No museum visitor could stand above him and claim another look.

The man whose life had been turned into an exhibit was finally allowed to disappear from public view on terms chosen by Native people.

That does not undo what happened.

Repatriation is not time travel.

Returning remains cannot restore the relatives who were killed in the nineteenth century.

It cannot give Ishi back the decades spent hiding.

It cannot erase the museum crowds.

It cannot reverse the autopsy.

But repatriation changes who has authority over the ending.

For most of Ishi’s public life, institutions controlled the story.