Ishi's Brain

Nancy Rockafellar; Orin Starn

Current Anthropology, Vol. 40, No. 4. (Aug. - Oct., 1999), pp. 413-415.

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CURRENTANTHROPOLOGY 1999Volume 40, Number 4, August-October O 1999 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved OOI 1-~~04/~~/4004-ooo8$1.00

COMMENTARY

Ishi's Brain

by Nancy Rockafellar and Orin Starnl

The story of Ishi remains one of the most haunting chapters in American history. After the massacre of most of his Yahi tribe by white vigilantes in the mid- 19th century, he and a handful of other survivors hid for almost half a century in the foothills in northern Cali- fornia, maintaining many of their ancestral ways. The others died by I 9I I . Ishi, alone and starving, found his way to the town of Oroville, where he was discovered at the local slaughterhouse. The sheriff turned Ishi over to University of California anthropologists, who took him to live in the anthropology museum until his death in I 9I 6. The department head, Alfred Kroeber, declared Ishi the last Stone Age Indian in North America, and the tale of his life has been told and retold many times, among others in Theodora Kroeber's Ishi in TwoWorlds (1961) and several feature and documentary films.=

The saga of Ishi has taken a new turn. In 1997 the Butte County Native American Cultural Committee launched a campaign for the return of Ishi's remains for reburial in the Yahi homelands in northern California. Although his body's ashes were known to be in a niche in Olivet Cemetery just south of San Francisco, the Na- tive Americans learned that Ishi's brain had been re- moved during autopsy and that what happened to it was never recorded anywhere in the many publications about him, including the detailed medical charts and autopsy report now archived in the Health Sciences Li- brary at the University of California, San Francisco. We have learned, however, that the brain was given in 1917 to Washington's National Museum, a part of the Smith- sonian Institution. A tip from Frank Norick, a former assistant director at the Hearst Museum of Anthropol- ogy, put us on the trail. We then found letters at the Bancroft Library confirming that Alfred Kroeber had

I . Campus Oral History Project, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif. 94143IDepartment of Cultural An- thropology, Duke University, Durham, N.C. 27708, U.S.A. Among others, we thank for their help Arthur Angle, Dorothy Bainton, Richard Burrill, Walter Finkbeiner, Robert Fishman, Thomas Kil- lion, Lauren Lassleben, Karen Mudar, Frank Norick, Jed Riffe, Stu- art Speaker, George Stocking, and Gerald Vizenor. 2. Among the films are The Last of His Tribe [ ~ g g z ) ,featuring Jon Voight as Alfred Kroeber and Graham Greene as Ishi, and Jed Riffe's excellent documentary Ishi the Last Yahi ( 1 9 9 ~ ) .

sent the brain to the National Museum, of which to- day's National Museum of Natural History is an off- shoot. Contacted in December 1998, museum officials did an internal search that showed that the museum had indeed received the brain in 1917 and that it had been preserved, now in a storage facility in Suitland, Maryland. The Repatriation office at the National Mu- seum of Natural History has initiated a consultation process about how to proceed, with the Butte County Native American Cultural Committee among those in- vited to participate.

The correspondence In the Bancroft Library details the brain's original transfer to Washington. Alfred Kroeber was in New York when Ishi died on March z ~ , 1916. He opposed even an autopsy, but his letter saying that "science can go to hell" and ordering Gifford to "shut down" on dissecting Ishi arrived too late. None- theless, Kroeber decided on returning to California to offer the brain to Ale; Hrdlitka, then the physical an- thropology curator at the National Museum. On Octo- ber 27, 1916, he wrote Hrdlitka: "I find that at Ishi's death last spring his brain was removed and preserved. There is no one here who can put it to scientific use. If you wish it, I shall be glad to deposit it in the National Museum C~llection."~ Hrdlitka was among the best- known physical anthropologists of his time (see Spencer 1979)~and brains were one of his special interests; he assembled a collection of more than zoo human brains as well as thousands of animal brains and planned a study of the relationship between brain and body eight.^ He replied to Kroeber's offer on November 8:

"I hardly need say that we shall be very glad to receive and take care of Ishi's brain, and if a suitable opportu- nity occurs to have it properly worked up."5

The brain's fate forces a recognition of Ishi's dual sta- tus for Kroeber and other anthropologists. Kroeber, Thomas Talbot Waterman, and Edward Winslow Gif- ford, the three who had the most to do with him, had genuine affection for and showed kindness toward IshiI6 but he was an object to them as well as a friend. Kroeber viewed the last Yahi as a."rich mine for the ethnolo- gist,"' and he allowed Ishi to be displayed at the anthro- pology museum chipping arrowheads and making fire. As to the brain, it is unclear whether Kroeber had be- tween March and October begun to see scientific value

3. Kroeber to HrdliEka, October 27, 1916, Department of Anthro- pology Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. 4. Thanks to Karen Mudar for this information. 5. Hrdlitka to Kroeber, November 8, 1916, Department of Anthro- pology Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley. 6. Another key figure in Ishi's life in the white world was the physi- cian Saxton Pope. Ishi was a frequent visitor to the wards of the University of California hospital, located next to the museum in San Francisco, and Pope spent hours in archery sessions with Ishi. The physicians also maintained a scientific interest in the last Yahi, making plaster casts of his feet and compiling an extensive medical history that included skull measurements and a list of Ishi's beliefs [Pope I 920). 7. Kroeber (1979 [1911]:87) made this comment after the first news of surviving Yahi reached him in 1908.

