Ishi producers sponsor Indigenous Day

After Controversial Ishi Play, University of California, Berkeley Co-Sponsors Indigenous Peoples Day Celebration to Promote Healing

By Marc DadiganLast spring, the University of California, Berkeley, produced a historically inaccurate and graphically violent play about Ishi, the famous California Indian, which caused some American Indian viewers to openly weep and condemn it for perpetuating racist stereotypes.

Though a group of graduate students who led the protests against the play didn’t succeed in stopping the production, they did engage the university’s Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies (TDPS) in an ongoing dialogue.

This led to TDPS co-sponsoring an interactive Indigenous Peoples Day Celebration October 8 at the university that included elders from many tribes speaking about their people’s history and hopes, poetry, dancing and demonstrations in making baskets and acorn mush, important elements of many California tribes’ cultures.

“We wanted to do something that would start atoning for the Ishi play, and that would create awareness that there are Native students on campus and in the community who are still here,” said Peter Nelson, Coast Miwok, a graduate student in anthropology and Coast Miwok.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Theater Apologizes for Ishi Play and Play Portrays Ishi as Rapist, Murderer.

Below:  "Julia Parker, Pomo/Coast Miwok, demonstrates to University of California, Berkeley students and community members how to make acorn mush." (Josh Hesslein)

Theater apologizes for Ishi play

Campus production triggers concerns from American Indian community

By Geena CovaA UC Berkeley production in the department of theater, dance and performance Studies has elicited negative responses from the campus American Indian community, triggering discussions about the play’s content.

Campus alumnus John Fisher’s play “Ishi: The Last of the Yahi,” which ran from March 2 to March 11, sparked outcry from the campus American Indian Graduate Student Association and American Indian community, which has since met with the department to discuss concerns with the play and how the department can better reach out to underrepresented communities on campus.

The play, according to the department’s website, explores the life of Ishi, the last remaining member of the Yahi tribe, and his time as an object of study at the campus Hearst Museum of Anthropology with anthropologist Alfred Kroeber beginning in 1911.

“Particularly offensive was the depictions of Native characters in the play and the intense physical violence done to them,” said Peter Nelson, anthropology graduate student and member of the association, in an email. “The play tries to speak for Native people, and in doing so, it takes our voice away.”

Department chair and associate professor Peter Glazer said the department and community have already held several meetings—and will continue to hold more—to address qualms about the play, ask and answer questions and provide commentary.

“It’s so problematic because the audience is led to believe that the actions Ishi commits in the play are actually true historical accounts,” said Tria Andrews, ethnic studies graduate student and association member. “It’s important that we recognize that we have to be careful with whose stories we tell and how.”American Indian Graduate Student Association calls for art with ethics

By Tria Andrews, Kayla Carpenter, and Peter NelsonAlthough the subject matter of “Ishi: The Last Yahi” is highly disturbing and offensive to Native Americans, the writer and director John Fisher and the Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies department failed to consult with Native Americans about bringing this play to campus. In the play, Fisher freely misrepresents Ishi as a batterer, murderer and incestuous rapist as well as the last Yahi—all of which Ishi certainly was not. In this unethical artistic representation, Fisher perpetuates the very cruelty and violence towards California Indians that he attempts to depict.

Fisher’s ignorance of the violence his play commits is particularly ironic given the meta-theatrical moment in which Alfred Kroeber addresses his sister-in-law, Charlotte. Kroeber chides her, “You act like you live in a play. You speak in platitudes and bring every scene to a rattling close. And you pretend you understand everything when all you’ve ever done is pick fights and provoke people you don’t really know.”

Kroeber’s statement is intended to invoke irony within the context of the play, because while Kroeber criticizes Charlotte for her cruelty, he himself is guilty of perpetrating immense malice towards others. However, the real irony is that Kroeber’s words also perfectly illuminate Fisher’s own ignorance and insensitivity to Native peoples. That is, Fisher writes a play, which is “fiction based on fact … combin(ing) research with creative writing.” This fiction not only fetishizes violence against Native peoples, but also perpetrates that violence in its misrepresentations of Ishi and California Indians.

Particularly problematic about Fisher’s play is the fact that, because viewers may be unfamiliar with Ishi’s story, these misrepresentations are not recognized as flagrant deviations from what Native peoples largely regard to be Ishi’s story. Much is not known about Ishi, who refused to share even his Yani-Yahi name and whose remains were repatriated to his descendants in 2000. California Indians view Ishi as a figure of non-violence and forgiveness. By all accounts, Ishi never expressed bitterness towards anyone, not even those who committed violence against him.Theater department apologizes for ‘Ishi’ production

By Peter GlazerThe current production of John Fisher’s play “Ishi: The Last of the Yahi” in the department of theater, dance and performance studies at UC Berkeley has sparked a number of strong reactions—especially among the Native American community, for whom Ishi’s story is sacred. On March 9, after a performance of “Ishi” in Zellerbach Playhouse, members of different California native communities, their relatives and their elders gave vivid witness to the ways the genocide of California native peoples is still a horrible wound, one that our production has reopened.

On behalf of the department of theater, dance, and performance studies, as its chair, I want to deeply apologize for any pain our production has caused.

The controversy “Ishi” has provoked is something that we take very seriously, and we take full responsibility for our actions and decisions as a department.

We appreciate that Native American students at UC Berkeley reached out to us directly to initiate dialogue—dialogue that we were remiss in not initiating ourselves at the time the production was being considered. As a department, we are committed to open discourse, sincere engagement with important political issues and with the many communities we serve and fulfillment of our teaching mission in all that we do. We are also committed, from this point forward, to reaching out to historically underrepresented minorities who may be represented in our work.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Play Portrays Ishi as Rapist, Murderer.

Play portrays Ishi as rapist, murderer

A new Ishi play recently opened and closed. Here's the scoop:

UC presents a searing play about Ishi, the last of his tribe

By Frances DinkelspielIshi’s story and the deliberate slaughter of his tribe is effectively, if brutally, told in John Fisher’s ambitious play, Ishi: The Last of the Yahi, now being presented by the UC Berkeley Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies at Zellerbach Playhouse. The play closes March 11.

It is an entertaining, although deeply disturbing, play, filled with scenes of prejudiced white men massacring Indians for a $5-a-head state bounty, gunfire, rape, murder, cannibalism, and even academic jealousy. But if you are shocked and disturbed after seeing it, (and at three hours long, you see a lot) then Fisher, the artistic director of Theater Rhinoceros in San Francisco and a frequent lecturer in the theater department, will have attained his goal. He clearly wants to tell people about this unknown chapter of California history: that the slaughter of Native Americans also happened here, not just at Wounded Knee or on the Trail of Tears.Sounds good so far. But audiences were shocked at more than the whites' crimes against the Indians.

