He was probably in his mid-fifties.

The death could have ended the story with another familiar frontier tragedy: a survivor of a devastated people dying of an introduced disease.

Instead, what happened to his body created a second story that would remain unresolved for more than eighty years.

Before his death, the people around Ishi understood that he had views about the treatment of the dead.

He wanted cremation.

He had also shown discomfort around excavated Native human remains stored by museums.

Alfred Kroeber, who was away when Ishi became critically ill, sent instructions opposing a broad scientific autopsy.

His language was unusually forceful.

If anyone invoked the interests of science, Kroeber told a colleague in a letter, science could “go to hell.”

He wanted Ishi treated as a friend, not as a specimen.