414 1 C U R R E N T A N T H R O P O L O G Y Volume 40, Number 4, August-October 1999

in its study or, as seems more likely, simply wanted to foster good personal and professional relations with Hrdlitka. At any rate, he put aside what he had earlier referred to as his obligation as a friend to respect Ishi's wish to be buried whole. Instead of adding it to the ashes in the cemetery, he sent the brain off to the Na- tional Museum on January 5, 1917, and it was recorded there as a gift from the University of California's De- partment of Anthropology.

The brain's discovery comes at a moment when new questions have arisen about Ishi's life. A recently dis- covered interview with Adolf Kessler, an eyewitness to Ishi's 191 I appearance at the Oroville slaughterhouse, differs in many ways from the description of the event in Ishi in Two Worlds, casting doubt on the reliability of this in many ways beautiful and pioneering book.8 At the same time, the archaeologist Steven J. Shackley has reexamined projectile points Ishi made at the anthro- pology museum and asserts that these points resemble those found on sites associated with the neighboring Wintu rather than ones excavated in Yahi territory (Shackley 1996). On this basis, Shackley argues that Ishi may have only been part Yahi or perhaps even been kid- napped as a child from the Wintu. Meanwhile, Native American activists and scholars have increasingly

ers have freely admitted from the start, however, they are not descendants of the Yahi, being Maidu. They base their claim on the fact that there are no Yahi left to see to Ishi's reburial and their geographical and cultural af- finity with him as people of the foothills and Native Californians. Will the few descendants of the Yana, of which the Yahi were one of four subgroups, work with the Butte County Native American Cultural Commit- tee or challenge its claim?1° There remains as well the matter of the ashes in the Olivet Cemetery. Legally, they belong to the state of California, which will also have to decide what to do. Finally, there is the issue of where a reburial might take place. It is not altogether clear what Ishi himself would have wanted. Should it be in the canyon of Deer Creek, the center of Yahi exis- tence in their long concealment of the late 19th or early 20th century, or on Mill Creek, which appears to have been the more ancestral home of the group and perhaps where Ishi was born? Even San Francisco should not be dismissed altogether, given that Ishi himself apparently told the anthropologists that he did not want to return to live in the foothills because the rest of his people there had been killed or died. These are iust some of the difficult, potentially divisive questions that will need to be addressed in the coming months.

voiced their own views of Ishi and his signifi~ance.~ At least some observers have predicted escalating These have included the artist and anthropologist Frank LaPena, the poet Edgar Gabriel Silex (1995)~ and the lit- erary theorist Gerald Vizenor (1994)~ who spearheaded a successful campaign to rename a courtyard at the Uni- versity of California, Berkeley, after Ishi. Vizenor insists that Ishi ought to make a forgetful Californians remem- ber "the thousands and thousands of Native Americans who were murdered" in the state (Daily Californian, July 7, 1993)~ but he also proposes moving beyond a view of Ishi only as a victim to examine the ways in which he found moments of reprieve and sometimes even pleasure in the white world. More than 80 years after his death, Ishi still occupies a powerful place in memory and imagination in California and beyond, and the struggle over the meaning of his life and death re- flects the changing relationships among and between anthropologists, Indians, and American society.

The finding of the brain itself raises many issues. The staff at the National Museum of Natural History is cer- tainly opefi to the possibility of returning it to Native Californians; the Repatriation40ffice has already turned over the remains of more than 4,000 Native Americans to their descendants and tribal groups as mandated by federal law (see, among others, Bray and Killion 1994, Price 1991). But to whom should the brain go? The Butte County Native American Cultural Committee has led the fight to repatriate Ishi's remains. As its lead-

8. See Burrill (1990) for more on the interview with Kessler, which is available at the Bancroft Library. 9. A fascinating story and painting about Ishi has also been pre- sented by the Maidu artist Frank Day; it is discussed in Dobkins (1997).

conflict between museums and Native Americans over the ownership of bones and artifacts. The battle over Kennewick Man is only the most publicized example of confrontation and controversv about control of the Dast. Yet many repatriation cases have been quietly resolved through good-faith negotiation among museum admin- istrators, physical anthropologists, and tribal groups. The result has been the return of remains, grave goods, and sacred objects collected (and sometimes stolen) by army doctors, archaeologists, and others in complete disregard for Indian rights and beliefs. Although the vio- lence and injustice suffered by the Yahi and many other groups in Native California cannot be undone, there ap- pears now to be consensus among non-Indians and Indi- ans alike that removing Ishi's brain was wrong and that it should be rejoined with the ashes of his body. One can only hope that at least in this case a historical wrong can be righted and Ishi's remains can at last be laid to rest in a more complete and respectful way.