New: EYE FROM THE AISLE: “ISHI, the last of the Yahi” reprise at UCB Zellerbach Playhouse

By John A. McMullen IIAt Zellerbach Playhouse on the UC Berkeley Campus, the opening scene of John Fisher’s ISHI, the last of the Yahi, appropriately enough, is a lecture by a young anthropology professor who relates the shocking incident—enacted for us—of a starving gold prospector who kills and eats a Native American. In the first of many action scenes, the prospector chases him around the spacious Playhouse underscored by banjo breakdown music (think “Smokey and the Bandit”). Finally, the weakened prospector shoots the Indian and eats him (offstage).

I scratched my head. Was this a comic scene? Why didn’t the prospector just shoot him to begin with instead of chasing him? And how could a starving man keep up the chase like that?

That was my question at the start of the play. My question at the end of the play—THREE HOURS LATER—was why didn’t award-winning playwright John Fisher take this opportunity to rewrite this play that premiered four years ago at Theatre Rhino with an eye to shortening and tightening this intriguing script.

“ISHI, the last of the Yahi” is epic in its breadth. It is about the genocide of the Native American tribes as financed by the legislature of California by way of a $5 bounty per head. It is about a man whose culture was destroyed and was starving in the wilderness before giving up and coming into the white man’s town of Oroville in 1911, fully expecting to be killed. It is about the anthropologist who befriends him to study him. It is about ambition, using others, and then turning on them. It is about man’s criminally ambitious culture, under the motto, “Homo homini lupus” (trans., man is a wolf to man). It has a little O’Neill, a little Albee, and a lot of history that UCB TDPS department lecturer Fisher liberally tweaks with poetic license.

Telling this tale educates us about the horrors and blood-money on which our society is founded.

Emotionally, its intention must be to break our hearts for this abandoned man and how his story affects those who first hear it.

Regrettably, by the end of the evening, the result is numbness from the length and repetition of horrors.You may recall that I discussed "poverty porn" a few months ago. This sounds like "genocide porn." It sounds like it would numb and bore people more than educate and enlighten them. But neither critic has talked about the play's real problems.

Ishi: the Last of the Yahi: A UC Berkeley Production that Perpetuates Gross Violences Against Native Peoples

By Tria AndrewsWhile the play pretends to present disparate and diverse versions of history—to speak from Ishi’s perspective—in truth, the production is about the European-American characters going native. Going native, as defined by Native scholar and UC Berkeley Professor, Shari Huhndorf, is a trope aimed at alleviating White guilt regarding the violent founding of the nation while simultaneously reinforcing White supremacy. While constructed around the character of Ishi, whose image is exploited on the production’s brochure, the protagonist of the play is in fact Dr. Alfred Kroeber, the primary anthropologist who studied Ishi. By purporting to be a play about the last of the Yahi (underscored by the play’s title), the production diminishes White guilt by representing Native peoples as extinct and Whites as the rightful owners of the land. In the falling action of the play, Ishi’s ghost—after his body is dismembered and dispersed throughout numerous institutions in the U.S. against his wishes—rises from the dead and assumes the third person plural, “we.” Here, Ishi’s adoption of “we” endeavors to downplay the violences against Native peoples, which the play in fact fetishizes. In other words, after his death, Ishi supposedly becomes a White man and in doing so, attempts to warrant the dispossession of Native peoples from their land.

While the play’s concluding characterization of Ishi as a European-American commits yet another horrific act of violence against Ishi, unfortunately, the play also fetishizes violence to Native characters’ bodies—or the bodies or non-Native actors playing Indian. The opening scene reveals a Native man in a loincloth who is chased by a White man wielding a gun. The White man is starving and intends to murder and eat the Indian. This action takes place both center stage and off stage as the actors circle the audience and whoop. One character warns another not to “pollute the [Indian’s] flesh with bullets.” These scenes of gruesome violence are staged as spectacle and rationalized in the narrative. Three White men brutally murder an Indian man, whose death the audience witnesses in scene. The Indian is beaten, tied to a stake, knifed, and finally, set on fire. This dramatization of violence, like others throughout the play, is accompanied by the bloodcurdling screams of the Indian characters. At one point in the play, while European-American characters are brutally beating an Indian, an image of a White woman wrested by two Native men is projected center stage to seemingly justify the violence committed against the Indian. As the play makes clear, the violences against Native peoples continue postmortem as Native remains are stored in museums and universities, such as UC Berkeley, which currently houses 12,000 human skeletons. However, the production commits even further violences. Through Ishi’s perspective, Native remains are labeled “evil," and the housing of these bodies in museums and institutions is presented as an unavoidable and resolved circumstance, which is certainly not the case given the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

Considering the immense violences that Native peoples—and in particular Native women—continue to endure from non-Natives, violent scenes, which are unsparingly utilized in the performance, reveal disgusting and insulting displays of ignorance. European-American men and Ishi himself beat and threaten Native women or “squaw[s]” as the cast list derogatorily refers to one of the female characters. In the play, Native women, unlike their European-American counterparts (with the exception of Dr. Saxton Pope, M.D. who goes native, donning a two piece buckskin ensemble while simulating masturbation), are not only sexualized, but also beaten and raped. The depiction of Native American women as promiscuous, their bodies, like the land, seducing European-Americans, is yet another racist trope that the production cannot resist. Ishi’s narrative, which the main characters expend most of the play attempting to extract from Ishi, is presented in two versions, both of which render a Yahi woman, Ishi’s sister, as incestuous, murderous, and inherently rapeable. Rape, as Cherokee activist and writer Andrea Smith highlights, is a tool of conquest. Yet, the production portrays Native men as rapists and Native women as enjoying their violability because of their cultural upbringing: “Copulate and rape are not different words in Yahi.” This Western, patriarchal portrayal of violence against Yahi’s sister, who revels in her own rape so much so that she seeks out her rapist—also her parents’ murderer—as a lover and father for her child, is absolutely inexcusable. Yet another irresponsible scene conflates violence with sexuality as Ishi is positioned behind his sister in a manner that suggests intercourse while the two work together to commit infanticide. To add insult to injury, the production completely misrepresents Native conceptions of “balance” or harmony, insisting, “There’s balance in all [Ishi’s] stories.”

