Why Ishi Still Matters To Anthropology

Ishi’s relationship with anthropology has never been easy to categorize.

He gave researchers an extraordinary body of information.

The researchers preserved materials that might otherwise have disappeared.

At the same time, his treatment became a case study in the dangers of seeing living people primarily as sources of data.

Anthropology itself changed dramatically during the twentieth century.

Earlier generations often believed the scholar could observe cultures from an objective distance and record them before modernization altered them.

Later anthropologists increasingly questioned the fantasy of the detached observer.

Researchers are part of the relationships they study.

Power affects what information becomes available.