Ishi could earn wages and make some personal choices.

He could develop friendships and decide how to spend parts of his time.

He could decline certain requests.

Accounts suggest he had preferences about what cultural information he would share and what he would not.

But the structure around him remained institutional.

He lived at the museum.

His job was tied to the museum.

His value to the institution came partly from the public belief that he was a surviving representative of a vanished people.

His fame depended on the same narrative that reduced him to “the last wild Indian.”

This is why modern historians increasingly avoid repeating that phrase without quotation marks and explanation.