But in Ishi: The Last of the Yahi, Ishi’s so-called stories are not his own. They are stories of Ishi narrated through a Western lens. I could continue by citing the multiple violences against Ishi and Native peoples that the play commits and which I have not yet specified: unproblematizing privilege and power dynamics; portraying Ishi as childlike, savage, and subordinate; reinforcing racial and gender binaries, etc., but I want to conclude in a way that is more useful.

As a mixed race (Cherokee, Irish, and Filipina) woman, who identifies as indigenous and who was required to watch this production for a class, I want the director, cast, and crew to try to understand what it was like to be a Native person in the audience. The jolt sent up my spine when I read word “squaw” in the cast list, the knot that took root in my stomach and held while I witnessed the gunning down of an Indian in the opening scene, the stiffening of my shoulders when I was surrounded by staged violence accompanied by the villainous laughter and whoops of European-American characters in a play that professes to treat the history of our nation and the mass murdering of Native peoples as “gray matter.”I went to see "Ishi: Last of the Yahi" at UC Berkeley and all I got was this blog entry. (Review)

By Cutcha Risling BaldyFirst let me tell you about the point where I almost walked out. Ishi, having been living in the Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley for a few years was finally brought back to his home (Deer Creek) by Alfred Kroeber, his junior faculty Thomas Waterman and Dr. Saxton Pope (who will eventually be the person that betrays Ishi's wishes and dissects his body and harvests his brain to send to the Smithsonian). At Deer Creek a number of "hilarious" things happen, Kroeber admits that he doesn't really like nature all that much (and misses his wife), all the European American characters get together and sing cute little songs like "She'll be comin' round the mountain when she comes (yee haw)" and Dr. Saxton Pope (of the brain harvesting popes) "goes Native" where she dresses in a two piece buckskin outfit (am I to assume she bought these from a street vendor in Berkeley before she left? Or perhaps at Forever 21 or Urban Outfitters?) and simulates giving birth while whooping, hollering and standing up. She also tears the umbilical cord with her teeth, as a real Native woman would do.

It's meant to be tongue in cheek, I get it. These crazy European American scholars, tee hee, ha ha.

In the mean time, they want to continue to pressure Ishi to tell his story. His story will make them a lot of money, you see, and "build them a museum."

When Ishi finally does tell his story it rests with the fate of his sister. You see Ishi and his sister had been in an incestuous relationship for a while now but then she was "raped" by a white man. However, when Ishi points this out to her she desperately clings to him and says "First I was unwilling, now I am willing. This makes it alright."

It was at this point I started gathering up my things. I couldn't take it any more. First Ishi is just "a man" and then he is a man who has sex with his sister and then he is a man who kills his incestuous baby by drowning it in a creek because they are trying to get away from being hunted by the "colonizers" of California. And then he is a man cuckholded by his own sister who has to let her go or otherwise she may say things that he doesn't want to hear and "If she said it, I knew I would beat her, I was almost beating her now."

Later Ishi helps to kill her half breed baby, because the sister believes this will mean she can be with her man. Why Ishi helps her is a little unclear. Why he sends her to her death is also a little unclear. Anyway you cut it Ishi's sister doesn't have a name, she's just called "Woman" and in the end her last line is "Good. Dead. Dead for you." I eerily felt like she was speaking to the playwright himself.Wow. How did the other reviewers not comment on all this? It's not only stereotypical, it's flatly false. As far as I know, Ishi didn't do any of these things.

Baldy's response was similar to Andrews's:At the end of the play, having been subjected to the killing, fileting, burning, raping and molesting of Native peoples all over the stage. After having watched Native characters being "hunted" and chased around the theater, sometimes set to "cartoon" music. After having watched as Ishi drowned his child, beat and "raped" his sister, and was beaten by his own father--I was exhausted. My stomach had a huge knot in the center. My neck was stiff. I listened to the tears falling from other Native peoples in the audience around me. I watched as my cousin clenched her hands tightly together and waited. The lights went up, people applauded, but I and several others around me did not.But wait, there's more. The writer/director held a talk-back session with the audience but said he couldn't or wouldn't explain his thinking.From the audience I heard someone mutter "what?" And I felt the same way. We had stayed because of the "opening of dialogue" and "breaking ground for conversation about sensitive issues" (all statements made at the start of the talk back) and now we were told that there would be no effort to "explain" this "work of art."

The talk back continued with people speaking about the effort to "create dialogue" by the play and "calling attention to these issues." After one audience member asked for a response from the American Indian students about why they didn't like the play a Native man stood up and took the microphone. He couldn't finish his statement and it ended in tears. It was a meaningful illustration of what this play really does, it doesn't open dialogue but glorifies trauma. It erases the real, living Native peoples (some of whom are Ishi's relatives). It forgets that those people could be sitting in the audience. It refuses to dialogue with them when they ask real questions, how can you justify portraying Ishi and his story in this way? Why do you use this opportunity to give him a voice to destroy that voice? Why must you "confront" us with these images of the holocaust and genocide but also include a pseudo-justification for it by allowing that "even the Natives were participating in these atrocities--against each other?" Why would you take a peaceful, intelligent man and belittle his story to a sensationalist, animalistic portrayal? Why will you not acknowledge that your "art" could have been better? And now that you have access to Native people who want to have a dialogue with you and offer real feedback so that you can learn something and also teach others why won't you actually talk to them?Comment:  I posted a review of this play in July 2008. The critic noted some artistic flaws with it but didn't say much about Ishi's role. It seems non-Indians are somewhat blind to this aspect of the play.

One thing Andrews and Baldy didn't mention: When you focus on the depraved cruelty of white men, it actually becomes easier to dismiss their guilt. You tell yourself, "Those people were crazy. I'd never do anything like that. The conquest and murder of Indians was their fault, not mine. I didn't take the Indians' land or rights, they did."

In reality, of course, 99.9% of Americans didn't kill an Indian personally. Most people never met an Indian. Yet they voted for politicians who carried out the conquest and murder of Indians--people like Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. Most of the killing happened indirectly--by forcing the Indians onto unfamiliar lands, where they succumbed to disease and hunger.

In other words, genocide was a systematic problem that most Americans contributed to, at least indirectly. Portraying it as acts of torture and murder ignores the larger structural problems. The Euro-American mindset that encouraged land grabs and broken treaties is what ruined the Indians, not individual acts of depravity.

Anyway, this Ishi sounds pretty bad to me. I hope it doesn't appear again without a substantial rewrite. If it does, I hope people protest it.

For more on Ishi, see 100th Anniversary of Ishi's Emergence and Ideas for Ishi Statue.

