I was sad to read Ishi's story

Can you imagine being the last member of your people and still having to cooperate with anthropologists who wanted to document your people's culture? 

In the mid=nineteenth century, Ishi's people, a gathering and hunting group known as the Yahi, consisted of about 400 people who seemed to live of life of tranquility until the 1849 Gold Rush brought lots of people who felt superior than them and were "too glad to clean up the Indians." Ishi's father was killed in a massacre that happened in 1865 and after that there was only the young Ishi, his mother and a few others who escaped. They lived constantly hiding and avoided leaving footprints moving around jumping from rocks to rocks. In 1894, Yahi's community had only Ishi, his mother, his sister or cousin, and an older man and woman. In 1908, a group of Americans saw Ishi fishing and later found his settlement. They saw Ishi's mom but didn't harm her but took all movable items, such as baskets, tools, food, bows and arrows. Ishi came to move his mom but she died after that and he never saw the other members again. Ishi lived alone until 1911, when he was found in northern California (Strayer, 2016, p. 38 & p. 39).

Yahi community was living in their own land and, all of a sudden, lost everything they had built together and their right of living. How is that that people can feel superior and disrespectfully take over everything?



Strayer, R. (2016). Ways of the World: A Brief Global History. Bedford/St. Martin's


Comments

  1. LeslieMay 24, 2020 at 11:18 PM

    I agree. Reading about this was devastating. It's sad to think how humans can be so miraculous and so selfish all at the same time. I think living in Northern California especially made me really look up at the mountains and foothills and wonder how many of Ishi's people lived these lands.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sarita Mazer LopezMay 25, 2020 at 2:36 PM

    Thank you, Leslie, for your comment. You made it even more personal and you are right, they lived right here close to us.

    ReplyDelete

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