References Cited B R A Y , T A M A R A , A N D T H O M A S K I L L I O N . Editors. 1994.

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10. In May 1999, as this article went to press, the Smithsonian In- stitution announced that it would return Ishi's brain to the Redd- ing Rancheria and the Pit River Tribe, two groups with Yana de- scendants.

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Calendar

October 20-24. American Society for Ethnohistory, Annual Meeting, Mashantucket. Conn., U.S.A. Themes: ethnohistory of northeastern Native Ameri- cans, representations of indigenous peoples and their histories in museum exhibitions, American In- dian gaminglgambling and economic history, indige- nous conceptions, presentations, and control of his- tory. Write: Shepard Krech 111, Department of Anthropology, Brown University, Box 1921, Provi- dence, R.I. oz912, U.S.A. (Shepard-Krech-III@- brown.edu; http://www.ethnohistory.org).

November 7-II. Human Remains: Conservation, Re- trieval, and Analysis, Multidisciplinary Conference, Williamsburg, Va., U.S.A. Write: Deborah S. Chap- man, Williamsburg Institute, P.O. Box 176, Wil- liamsburg, Va. 23187-1776, U.S.A. (dchapmana cwf.org).

November 9-12. LOS Investigadores de la Cultura Maya, 9th Annual Meeting, Campeche, Mexico. Theme: Recent Discoveries in the Maya Area. Write: Ricardo Encalada Argaez, Director de Difu- si6n Cultural, Universidad Autonoma de Campeche, Campeche 24030, Mexico.

November 11-14. Chacmool, Archaeological Associa- tion of the University of Calgary, 32d Annual Con- ference. Theme: Indigenous Peoples and Archaeol- ogy: Honoring the Past, Discussing the Present, Buillng for the Future. Write: Murray Lobb (wmlobb- @ucalgary.ca or chacmool@ucalgary.ca).

November I5- 17. za Congresso da Antropologia Portu- guesa, Lisbon, Portugal. Write: Ant6nio Eduardo Mendonqa, C. Marq de Abrantes, 10, 3E, 1200 Lis-boa, Portugal (apa@yahoo.com).

original remains and grave goods. Columbia: Universi ty o f Missouri Press.

S H A C K L E Y , S T E V E N J . 1996. Ishi was n o t necessarily t h e last full-blooded Yahi : Some inferences for hunter-gatherer style and ethnici ty . Berkeley Archaeology 3(2) : 1-3.

S I L E X , E D G A R G A B R I E L . 1995. Through all t h e displacements. Wil l imantic: Curbstone Press.

S P E N C E R , F R A N K . 1979. A l e i HrdliEka, M.D., 1869-1943: A chronicle o f t h e l i f e and work o f a n American physical anthro- pologist. Ph.D. diss., Universi ty o f Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.

V I Z EN O R, G E R A L D . 1 9 9 4 Manifest manners: Postindian war- riors o f survivance. Hanover: Wes leyan Universi ty Press.

November 17-2 I. American Anthropological Associa- tion, 98th Annual Meeting, Chicago, Ill., U.S.A. Theme: Time at the Millennium. Write: AAA Meet-ings Dept., 43 50 N. Fairfax Dr., Suite 640, Arling- ton, Va. 22203-1602, U.S.A. (jmeier@aaanet.org).

December 14- I6. Theoretical Archaeology Group, 21st Annual Meeting, Cardiff, U.K. Write: TAG Or- ganizing Committee, HISAR, Cardiff University, P.O.B. 909, Cardiff, U.K. (whitleya@cardif.ac.uk; ww.cf.ac.uk./UWCC/hisar/conferences/tag~~/).

February 18-19. The Role of Culture in the Agricul- ture of the 21st Century, Interdisciplinary Confer- ence, San Antonio, Tex., U.S.A. Write: David Guil- let, Department of Anthropology, Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. 20064, U.S.A. (guillet@cua.edu; http://csbs.utsa.edu/ organization/culture&agriculture/index.htm).

March 3 I-April 2. The Iron Gates in Prehistory: New Perspectives, International Conference. Write: Clive Bonsall, Department of Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, Old High School, Infirmary St., Edin- burgh EHI ILT, U.K. (cbonsall@ed.ac.uk).

Tune I5-19. International Oral History Association, I ~ t hConference, Istanbul, Turkey. Theme: Cross- roads of History: Experience, Memory, Orality. Write: Arzu Ozturkmen, Bogazici Universitesi, Tarih Bolumu, Bebek 80815, Istanbul, Turkey (ozturkmen@boun.edu.tr).