Below:  "Two bounty hunters shoot at Native Americans. From left: Evan Bartz, Sanford Jackson." (Ryan Montgomery)

"Wild Man Caught"--August 29, 1911

California Museum opening exhibit on 100th anniversary of day Ishi was found

By Stephen MagagniniExactly 100 years ago, a starving Indian who spoke no recognizable language was captured near an Oroville slaughterhouse.

Here's how The Bee described the incident in its Aug. 29, 1911 edition: "Wild Man Caught In Suburbs of Oroville–Evidently Last of Savage Tribe of Deer Creek Indians."

The Indians–members of the Yahi and Yana tribes–had been massacred in 1865, 1866 and 1871. A few survivors hid out near Mill Creek east of Red Bluff.

Sheriff's deputies fed the rangy, famished native doughnuts and beans–he preferred doughnuts–and turned him over to San Francisco anthropologists T.T. Waterman and Alfred Kroeber, who called him "Ishi," meaning man in Ishi's Yahi dialect.

Today, the California Museum unveils a new exhibit honoring Ishi, California's most famous and misunderstood Indian.

The sensational headlines–and his reputation as a noble savage–made him one of the most beloved American Indians, celebrated in books, plays and film.

Kroeber, one of the fathers of modern anthropology, proclaimed Ishi "the last wild Indian of North America." His story has been taught to generations of California schoolchildren. But he wasn't the last of his tribe, and likely was not a full-blooded Yahi.

The exhibit helps unravel the mystery of Ishi, who learned some English but never revealed his real name.Speeches, receptions mark 100th anniversary of the discovery of Ishi

By Robin EpleySunday's 100th anniversary of the discovery of the last Yahi Native American known as Ishi was a day of both celebration and respectful remembrance for the town of Oroville.

A day of speeches, receptions, museum visits and gatherings marked the anniversary, hosted by the Butte County Historical Society.

Starting at 10 a.m. at Bicentennial Park, a reception with local historians, artists and researchers was held in a sort of question and answer session for the community. Many new facts have been found about Ishi in years past, and much of the legends surrounding his life before he was found in Oroville are untrue. Richard Burrill, a local author and historian, was also there to speak about his book on the subject, "Ishi's Untold Story."

Afterwards, a walking tour of Oroville as it was in 1911, and how Ishi would have seen it during his first week in modern society, was provided. A reception at the Ehmann Home, across the street from what was the Oroville Jail cell where Ishi was held, provided a chance for Oroville residents to share their memories of the man who made their town famous.Comment:  For more on Ishi, see 100th Anniversary of IShi's Emergence and Ideas for Ishi Statue.

100th anniversary of Ishi's emergence

Ishi events planned Friday, SaturdayThis year is the 100th anniversary of Ishi's emergence into the 20th century, and this week is the 10th annual Ishi Gathering and Seminar.

The Butte County Historical Society event is Friday and Saturday at a number of locations around Oroville. This year it has the theme "The Ishi Story: Myth and Meaning."

Activities begin with a panel discussion of researchers, historians and local American Indians 1-4 p.m. Friday at the Oroville Centennial Cultural Center, Arlin Rhine Drive.

They'll be discussing the different perspectives of the Ishi story, and how it continues to evolve.

Then from 5-6:30 p.m. at the Ehmann Home, 1480 Lincoln St., there'll be a reception with author Richard Burrill introducing his latest book, "Ishi's Untold Story in His First World: A Biography of one of the last Yahi Indians of North America."

Friday's events conclude with the showing of "Reel Injun," a movie on how the movie industry has portrayed American Indians for the past 100 years. That's 7-8:30 p.m. at the Ehmann Home.

Saturday a full day of activities called "A Walk in the Natives' Day" is planned, exploring local Native American culture in pre-contact California.Comment:  For more on Ishi, see Ideas for Ishi Statue and Brian Wescott, Charlie Hill, and Ishi.

Ideas for Ishi statue

A few weeks ago a woman called me out of the blue. She said she was a veterinarian in Chico, California:Chico is the most populous city in Butte County, California, United States.

The original inhabitants of Chico were the Mechoopda Maidu Native Americans.

The City of Chico was founded in 1860 by John Bidwell, a member of one of the first wagon trains to reach California in 1843.

Chico was home to a significant Chinese American community when it was first incorporated, but arsonists burned Chico's Chinatown in February 1886, driving Chinese Americans out of town.

Chico is located at the northeast edge of the Sacramento Valley, one of the richest agricultural areas in the world. The Sierra Nevada mountains lie to the East, with Chico's city limits venturing several miles into the foothills.She said Chico was building a traffic circle outside her office that would disrupt her business for a couple years. But she came up with a a way to make lemonade out of this lemon: by adding a statue of Ishi.

You can learn more about Ishi in Ishi, Last of His Tribe. When he emerged from the hills to join "civilization," it wasn't far from Chico.

Anyway, she Googled "Ishi statue" and came up with these hits:

The Flintknapping Ishi Memorial Statue Project

and from Newspaper Rock:

Good reasons for Ishi statue

So she called me to talk about her idea.

No Ishi statues yet?

Judging by the search results, it seems no one has ever done a serious statue of Ishi. All I could find was this "Concrete statue, life-size, of Ishi, by Van Zant" from the 1960s:



I'd say this is more a piece of folk art than a real memorial to Ishi.

Anyway, we talked and said encouraging things. Could be a real tribute to California's Indians and a boost to local tourism. Make sure the area's Indians are involved. Perhaps a gaming tribe would be willing to sponsor it. Etc.

Although I didn't offer any brilliant ideas, she thanked me for my support. She said she'd write a proposal for the statue, and that was that.

Thoughts on an Ishi statue

Here are my thoughts on the proposed statue:

Certainly the artist should make it look lifelike. We have photographs of Ishi, so there's no excuse for making it a generic Indian.

The temptation probably will be to show Ishi in his traditional clothing of skins. Perhaps with his arms outstretched as if he's praying or welcoming tourists. But I'd suggest doing something more creative:

Show Ishi in the modern business suit he often wore. Leave off the shoes since he didn't like them. Other than someone like Will Rogers, I doubt there are many statues showing Indians as modern people.

Show Ishi in his "primitive" clothing but have him leading other people, including the white settlers who founded Chico and the Chinese immigrants who lived there. This would graphically depict the idea that Indians were here first.

Show the "primitive" Ishi side by side with the modern Ishi, or shaking hands with him. This would suggest the continuity of California's Indians from the past to the present.

