Who owns a recording?

Who owns human remains?

Who has the right to decide whether something should be displayed, studied, buried, or kept private?

Ishi’s life passed through every one of those questions.

The answers changed over time.

The institutions that once celebrated the scale of their collections now increasingly acknowledge that some collections were created through colonial violence and unequal relationships.

The Hearst Museum’s modern interpretation of Ishi is dramatically different from the museum publicity of 1911.

It openly uses words such as genocide, objectification, and indentured servitude.

It acknowledges that university employees violated his wishes after death.

That institutional self-criticism does not settle every debate.