The Anthropology Of Genocide - WNLibrary

356 critical reflections
be to integrate them with other “survivors of landless tribes that have lived for many
years as scattered outcasts on the fringes of civilization.” Alternatively, Kroeber argued,
they could be granted “a few square miles in the inaccessible and worthless
canyon of Deer Creek where they now live.” Otherwise, their future was extremely
dire: “If they continue their present mode of life, the settlers in the vicinity are likely
to suffer further loss of property and livestock. If the Indians are ever caught in
the act of marauding it may go hard with them, for the rancher in these districts
rarely has his rifle far from his hand and can scarcely be blamed for resorting to violence
[emphasis mine] when his belongings have been repeatedly seized” (p. 8).
Then, as if on cue, in July 1911, the last member of that renegade band, the man
the anthropologists would later call “Ishi” and whom Kroeber would describe (in
a letter to Sapir) as the “last California aborigine” appeared in downtown Oroville,
Butte County, California, a historical gold mining town on the Feather River. Driven
by hunger or desperation the Indian came out of the foothills of Mt. Lassen
and was found cowering in the corner of an animal slaughterhouse. Scarcely had
the ink dried on Kroeber’s article on the Last Mill Creek Indians when he received
a call from the Oroville jailhouse asking for his help in communicating with the
“wild man.” The Indian was cold and frightened, and although he was obviously
very hungry he refused to accept the food and water that was offered to him. His
only clothing was a ragged canvas cloak.
In the first photo taken of Ishi just hours after his capture (see figure 14.1), the
man’s startled expression and his state of advanced emaciation are frighteningly
familiar. It is reminiscent of photos taken of Holocaust survivors immediately after
their liberation from concentration camps at the end of World War II. The
camps at Kosovo also come to mind. Ishi’s hair was clipped or singed close to his
head in a traditional sign of Yahi mourning. Had the old woman left behind in
the camp at Mill Creek died? Ishi’s cheeks cling fast to the bones and accentuate
his deep-set eyes. The photo reveals a man of intelligence and of deep sorrow.
Indeed, Ishi has been described as northern California’s Anne Frank. Cruelly
hunted, his family reduced until, the last of his group, Ishi was flushed out of his
wooded hideout. There is speculation among some northern California Indians that
Ishi may have been in search of refuge at the nearby Feather River (Maidu Indian)
rancheria. The Maidu, like the Pit River rancheria Indians to the north of Mt.
Lassen, were known to sometimes offer sanctuary to their escaping Yahi neighbors.
“Ishi wasn’t crazy,” Art Angle, chair of the Butte County American Indian Cultural
Committee in Oroville, told me in the spring of 2000. “He knew where he was
headed.” But betrayed by barking guard dogs, Ishi fell into the hands of whites instead.
Other native Californians in the area suspect that Ishi was “a loner,” trained by
his mother and other close adult relatives to avoid all humans. One Pit River man
said that Ishi, in his view, had “lost his bearing” as well as his bonds to other Indians.
“Too many years alone,” is what others said. “He didn’t really trust anyone
anymore—white or Indian, it was all the same to him.” “He suffered too much,”