Show "primitive" Ishi and modern Ishi shepherding a couple children. This would convey the idea of the older civilization (Indians) guiding the younger civilization (Americans).

In short, don't just give us a traditional Indian standing there stoically. Use the artwork to send a message about the continued existence and relevance of Indian cultures.

The Newspaper Rock connection

As I said, I didn't contribute much to the woman's idea. The posting she found was an excerpt from a column in the Union newspaper of Nevada County, California. When I posted it, I didn't add any comments.

And yet I did my job. I disseminated the article to a wider audience. I preserved it in my blog where it would get a high Google ranking. I don't think the woman would've found the column otherwise.

Now I've posted some thoughts to the subject. This posting also will get a high Google ranking. The next time someone searches for "Ishi statue," these thoughts will add to the conservation.

What this demonstrates is the education value of blogging--something critic Michael Cooke doesn't understand. Most Americans don't have a clue who Ishi is. Now I've exposed a few thousand of them to the idea of honoring him with a statue. Some of them will remember and think about this the next time the subject arises.

Don't forget that each Google search is the tip of the iceberg. For all we know, a thousand students are Googling "Ishi" at this moment. Anyone who comes across this discussion may disseminate the ideas further.

So the blog serves the same purpose as the statue will, if it's ever built. They're both about raising awareness, educating, and changing the terms of the debate. When people realize there's more to US history than Columbus, the Pilgrims, and the Founding Fathers, they'll start paying attention to Indian issues. The blog and the statue may inspire little Johnny or Janie to protect tribal sovereignty when they grow up.

Eyre films Native Century pilot

Film crew works downtown on pilot for 'Native Century' series

By Mary WestonKatahdin Productions filmed a segment of a promotional clip for the documentary "Native Century" Thursday morning by the Centennial Clock on Montgomery Street.

The crew also filmed a scene at the Butte County Office of Education on Bird Street in front of the Ishi mural.

Ishi spent his first night in civilization in 1911 in a jail located on what's now the BCOE property.

"Native Century" will be a four-hour series directed by Chris Eyre of "Smoke Signals" [and] "Skins."

The documentary recounts Native American history in the century after Wounded Knee. The film chronicles how Native Americans have sustained ancient traditions and preserved sovereign nations while adapting to the 20th and 21st centuries, according to information at www.katahdin.org.

This week the company has been filming a pilot film about Ishi and the repatriation of his brain from the Smithsonian Institute.Comment:  For more on Chris Eyre, see Hollywood Puts Natives "in a Box" and Pix of After the Mayflower. For more on Ishi, see Brian Wescott, Charlie Hill, and Ishi. For more on Native documentaries, see Native Documentaries and News.

Brian Wescott, Charlie Hill, and Ishi

Film crew in Oroville working on PBS series about modern American Indian history

By Mary WestonA writer, director, several producers and a stand-up comedian have gotten together for what sounds like a sensitive, provocative and entertaining documentary about modern American Indian history.

Katahdin Productions is shooting the promotional film for "We Shall Remain, Smoke Signals and Skins" in Oroville this week.

Tuesday, Brian Wescott, writer and producer, and actor Charlie Hill talked about the upcoming PBS documentary at the Lake Oroville Visitor's Center ... while sharing knock-knock jokes.And:"So many of the stories about American Indians happened after the turn of the century, so we decided to take that as the beginning," Wescott said.

The promotional film Katahdin is shooting in Oroville revolves around Ishi, the last Yahi Indian who came into Oroville in 1911.

The film focuses on the recent repatriation of Ishi's brain from the Smithsonian Institute, and about how Ishi has touched the hearts of so many people.Comment:  "We Shall Remain, Smoke Signals and Skins" are three projects directed by Chris Eyre. I can't imagine one film with that name. It's more likely the reporter heard the names of Eyre's films and weirdly combined them.

For more on the subject, see Native Documentaries and News.

Good reasons for Ishi statue

Other Voices:  Why we should pay tribute to IshiTo California Indians, Ishi is a beloved historical hero, one who we admire and relate to. He represents both the shattering and the survival of our tribal heritages. But perhaps his greatest attribute and the most instructive, was his saint-like capacity for forgiveness.

His gentle nature and his remarkable journey, ending only recently with the return of his brain from the vaults of the Smithsonian to a burial place in his beloved homeland, make him emblematic of the struggles and survival of all California Indian people.

Last, Ishi was a good-looking man who looked great in a suit. The proposed statue is somewhat deco-noveau with its swirling lines and generalized, anonymous figures. Such sculptures are proliferating in many production foundries and may look too contemporary.

A bronze statue of a real person would be more historic. But, maybe leave the shoes off, he never got used to them.

Review of Ishi play

'Ishi,' gripping drama at Theatre RhinoThis is not the familiar story from "Ishi in Two Worlds" (1961) by Kroeber's second wife, Theodora Kroeber, who never knew Ishi (he died in 1916). Fisher takes off from Orin Starn's more recent "Ishi's Brain," and Fisher could be much clearer about how much of the play is based in fact. Though he stages his play with his usual proficiency--with parts of Ben Sherris' set among the seats area and some of the audience seated onstage--Fisher could profit from another directorial eye to help get rid of jarring anachronisms ("loser," "ethnic cleansing") and cut some songs, vaudeville elements and overstated passages (such as Ishi's Holocaust speech) that make the play's three hours sag at times.

But "Ishi" is a remarkably ambitious, often gripping piece. Michael Vega is magnetic in the title role. Kevin Clarke and Jeanette Harrison engagingly depict the intense peer-romance between Alfred and the tubercular Henrietta, with Pamela Davis injecting some sharp feminism as her suffragist sister. Matt Weimer is congenially disturbing as the empathetic doctor determined to dissect Ishi's brain. Aaron Martinsen, Jean Franco Pilas, Detroit George Dunwood, Linda Wang and Jorge Martinez turn in capable work in the large, uneven cast.Comment:  Too bad they couldn't have found an Indian to play the title role.

For more on the subject, see Native Plays and Other Stage Shows.

Ishi roundup

A roundup of links on Ishi, the "last of his tribe," with special attention to the differences between his real and his fictional life.

Discrepancies in Ishi's afterlife

The HBO movie The Last of His Tribe ends with anthropologist Alfred Kroeber having learned a lesson in humanity from Ishi. This description by Chris Watson sums up the change in character: Kroeber was in Europe when Ishi died. On March 24, 1916, Kroeber sent a letter to E. W. Gifford to try to stop any autopsy in respect to Ishi's wishes. As Kroeber put it, “Science can go to hell. We propose to stand by our friends.” (Heizer and T. Kroeber: 240). Contrast this with the content of the earlier telegram to Sapir, and it seems Kroeber's attitude has changed. It was too late. An autopsy was performed, and Ishi's brain was removed before his body was cremated.

