Ishi's Brain: In Search of America's Last "Wild" Indian [Paperback]

Orin Starn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 13, 2005

From the mountains of California to a forgotten steel vat at the Smithsonian, this "eloquent and soul-searching book" (Lit) is "a compelling account of one of American anthropology's strangest, saddest chapters" (Archaeology). After the Yahi were massacred in the mid-nineteenth century, Ishi survived alone for decades in the mountains of northern California, wearing skins and hunting with bow and arrow. His capture in 1911 made him a national sensation; anthropologist Alfred Kroeber declared him the world's most "uncivilized" man and made Ishi a living exhibit in his museum. Thousands came to see the displaced Indian before his death, of tuberculosis. Ishi's Brain follows Orin Starn's gripping quest for the remains of the last of the Yahi. 16 pages of illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Touted in his day as "the last wild Indian," Ishi, of the Northern Californian Yahi people, survived by adapting to a life housed within a San Francisco anthropological museum, where spectators paid to see him make arrowheads, until he died in 1916. Under 1990s repatriation laws, a group of Maidu Indians from the Sierra Nevada region sought to reclaim Ishi's ashes, buried in a San Francisco cemetery, but a rumor persisted that Ishi's brain had been removed during autopsy, pickled, and was still hidden somewhere. Duke University anthropologist Starn searched for the brain and here offers an unlikely narrative, informative and politicized, with easy-to-read, much-needed thumbnail histories of the Indian Wars. (As Starn notes, California Gold Rush atrocities against Native Americans are so recent that people remember them firsthand from their grandparents.) One of Starn's main accusations is that the widow of the important, early anthropologist Alfred Kroeber first made Ishi's story famous through "writerly liberties" as well as "careless research and made-up dramatic effects." Starn himself makes his own feelings and impressions central to the story, allowing himself to tell us, for example, that he "fell asleep at midnight with the motel swimming pool's blue floodlights glowing through the curtains like the beams of an alien spaceship." His search takes him from the University of Berkeley to the Cornucopia Restaurant in Oroville, Calif., to the Repatriation Office and "wet collection" in the Smithsonian Museum of National History, to an Ancestral Gathering at Mount Lassen National Park, to "Grizzly Bear's Hiding Place." For some readers, Starn-as-protagonist will ground this intellectual mystery, while others will find him distracting. But on the whole, the book satisfies as a quick review of sordid chapters in the nation's history, and a genuinely compelling investigation of how one culture's attempt to dominate another can take bizarre, persistent forms.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Anthropology professor Starn relates his and others' relentless pursuit of the story of Ishi, the last "wild" Indian found in northern California in 1911. Ishi was brought by the renowned anthropologist Alfred Kroeber to live in a San Francisco museum, where he died in 1916 from tuberculosis. His remains were cremated, with the exception of his brain, whose location remains a mystery until the author and several concerned Native American activists begin to investigate. Their goal is to repatriate Ishi's remains and bury them near his tribal homeland near Mt. Lassen. In the fall of 2000, their goal becomes a reality, but only after they succeed, first, in locating Ishi's brain in the Smithsonian, and, second, in following the convoluted paths of his possible ancestry. Starn embellishes his chronicle with a thumbnail sketch of twentieth-century American anthropological studies, and woven throughout his account are tidbits of recent Native American history, including the inception of the American Indian Movement and the boon of casino profits, which help put the Ishi saga in its historical and political context. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (June 13, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393326985
• ISBN-13: 978-0393326987
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #122,555 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Ethnic & National > Native American

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Moving Anthropological Saga, July 23, 2004

By 

doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Ishi's Brain: In Search of America's Last "Wild" Indian (Hardcover)

The story of Ishi is fairly well known. He was the mythologized last lonely "unconquered" Indian who was captured in California in 1911, then spent the last few years of his life as either a guest or prisoner at a San Francisco museum, looked over by scientists who were friendly but had suspicious motives. Since Ishi's death, rumors had persisted that his brain was removed for scientific study, and modern California Indians yearned for the brain to be reunited with Ishi's ashes (themselves kept in a San Francisco cemetery), so Ishi could be given a proper Indian burial in his mountain homeland. The author, modern anthropologist Orin Starn, was instrumental in finding the brain in an obscure Smithsonian storeroom, and for helping with the process of repatriation. This detective work is the main impetus for this moving book.

However, Starn describes much more than a dry academic detective story. While he tends to talk about himself a little too much and his philosophical explorations could use some editing, Starn fills this book with highly compelling coverage of modern cultural identity politics for all the parties involved in the Ishi saga. These include the modern California Indians and their divisive struggles to prove their ancestral connection to Ishi, modern whites who embrace stereotypical native mythology with misguided or even ulterior motives, and anthropologists (Starn's forbears) who have displayed shifting loyalties and ethics in their study of so-called "primitive" peoples. Starn also find inconsistencies in the knowledge of Ishi's life and background as espoused by caretaker anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and his wife Theodora, who wrote the famous but not entirely accurate biography "Ishi in Two Worlds." Most importantly, Starn also turns up new evidence and raises new questions about the mysterious Ishi himself, who was surely more complex and human than the semi-mythological image that surrounds his life and identity. This book is a strongly considered and moving look into the far-reaching cultural legacies of a single Indian, the decimation of his people, and the modern lives of Native Americans and all others who are concerned about these legacies. [~doomsdayer520~]

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Peripatetic Scholarship and Engaging Mystery!, June 27, 2004

By 

"matthewpos" (Long Island, New York, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ishi's Brain: In Search of America's Last "Wild" Indian (Hardcover)

At its simplest, this book is a beautifully lucid and often poignant account of how the author, anthropology Professor Orin Starn, tracked down the mysterious whereabouts of the last "wild" Indian's brain some 80 years after it was excised from his lifeless body on a California autopsy table. As such, the book reads like a compelling mystery novel, one that will keep the most jaded and disinterested readers hitched to a twisting and ever-surprising cross-country chain of discovery until the very end. At its most complex, it represents a keen, engaging, and constantly balanced overview of classical anthropological history in the 20th century as Professor Starn carefully uncovers, interprets, and weighs the motives and actions of one of the field's first luminaries, Alfred Kroebur, the man responsible for Ishi's emergence as a museum curiosity and stark emblem of man's "uncivilized" nature. The book will therefore delight Native American historians, political activists, college and grad students steeped in social and culture theory, and even casual readers interested in 20th century Americana. But regardless of the reader's background or incentive, he/she will find Professor Starn's ease and clarity in recounting this captivating story an uncommon joy indeed. Highly recommended!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Page turner!, February 25, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Ishi's Brain: In Search of America's Last "Wild" Indian (Hardcover)

A wonderful read, like a super-smart mystery. Full of fascinating stories, and they are all true! It also pulls together many threads -- history and current issues facing Native Americans, stones and bones, contemporary politics, the way we think about scientific inquiry -- terrific!