Who was Ishi?

By

Dane Martin

 @ Original Pen & Ink Drawing by Val Waldorf

With the hundreds of new knappers coming into the craft over the last few years, it’s not unusual to hear one of them ask “Who was Ishi?  To say that Ishi is the Father of Modern Knappers is a huge understatement. He was all of that and much more, his mere presence and the interest in him alone was enough to influence both knapping and archery to this day.

It was Tuesday, August the 29^th of 1911 in the foot hills of Mount Lassen in the northern part of California near the small town of Oroville when it started. Workmen reporting for work at the town slaughterhouse could hear dogs barking out back when they arrived and went to investigate. The dogs had a man penned in the corner of one of the corrals.

By all reports he was a pitiful sight to see that morning. He was small of stature for the times, had copper colored skin and dark hair that was cut short. Both his nose and ears had been pierced and leather thongs hung from the holes in his ears. He was nearly naked with only a small deer skin for cover. One glance showed him to be mostly skin and bones and they could count his ribs with the naked eye. When he spoke no one could understand what he was saying.

The workmen pulled the dogs off and sent word to J.B. Webber to come and make the decision of what to do with this man. Sheriff Webber was a good and decent person with a tender heart and could see the man needed food, water and shelter to recover his strength. He housed the frightened and bewildered man in the local jail and saw to it that he was fed and clothed and even had the poor man photographed. This man hadn’t committed any crime; there just wasn’t any other place to put him.

To understand how poor old Ishi (not his real name) found himself in this deplorable condition and in the Oroville jail we will have to digress and look at a little history.

The Civil War ended in the spring of 1865 and freed the United States to again begin the march westward. The Intercontinental Railroad was completed a few years later and the West was opened to the public. There was just one small inconvenience that stood in the way of opening and development of the Western half of our country, the North American Natives. Many books and newspapers of the time referred to the Westward Movement as, Our Manifest Destiny, nothing could or would stand in its way.

Our Government and the general population in general felt that Natives had no civil or voting right and they were to be dealt with in any manner that was convenient. When it was required, treaties were signed but never kept, many Natives were sent to prisons or reservations of one type or another, and some were eliminated, which was a socially excepted way of saying killed. The Indians were considered a nuisance and the idea of them holding legal rights to property was unheard of. Our Government had declared that all of the land in our country was theirs to control, allocate and distribute in any manner they saw fit. Little consideration was given to the Native people who lived for thousands of years on that same land.

During the late 1800’s hunting was a pleasant pastime in many parts of the west, deer, elk, bison, wolf, bear, rabbits, fox, coyotes, pigeon, pheasant, and Indians were all fair game. In many areas organized hunts of Indians were conducted by hunters, ranchers and others on a regular basis.

The principle entertainment of the time was the newspapers. With the Civil War over, cheap printing presses became available through out the country and even most small communities had a newspaper. Communications were poor and getting information to fill those newspapers proved to be a problem for decades. To fill space in the papers every little piece of news was used and anything dealing with Indians was greatly embellished in most cases. After years of this type reporting, most of the Eastern population truly believed that Indians were godless, murdering, raping, butchering heathens that should be eliminated. In fact only a few were guilty of this type behavior but all paid the price.

About 1861, give or take a year, the man who would become known as Ishi was born into a turbulent world. He was a member of the Yahi tribe that was part of the Yana Nation made up of four major tribes. At that time the Yahi tribe consisted of several hundred people while the Yana Nation was several thousand. They lived as hunter gathers and did little if any farming. The Yahi were well known for making stone tools, bows and arrows and other tools with great craftsmanship.

In 1849 the California Gold rush began and the Yana Territory was invaded by huge numbers of miners and settlers from the East. With them they brought disease and firearms which the Yana did not understand and Yana numbers over the next few decades were decimated. The newcomers saw the Indians as pests and failed to understand that when they killed off the game, cut down the Oak trees that provided the acorns that were a staple of the Yana diet it would cause the Indians to starve. Vigilante groups would use horses and guns to hunt down any Indian who was thought to have stolen a chicken or other livestock until few of the Yahi or other Yana people survived.

Ishi spent the last several years of his so called wild life in hiding from the Saldu (the Indian name for Whites) with his Mother and Sister. Upon the two women dying he was alone and hiding in fear for his life. Ishi lived in hiding for several years and mourned the death of his mother and sister. As the years passed he finely decided it was time to be shot or hanged and he made the decision to get it over with. The morning he was discovered in the corral it was starvation and desperation that had driven him out of his beloved homeland in the hills.

While the Stone Age man sat in the Oroville Jail the modern world was in a whirl about him. Newspapers and others picked up the story about the Last Wild Indian as he was proclaimed in headlines. Across the country the tale of Ishi was a huge success and the story fascinated people everywhere.