After Ishi's death, Kroeber went into psychoanalysis for two years before returning to his work. I believe he was doing some serious soul-searching about the ethics of his work. Even though he went on to become the first great California anthropologist, he never in his lifetime published another word about Ishi, and when he spoke of him it was “with feelings of deep loss” (Riffe and Roberts).The Last of His Tribe shows Kroeber reacting in horror to Indian skulls stored in a drawer in a NY museum. Actually, he was in Europe at the time, but never mind. The movie implies he wouldn't let that fate befall Ishi.

Well, not quite. Kroeber may have been appalled by Ishi's autopsy, but he wasn't that appalled. As Nancy Rockafellar's report concluded:We have not been able to discover who authorized the removal of the brain at autopsy, but it seems to have been for anthropological reasons, since the usual medical protocols (esp. microscopic analysis) were omitted. It is not known what happened to the brain between the time of its removal in March 1916 and autumn 1916, when Kroeber returned from his sabbatical, wrote to the Smithsonian and shipped the brain to Washington.

The documentary record clearly shows [appendix H] the brain was sent to the Smithsonian from the University of California by Alfred Kroeber in early 1917, for scientific purposes.Andy Evangelista summarizes more of Rockafellar's findings:"The inconsistency of cremating Ishi's remains and some of his belongings without the brain, in the face of their knowledge of his beliefs, reveals an odd rationale on the part of Pope, Gifford, Waterman, and Kroeber [the scientists who cared for Ishi]. As Gifford wrote at the time, they were truly attempting a 'compromise between science and sentiment,'" Rockafellar wrote.

"The lesson here is not merely an indictment of anthropologists and physicians of the past, but a harsh reminder of the destructive power of hubris," reported Rockafellar. "All participants in academic life must recall the historical context of individuals like Pope, Kroeber, and Waterman--and remember that the source of their conviction that they were 'doing the right thing' was the scientific certainty of the day."

"This may be one of the most egregious cases of violating a Native American," Rockafellar last month told U.S. News and World Report. "He was a real friend to the white man. He spent virtually all his waking hours telling us about his culture and he was anxious to return to the land of the dead when he passed away."Fortunately, that isn't the end of the story either. As Evangelista writes:The Butte County Native American Cultural Committee began an effort in 1997 to locate and place Ishi’s remains and spirit in his native homeland. According to Ishi's belief, a person could not find the land of death until all his parts were together. Everyone knew his ashes rested in a Colma cemetery, but the circumstances surrounding the removal of his brain--and its whereabouts--were a mystery. The attempts of the Native American group prompted UCSF Vice Chancellor Dorothy Bainton to commission an investigation by UCSF pathologist Walter Finkbeiner and research historian Rockafellar. With the assistance of Duke anthropologist Orin Starn, they finally located Ishi's brain at the Smithsonian in January of 1999.

A report by Rockafellar the following month set in motion a repatriation process mandated by the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act, which requires federally funded institutions to return Native American remains in their possession to the individual's lineal descendants or cultural affiliates. After an often frustrating year and a half, which included red tape delays and pressure from California legislators, the Smithsonian finally turned over the brain to California Indians.I believe Ishi was reburied on August 10, 2000, at an undisclosed location in Mount Lassen National Park. His funeral was attended by the Pit River tribes, his closest living relatives.

In fairness to The Last of His Tribe, I'm not sure anyone knew the full story of Ishi's brain in 1992. But if the movie's creators didn't know, they sure guessed wrong about Kroeber's role in shipping the brain to a museum. Oops.

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.

Discrepancies in Ishi's museum period

A reviewer on Amazon.com notes some "unnecessary liberties" taken in The Last of His Tribe, the story of Ishi:No mention of translators E. Sapir or Indian S. Botwi.

Ishi was more involved with the community--playing with local children, dating, etc.

What stunned Ishi most was crowds--he had never seen more than about 60 people together in his life.

Dr. Pope was one of Ishi's main advocates/friends & not weird & insensitive.

Kroeber was able to go on sabbatical in Europe [not work at a NY museum] b/c Sapir was working with Ishi.Comment:  Here are some other differences between fact and fiction:

In the movie, Kroeber was 54 and Ishi was 40 (the ages of actors Jon Voight and Graham Greene). In reality, Kroeber was 35 when he met Ishi, who was about 51. As Chris Watson writes:Kroeber was young and ambitious, and when he heard about the Wild Man of Oroville, “he had found the Indian he was looking for” (Riffe and Roberts). An example of Kroeber's initial attitude towards Ishi is in the telegram he sent to the noted linguist Edward Sapir on September 6, 1911: “Have totally wild Indian at the museum. Do you want to come and work him up?” (Riffe and Roberts).

Ishi was more active than the movie depicted. He went into San Francisco, where he attended the theater and watched an airplane fly, and put on demonstrations at the museum. In The Last of His Tribe, he's almost a recluse. He rarely leaves the museum's grounds or interacts with non-museum personnel.

As Laurence A. Marschall put it:Ishi ultimately adapted well, even to his duties as a "living exhibit," putting on Sunday demonstrations of arrowhead making and other native arts for eager crowds of visitors. He learned to converse in broken English and developed a taste for doughnuts and ice-cream sodas. Professors came west to interview him, take down his utterances, and make wax cylinders of his chants.

Society's reaction to Ishi wasn't totally benign. According to Watson:[T]he newspapers did not even give Ishi credit for being human. For example, the San Francisco Examiner of August 30, 1911 said this about him: “He is a savage of the most primitive type” (Heizer and T. Kroeber: 96).

I believe the newspapers had to call Ishi primitive in order to rationalize what the white man did to the Indians. Rationalization is a psychological defense to justify one's doing terrible things. The process is unconscious (Lindgren and Byrne: 242). Once it becomes conscious, it no longer works.

In the movie, Ishi was healthy until a night "on the town" gave him tuberculosis. In reality, he was hospitalized for a respiratory infection, bronchopneumonia, abdominal pain, and back pain before he caught TB. Moreover, Kroeber was aware of the risks but kept him in the chilly, crowded Bay area anyway. Sending him south to the warm, dry desert might've kept him alive.

