interviewed by a college professor,who specialized in Indian languages and cultures.Ishi was then transferred to a NorCal museum where his stories were recorded.Ishi's people could not accept the kerygmatic beliefs of the European settlers and were bound by the calling of the Great Spirits of Nature.And warned of the natural destruction of the concrete cities that trapped the soul and spirit of the white people.Western christians believe that they are the masters of the ways of Nature and therefore masters of their fate.Yes,the large wood planks protect us from the outside weather elements.Yet,all people must leave this earthly life and return outside to be with Dame Nature.If one does not accept communion with the cycles of Nature,then one is already walking dead. Ishi spent his remaining years at the museum,chipping arrowheads for the public.Was he like a captive 'Elephant-Man' or was he a willing teacher helping people learn about his ethnic shaman traditions.No one knows.This book is short in length,yet immense on Indianism knowledge.Highly recommended.
Average customer rating:
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Ishi's Tale of Lizard
Manufacturer: Farrar Straus & Giroux (J)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0374336431 |
Book Description
In 1911, a starving Indian emerged from the foothills of California, after having lived in hiding for over 40 years. In keeping with the traditions of his tribe, he never revealed his true name and became known simply as Ishi, person in the Yahi language. He would become the most celebrated and written about of all California Indians, a symbol for the depth and beauty of California Indian culture, an icon of the tragedy that befell native people throughout the state.
Many books have been written about Ishi, but in Ishis Tale of Lizard, we finally hear his own voice. Originally narrated in Yahi, and now interpreted and introduced by noted linguist Leanne Hinton, this story tells of Lizard, the arrow-maker, and his adventures. Within the story, we catch loving, detailed accounts of daily life as the Yahi once lived it. Accompanied by Susan L. Roths sensitive collage interpretation, this award-winning book allows us to glimpse the world of Ishi and to delight in an authentic, unusual, hauntingly effective storytelling tradition.
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Ishi, the Last of His Tribe (Bantam Starfire Books)
In Dubious Battle (Penguin Classics)