As the notoriety and story about the Wild Man hit the newspapers, Sheriff Webber received a telegram from a Professor of Anthropology at the University of California in San Francisco. They informed the Sheriff that they would take the man off his hands and that someone at the University might be able to speak his language and figure everything out. They assured Sheriff Webber they only wanted to study the man and would see to it that he received good care. The Sheriff jumped at the chance to get the man off of his hands and out of his jail.

Ishi and the Sheriff rode the train to San Francisco. Over the years he had heard of the Iron Saldu Monsters and even seen them at great distance but to be in the belly of one was very frightening to him. With great determination and courage he managed the trip well in spite of his fears.

Ishi was met at the train station in San Francisco by a large crowd of photographers, newspaper reporters along with many interested people and of course T.T. Waterman, Professor of Anthropology at the University of California in San Francisco. Waterman could speak the same language as the Wild Indian and within minutes Ishi was greatly relieved at hearing a few words of his own language. Waterman discovered that when he asked the man his name, he was told it was rude to speak your own name and that he wouldn’t do it.

Ishi was taken to the Museum of Anthropology at the University and given a comfortable room to live in and there he would live out the rest of his life. The Museum Director was Professor A.L. Kroeber and it was he who had sent the message to Sheriff Webber and shortly he gave the man his name of Ishi, which simply means MAN in Yahi. It is the only name we will ever know for him.

Over the next four and one half years Waterman, Kroeber, and Doctor Saxton Pope who was a Doctor in the University Medical School would become Ishi’s best friends and all of them would spend a good deal of time with Ishi. Pope had a big interest in native Archery and was the first student of Ishi’s in the subject. Ishi taught them to make bows and arrows and how to knap the stone or glass points for the arrows and how to properly shoot them and even how to hunt with them. As time passed several others came to learn from him and to this day this knowledge is still being passed down from one archer to another.

Crowds of people showed up day after day to see Ishi and everyone was surprised to learn that even with the pain and turmoil that had occurred in his life, Ishi was pleasant, cheerful, helpful and pleased to demonstrate many of his native skills to the public. He built the typical Yahi shelter, demonstrated how to make fire and made bows from raw trees and the arrows to go with them. He used Obsidian to knap arrowheads to the utter delight of the crowds as most of the world still believed the Indians had used hot rock and water to knap with until Ishi showed them how it was really done.

Ishi spent many hours teaching the Professors and many of the Anthropology students how to knap and from this group it has been passed down to all modern knappers and we owe it all to this one man. Ishi used a stick with a nail driven into the end as a pressure flaker and today we still refer to the stick’s many varieties as The Ishi Stick. We pay him homage and respect for his contributions to knapping in this manner.

For the next three years, Ishi’s presence and demonstrations drew in the crowds and he lived in this manner. His new found friends showed him the delights of San Francisco and he was treated to fine dinners, shows at the big name theaters and backstage to meet the stars and to the delight of people, mostly while barefooted.

About three years into his stay at the Museum, Ishi and his three new friends decided to make a trip into Ishi’s former homeland. Ishi taught them to hunt with a bow, fish in the old manner, how to camp, how to gather edible plants and herbs and many of the other native skills. He showed them where he used to live and where he had grown up and lived over the years. He and the professors stayed for a month and none of them would ever forget the trip with Ishi. It was the last time Ishi would see his beloved homeland.

Upon their return to the University, Ishi became ill and he was found to have an advanced case of tuberculosis and a few months later died from the disease on Saturday March 25^th of 1916. To the end he was brave and cheerful and those who knew him would remember him as an intelligent, gentle and trustworthy friend.

Over the years a good number of books and other accounts about Ishi’s knapping have been written so we do have some good information. It’s clear that he loved to knap manmade glass as well as obsidian and was fond of the bright colors of the glass and several of the points that are in collections and attributed to him reflect this. Milk of Magnesia bottles with their unusual color were often used and the bottoms of the bottle made into points. He also used the bottoms of many beer bottles and even plain clear glass at times.

In the middle 90’s I spent a very pleasant day with my friends D.C. and Val Waldorf, Jim Redfearn and Charlie Shewey at D.C.’s place near Branson Missouri. Charlie had driven his station wagon and in it was about forty or fifty cases of points. The cases contained points that Charlie had made, some he had found, and several that he had acquired by purchase and as gifts. He handed me two small obsidian points with tear drop type notches. He informed me that Ishi had made them and that I was holding real history in my hands, he was right and those two points are the two featured on the cover of Chips.

When Ishi died a death mask was made and photographed and then his body was autopsied and his brain removed as a final insult to his way of life. His brain was sent to the Smithsonian by Kroeber. In the 1990’s his brain was located and returned to be buried with the rest of his remains.  Today his memory has found true honor as each time another person learns to knap, Ishi is remembered through that person.

Val Waldorf studied the death mask and dozens of photographs of Ishi and drew the composite that graces the cover of Chips.