As Nancy Rockafellar writes:Our late twentieth-century eyes and sensibilities are appropriately offended by the fact that Ishi was brought into an urban environment where he would almost certainly acquire white diseases. There is ample evidence to show that Dr. Pope and the anthropologists were extremely concerned about the dangers of tuberculosis and infectious diseases from the time of Ishi's arrival, and his medical record shows that he was constantly and carefully treated and tested. In this pre-antibiotic age, however, medical science had little to offer in the way of effective therapeutics.

As the reviewer said, many if not all of these changes were unnecessary. Instead of spending a few seconds on events that didn't happen, the movie could've spent them on events that did happen. It's not as if The Last of His Tribe was so tightly and grippingly written that every scene was indispensable. (Dr. Pope's creepy campfire chant is the first thing I would've jettisoned.)

Usually I complain about Native-themed movies overemphasizing the most sensational points. But The Last of His Tribe seems to have underemphasized these points. For instance, the age change makes Kroeber a father figure, so his paternalism seems more natural than forced. The lack of scientists studying him or crowds watching him makes Ishi seem less exploited than he actually was.

Hmm. Maybe the filmmakers deemphasized the exploitation issue because their primary source, the The Last of His Tribe book, did likewise. Maybe they did it because it made the story feel too predictable. It's difficult to say.

Incidentally, I believe Jon Voight is interested in Indian issues. He attended the FAITA awards ceremony once, and his wife--Angelina Jolie's mother--was part Indian. Maybe they rewrote Kroeber's part, made him older, to attract Voight.

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.

Discrepancies in Ishi's early life

Some differences between Ishi's early life and its portrayal in the HBO movie The Last of His Tribe:

According to the book Ishi: The Last of the Yahi, Ishi's people weren't totally innocent and peaceful. (Ishi belonged to the Yahi subgroup of the Yana people.) They fought against the neighboring Winton Indians:Rugged, strong, and fierce fighters, the Yana terrified their enemies, most especially the Winton who had the dubious honor of being the primary target for Yana raiding. In a somewhat bitter irony, the Winton, who first drove the Hokan-Yana people from their Sacramento homeland long ago, were now the recipients of Yana terror. And it was primarily the Wintu who influenced white settlers' perception of the Yana with tales of being victimized by "wild Indians" who swooped down upon them, carrying off captives and raiding their villages. Though the conflict was a mutual affair, the picture painted by the Wintu was one of a fierce, war-like people who must be eradicated from the region. The image was to remain in the minds of many settlers who took up the task with less than honorable enthusiasm.And:As more ranchers sought pasture land, and more families cleared claims and hunted game, Yahi survival became that more tenuous. Hunger often drove Yahi to take cattle or sheep. Anger often drove ranchers to take Yahi. They were hunted down, killed, kidnapped, and enslaved. Scalping suddenly became a home business. Villages were attacked without provocation, leaving 30 or 40 dead at a time. Despite the enormity of the enemy's numbers, the Yana resisted. In a spirited last stand that rivaled the defenders of the Alamo, of all the Yana it was the Yahi who offered the greatest resistance. They raided the ranches and farms; they killed whites and ransacked cabins. Stories of murdered children (a few were true) spread wildly across the new settlements, inciting vigilante groups to seek their own justice. Murder for murder. Raid for raid. Brutal retaliation was the name of the game. Diseases ran rampant. The Yahi declined with horrid rapidity. It was among the bloodiest wars of the western frontiers and the outcome was never really in doubt.

In the movie, the first part of Ishi's life seems to been fairly calm and "normal" except for the occasional murderous onslaught of white men. In reality, Ishi went into hiding at age 5 and spent an unimaginable 46 years avoiding contact. As Jeff Miller explains:The flood of white settlers that swept over California during the Gold Rush pushed these and other native peoples aside and introduced a raft of infectious diseases that decimated thousands. Those who survived to protest the intrusion often were killed, put on reservations or enslaved. And those who attacked whites were hunted down in reprisal raids. Indeed, it was just such a raid and ensuing slaughter of Yahi at Mill Creek in 1865 that seems to have precipitated the retreat of Ishi's family group into the dense thickets and lava cliffs of Deer Canyon, southwest of Mt. Lassen.

What happened next has been pieced together from "wild Indian" sightings east of the Sacramento Valley, linguistic and other anthropological evidence, and Ishi's fragmentary description of his day-to-day life. Death and capture continued to shrink the core group of Yahi through the late 1800s. As the survivors retreated deeper into the wilderness, they became masters of concealment, preserving and adapting traditions to what became a daily struggle for food and winter stores.

In the movie, it seems Ishi led a traditional life until his mother and sister died. Then he left the wilderness for civilization and was soon captured. In reality, he may have foraged on the outskirts of white society for several years. As Laurence A. Marschall writes:[E]ven before he set foot in San Francisco, Ishi was no unspoiled innocent. He wore garments of factory-made cloth, foraged for food near homesteads and general stores, and even spoke a few words in the language of his neighbors (Maidu and perhaps Spanish).In fact, he may have done this even before his family died. As Thomas Curwen wrote in the LA Times, 3/28/04:His life and his family's were filled, by necessity, with scavenging and improvising: picking up Spanish words, using iron nails for harpoon tips, window glass for arrowheads, stealing canned food, sacks of flour and livestock.

Ishi may not have been the last Yahi after all. According to Miller:Only recently, for example, did an analysis of Ishi-fashioned arrowpoints by Steven Shackley, a research archaeologist at the Hearst Museum of Anthropology, suggest that Ishi was likely of mixed Indian ancestry. Far from being the last of the Yahi, Ishi may have been one of the first offspring of what were once native enemies.

The most likely candidates appear to be Indians of the Sacramento Valley, primarily Wintu and Nomlaki. These tribes produced blades with long concave bases and side notches, similar in shape and style to Ishi's handiwork. Arrowheads from historic Yahi sites are short and squat, with contracting stems and basal notches. It seems then that as the onslaught of whites proceeded up the river valleys of the Mt. Lassen foothills, these tribes were forced to intermarry to survive. If true, Ishi, who never spoke of his ancestors because of his religious beliefs, would be the ultimate survivor, adapting to environments with more subtlety and skill than the prevailing views of the day thought possible of an "average American savage."

Conclusion:  None of the movie's changes and omissions are terribly significant. But they all contribute to a romanticized picture of Ishi as a "noble savage."

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.

Review of The Last of His Tribe

You've probably heard of Ishi, who supposedly was the last "wild" Indian. The HBO movie The Last of His Tribe undoubtedly tells the definitive story of his life.

