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Ishi and the Invention of Yahi Culture
On August 29, 1911, the last surviving member of the Yahi people walked into Oroville, in Northern California. Born about 1860, this man had spent most of his life in hiding, avoiding the assaults of whites invading the Yahi homeland. He and a small group of companions had maintained a semblance of their traditional way of life into the early 20th century.
News of his appearance reached the University of California anthropologists Alfred Kroeber and Thomas T. Waterman, who made arrangements for the man to stay at the Museum of Anthropology in San Francisco. It was here that he spent the last five years of his life, demonstrating to visitors bow and arrow making, archery, fire making, and other Yahi skills; working as the Museum's janitor; and meticulously documenting Yahi culture for the anthropologists. In March 1916, Ishi dies of tuberculosis in San Francisco.
There is no single truth to Ishi's story, only fragments, gaps, and varying interpretations. People in all societies invent their own culture-creatively forming and elaborating received wisdom in order to survive in their world. Ishi, like others of his group, formulated a Yahi culture. Anthropologists and everyone since have continued this process of inventing Yahi culture.
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