Red Deer Body And Soul

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

Exactly 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.

"He believed names are sacred and come to you in a dream from the Creator," said Museum spokeswoman Brenna Hamilton.

Ishi believed his name could be stolen just as his spirit – something he never lost during his five years in captivity.

The museum now has Ishi's plush cape made from bobcat and raccoon fur, which ranchers had stolen from his cave, which he called "Grizzly Bear's Hiding Place," northeast of Red Bluff. He got it back in captivity and wore it until his death.

There's also an arrowhead he made from a Clorox bottle while he was being studied in San Francisco, and actual recordings of Ishi sharing his "Doctor's Song For Sucking Sickness" and "Thunder Song," along with newspaper accounts of his visit to a vaudeville show at San Francisco's Orpheum Theatre.

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