Ishi was said to have been the last aboriginal Indian in North America. In 1911 he emerged from the Northern California wilderness, half starved. He was a mystery, since the indigenous Yahi tribe of this area had thought to be extinct for many decades, after bloody skirmishes with settlers and disease had wiped them out. Fact is, Ishi, and his immediate family had been living in hiding in a remote canyon for 40 years, completely unknown to the modern world. Finally, he was the only one left and was found wandering in a state of mourning. After being given refuge by Professor Alfred Kroeber, an anthropologist at the University of California, this man known as Ishi, learned to speak English and adopted the museum of anthropology as his new home.
Ishi taught Kroeber and his colleagues many remarkable things about the aboriginal skills with which he and his family survived. One man who befriended Ishi was Saxton Pope, a physician and surgeon who had an intense interest in archery. Pope eventually hunted with Ishi, witnessed his remarkable skills including how he crafted his bows, arrows and various tools. Yes, Ishi even demonstrated his impressive flintknapping skills, his arrowpoints being works of exceptional craftsmanship. His personality was described as reserved, almost shy, but he liked to laugh and was fascinated by many things he saw in the modern world. He thought the white man to be very clever, but sometimes unwise.
Dr. Pope went on to become well known as one of the fathers of modern archery. He became co-founder of the internationally known Pope & Young club, an organization dedicated to hunting big game animals with the bow and arrow. Pope’s love and knowledge of hunting with a bow and arrow was much influenced by his friendship with Ishi, so, in a real sense, his accomplishments could be considered as part of Ishi’s legacy. But a far more profound legacy that Ishi left all people was his attitude toward the settlers and their descendants who displaced his people. He harbored no bitterness or resentment toward them. This “primitive” man possessed the wisdom to know that these sentiments could only poison his spirit. He recognized his former enemies as people capable of goodness and adopted them as his friends.
Ishi lived at the university in a small room until 1916 when he contracted tuberculosis and died. With Dr. Pope at his side, Ishi’s last words were, “You stay, I go.” Despite all of the things he taught the modern world, one mystery about Ishi remains for all time – his name! Ishi and his people believed that speaking one’s own name would leave a person vulnerable to the power of evil spirits. He staunchly refused to disclose it for that reason and his friends respected that. You see, Ishi is the just the Yahi word for man, so that is what his friends agreed to call him. This remarkable man emerged from the stone-age and stepped into the 20th century. He lived for 5 years in a starkly different culture from his own, then departed as suddenly as he appeared. We still don’t know his name, so the last aboriginal American Indian, the last of his tribe, will always be known as Ishi.