The Story Of Ishi, The Yahi Man Who Emerged From The California Wilderness — Then Became A “Living Exhibit” In San Francisco

Waterman and Alfred L.

Kroeber, one of the leading figures in American anthropology, saw an extraordinary opportunity to learn from a fluent Yahi speaker.

They could record language, stories, songs, technology, geography, and cultural practices that otherwise might disappear from the written scientific record.

To the researchers, the opportunity was almost unimaginable.

To newspapers, it was irresistible.

To Ishi, the situation is harder to reconstruct.

He left Oroville with Waterman and traveled to San Francisco in early September 1911.

He would live for most of the rest of his life at the University of California’s Museum of Anthropology on Parnassus Heights.

He was given a room.

He was eventually employed by the museum.