A somewhat misleading synopsis from Amazon.com:In 1800 there were 300000 Native Americans living in California; by 1900 only 20000 remained. Of the thousands who witnessed this slaughter it was thought that none remained wild until the day in 1911 when they called "Ishi" was captured raiding a slaughterhouse. Dr. Kroeber (Jon Voight) and his wife Henriette (Anne Archer) discover that Ishi (Graham Greene) is the last survivor of the Yahi tribe. In his head he carries the secrets of his people how they lived and died. These are secrets no man knows--but Dr. Kroeber makes it his mission to uncover them before the last of the Yahi is gone forever.(It's misleading because the story isn't about uncovering Ishi's secrets before he dies.)

A positive review (also from Amazon.com):excellent on many levels, March 18, 2002
By PA reviewer (Warren, PA United States)

This film is a must see for many reasons, primarily because it documents the very end of the ~15,000 year legacy of free Native Americans on this continent: "Ishi," the last Yahi and free ranging Native American is forced by circumstance to enter modern civilization in the early 20th Century in California. The historical significance alone makes it worth seeing.

Beyond that, Graham Greene and Jon Voight give outstanding and moving performances. Greene (who is always excellent--Clearcut, Thunderheart, Dances With Wolves, etc.) as Ishi, and Voight as the genius anthropologist who takes him in.

Voight's character is a pure scientist through and through who finds it difficult to get emotionally involved with much of anything. He prefers to look at the world in terms of evidence and hard data. He is distant as his wife is dying, and Ishi tells him (paraphrasing) "you put me in your book, but not in your heart."A negative review:Hook's third feature (actually made for cable) has the same fine intentions as The Kitchen Toto and Lord of the Flies, and the same lack of narrative drive and originality. It stars Greene (from Dances with Wolves) as the 'Wild Indian', 'a free-ranging man of nature', the last of his tribe of Californian Native Americans, found robbing a slaughterhouse for sustenance in 1911. Voight is the San Franciscan museum anthropologist who takes him in, studies, and employs him. 'That man's soul is in your hands, Alfred,' he is told , a message he finally takes to heart, much in the way, presumably, Hook hopes the viewer may do. Unfortunately, the movie is so filled with clichés, so devoid of character development and insight, that it's hard to see anybody sustaining interest long enough to hang in for the film's sincere but bathetic denouement. Never have scenes suggestive of genocide been encased in such a vacuum.Rob's review:  For once I'll have to go with the positive review. Voight and Greene did fine jobs. The movie was mostly devoid of clicehés and stereotypes. From what I read, it was pretty true to life.

True, The Last of His Tribe didn't have a strong narrative drive. Like many biopics, it hopscotches over the events of Ishi's life, never delving too deeply into them. It's a rather gentle and genteel film. Which isn't too surprising since, by all accounts, Ishi led a well-adjusted and even happy life once he was found.

Beggarman, thief

When Graham Greene appears as the pitiful Ishi, your first thought is, “No, I don’t think so.” His smooth, intelligent face doesn’t go with the ragged clothes and bad haircut. He doesn’t look emaciated or at the end of his rope.

The problem is simple. It’s hard to imagine Greene, who is generally a clever trickster type on the screen, as a beggar and thief. After all, this is the fellow who played a master chef in Christmas in the Clouds, a high-school teacher in Wolf Lake, and Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.

But once Ishi joins the “civilized” world, the casting begins to work. He’s clearly as smart and soulful as anyone in the room. Another actor might’ve played him as a dumb brute—more savage than civilized. With Greene it’s the other way around.

Note:  I don’t know if Wes Studi could’ve pulled off the role. I think Greene is probably a better actor. But check out the pictures below. Studi looks more like Ishi than Greene does.

The clash of cultures

The language issue is handled nicely. Ishi can’t communicate with anyone until he meets Kroeber, who speaks his Yana dialect. Even so, Ishi is mostly mute in the first half of the film, with Kroeber occasionally translating phrases. In the second half, Ishi learns enough English to understand people, but still speaks only a few words of broken English.

The inevitable culture clash is handled well too. Ishi doesn’t cry out or cower when he encounters a train or motorcar. He doesn’t react with infantile awe when he sees a museum building or a doctor performing a surgery. He doesn’t do inappropriate things with inappropriate objects.

Similarly, no one treats him like a crude savage. They don’t talk down to him—don’t say anything about how poor and miserable his life must’ve been. Everyone gives him the respect and dignity he deserves.

Note:  When the critic above talks about clichés, I wonder if he meant how the white folks treated Ishi like a noble savage, with the emphasis on “noble.” Perhaps he thought the treatment was too polite and genteel—i.e., too “politically correct.” If so, that’s a funny definition of “cliché.” This approach is far better than the usual approach, which would involve accosting Ishi with talk of teepees, chiefs, and squaws. The gentility is about what I’d expect from the leading anthropologists of the time.

The contrived conflict

As I indicated, The Last of His Tribe is a rather low-key, calm, unhurried look at Ishi’s life. It’s not a movie for fans of action-packed thrillers. There’s really only one dramatic subplot, and from what I can tell, it’s mostly contrived.

Kroeber’s wife is dying and he can’t deal with it. As a man of science, he doesn’t believe in the afterlife. When she dies, Ishi is surprised to learn that Kroeber won’t sing for her. Without a death song, she won’t be able to find the trail to the land of the ancestors.

Later, Ishi discovers doctors performing autopsies on bodies. For the first and only time, he gets angry and abruptly leaves. He spends the night away from the museum, outside. When he returns the next day, he’s coughing with illness, and you know it isn’t going to go well. But in the end Kroeber receives a life-changing lesson from Ishi: He learns how to sing.

Kroeber’s first wife did die while Ishi was there, but I doubt the rest of this scenario happened. The writers probably invented it to give the story meaning. What’s the point of a movie about dying Indians if you don’t get something from it?

I suppose you could argue that this plot is necessary to make The Last of His Tribe work. Without it, the movie would be more of a documentary than a drama. And then Ishi’s story might not have gotten told.

Conclusion

I like the fact that The Last of His Tribe is what I’d call a genteel film. That makes it eminently watchable if not moving or gripping. Rob’s rating: 8.0 of 10.

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.

Below:  Ishi, Wes Studi, and Graham Greene.

Ishi videos

The first video isn't exactly a trailer for The Last of His Tribe. Rather, it presents the first two scenes chronicling Ishi's discovery and an extended flashback to the slaughter in Ishi's past.

The Last of His Tribe



The second video is a trailer for an Ishi documentary. It also describes the discovery phase.

Ishi, the Last Yahi (Trailer)