The challenge now is not simply to hide uncomfortable collections.

It is to tell the truth about how they were assembled.

The Hearst Museum’s current treatment of Ishi reflects that shift.

Instead of presenting him only as a beloved friend of anthropologists, the museum acknowledges the structural imbalance.

It describes the destruction of Yahi people as part of the genocide of Native Californians.

It recognizes that Ishi was objectified.

It admits that the actions surrounding his body after death were shameful.

Those acknowledgments would have been almost unimaginable in the museum language of 1911.

The change demonstrates why historical institutions themselves can become part of the story.

The museum that once displayed Ishi now has to interpret its own role in displaying him.