Ishi's Brain: In Search of Americas Last "Wild" Indian

Ishi's Brain: In Search of Americas Last
Author: Orin Starn
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2005-06-17
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0393293076

From the mountains of California to a forgotten steel vat at the Smithsonian, this "eloquent and soul-searching book" (Lit) is "a compelling account of one of American anthropology's strangest, saddest chapters" (Archaeology). After the Yahi were massacred in the mid-nineteenth century, Ishi survived alone for decades in the mountains of northern California, wearing skins and hunting with bow and arrow. His capture in 1911 made him a national sensation; anthropologist Alfred Kroeber declared him the world's most "uncivilized" man and made Ishi a living exhibit in his museum. Thousands came to see the displaced Indian before his death, of tuberculosis. Ishi's Brain follows Orin Starn's gripping quest for the remains of the last of the Yahi.

Ishi's Brain

Ishi's Brain
Author: Orin Starn
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2004
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780393051339

An anthropologist retraces his efforts to locate the brain of Ishi--the "last wild Indian" of California who became an icon of dying Native American culture when he was captured in 1911--and his struggle to repatriate the remains.

Ishi's Brain

Ishi's Brain
Author: Orin Starn
Publisher: W W Norton & Company Incorporated
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2005-06-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780393326987

An anthropologist retraces his steps in a remarkable journey to locate the brain of Ishi--the "last Indian" of California who became a national icon of dying Native American culture when he was captured in 1911--and his struggle to repatriate the remains. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.

Ishi the Last Yahi

Ishi the Last Yahi
Author: Robert F. Heizer
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 1979
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780520043664

From the Introduction by Theodora Kroeber, Editor: The number of documents having to do with Ishi is finite. For the reader who wishes to know something of the sources from which the story flows, there are reproduced here the principal out-of-print and most inaccessible primary materials on Ishi and the Yahi Indians. Of first importance are monographs on Ishi, his people, his languages, his medical history, whose authors are Professors Thomas T. Waterman, Alfred L. Kroeber, Edward Sapir, and Saxton T. Pope, M.D. Most of these monographs are here reprinted in full. Next in interest and importance are the books of reminiscences concerning the Yahi Indians written by white settlers in or adjacent to Yahi country in the years following closely upon the gold rush. These are usually in small editions, long out of print. Two, those written by Carson and R. A. Anderson, are reprinted in full; the others, only those parts having to do with Ishi and the Yahi. There are letters bearing on our subject, newspaper accounts, and pictures, of which we include significant examples. There are as well books and articles having to do only in part with Ishi and his people. We reprint only those parts. Beyond these essential primary materials, the editors made hard choices to keep the number of pages realistic. Readers with areas of special interest will regret some of our exclusions among the secondary but often fascinating accounts: of archaeological findings in the Yahi homel∧ of linguistic quirks and grammatical technicalities--a large literature, difficult for the uninitiate; of medical history when it adds nothing to our understanding of the man Ishi. Our order of presentation is chronological, beginning with the background materials, then going to Ishi's first entry into the outside world, then to his years at the museum, and, finally, to his death. We have not included the occasional newspaper stories of still-living Yahi Indians supposed to have been seen or heard in the Yahi hills and caves after Ishi's departure, since none were ever substantiated. When in 1914 Ishi returned to his old home for a few weeks with Waterman, Kroeber, Pope, and Pope's son, Saxton, Jr., he found the land, the caves, and the village sites as he had left them.

Ishi in Two Worlds

Ishi in Two Worlds
Author: Theodora Kroeber
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2004
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780520240377

Originally published: 1961. With new foreword.

The Passion of Tiger Woods

The Passion of Tiger Woods
Author: Orin Starn
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2011-12-12
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0822352109

Starn examines the career of Tiger Woods, from child star to global sports celebrity. The author shows that the scandal following the revelation of Tiger's infidelities was like many similar media-generated scandals of recent years, and he brings an anthropologist's perspective to bear on Tigergate.

Ishi

Ishi
Author: Theodore Kroeber
Publisher: Turtleback Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1973
Genre:
ISBN: 9780808588153

The old Yahi World and the new world of the white man as seen by Ishi, last survivor of his people.

Prophets and Ghosts

Prophets and Ghosts
Author: Samuel J. Redman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2021-10-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0674979575

A searching account of nineteenth-century salvage anthropology, an effort to preserve the culture of ÒvanishingÓ Indigenous peoples through dispossession of the very communities it was meant to protect. In the late nineteenth century, anthropologists, linguists, archaeologists, and other chroniclers began amassing Indigenous cultural objectsÑcrafts, clothing, images, song recordingsÑby the millions. Convinced that Indigenous peoples were doomed to disappear, collectors donated these objects to museums and universities that would preserve and exhibit them. Samuel Redman dives into the archive to understand what the collectors deemed the tradition of the Òvanishing IndianÓ and what we can learn from the complex legacy of salvage anthropology. The salvage catalog betrays a vision of Native cultures clouded by racist assumptionsÑa vision that had lasting consequences. The collecting practice became an engine of the American museum and significantly shaped public education and preservation, as well as popular ideas about Indigenous cultures. Prophets and Ghosts teases out the moral challenges inherent in the salvage project. Preservationists successfully maintained an important human inheritance, sometimes through collaboration with Indigenous people, but collectorsÕ methods also included outright theft. The resulting portrait of Indigenous culture reinforced the publicÕs confidence in the hierarchies of superiority and inferiority invented by ÒscientificÓ racism. Today the same salvaged objects are sources of invaluable knowledge for researchers and museum visitors. But the question of what should be done with such collections is nonetheless urgent. Redman interviews Indigenous artists and curators, who offer fresh perspectives on the history and impact of cultural salvage, pointing to new ideas on how we might contend with a challenging inheritance.

Repatriation and Erasing the Past

Repatriation and Erasing the Past
Author: Elizabeth Weiss
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2020-08-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1683401859

Engaging a longstanding controversy important to archaeologists and indigenous communities, Repatriation and Erasing the Past takes a critical look at laws that mandate the return of human remains from museums and laboratories to ancestral burial grounds. Anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss and attorney James Springer offer scientific and legal perspectives on the way repatriation laws impact research. Weiss discusses how anthropologists draw conclusions about past peoples through their study of skeletons and mummies and argues that continued curation of human remains is important. Springer reviews American Indian law and how it helped to shape laws such as NAGPRA (the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act). He provides detailed analyses of cases including the Kennewick Man and the Havasupai genetics lawsuits. Together, Weiss and Springer critique repatriation laws and support the view that anthropologists should prioritize scientific research over other perspectives.