- word in eommon, other worda followed. Iahl, the Dlllle by w hi oh the Indian would soon be known, waa indeed a Y ahi. His dialect differed oonaiderably from the other two Y ana dialects but it wu.. •till intelligible.

Together Waterman and Ishi tried out more and more words and phrases, finding aeveral they could both understand. The hunted look left lshi’a eyes and his face was wreathed in

1milea.

“This man is undoubtedly wild,” Waterman wrot.e Kroeber after that first interview. “He has pieces of deer thong In the lobes of his ears and a wooden plug in the septum of his nose.

He. speaks very clearly but I have not yet successfully got his story”.

That was not surprising. In the excitement of haying someone to talk to, Ishi poured out confidences with almost hysterical relief. Even elaborate pantomine could not make them comprehensible. Feelings too long denied were in control. It was difficult to realise how unique he had been in his iaolation from fell ow hnman beings.

lahi was the last wild Indian in North America. Even in his childhood, the fugitive band of Y ahi, defying an unknown but hostile outside, had numbered fewer than a dozen souls.· Finally old age, ilJness and violence from without left Ishi the only survivor. Aimless wandering in search of a new life had brought him to the slaughterhouse about 40 miles from his wildernesa home. There he lay down in th~ corral beca\lse he conld JO no further. When

3M he was captured, be expected dt }&th for be knew of white men only as murderer~ of l tis own people. He did not care. He was a man wi1 thout hope, with· out Jiving kin or friends.

Ishi’s people had lived in [^1]California for per· haps 4,000 years. But he was b om (probably in 1862} at a time when their stn iggle for survival had reached an agonizing climax.

It was his fate to witness and endure the terro1 · that beset and finally engulfed them.

Y ana country, roughly 40 mil es wide and 60 miles long, was an area of fa.st-fl owing ~treams, preciptious gorges, boulder strewn l hills and ocea· sional lush meadows interpersed with s trands of oa.k, and scrub pine. In this land of cold, . rainy winters and hot summers, the Y a.na hunted, fu 1hed for salmon, gathered wild nuts,

a.corns

and rootB, prepared hides, ma.de baskets and tools—taskswhioh required skill and constant industry. l’..Jke hungry hill tribes elsewhere, the Y a.na. were prou1d, resource· ful, swift and much feared. Their existence was precarious but lean times as well as fat were equally

And until the white man began to shared by all.

hem them in, the whole of the 2,000 square milea ~f their own undisputed world was open to them.

When gold was discovered in southern Cali· fornia in 1848, however, an endless stream of invaders began pouring over the mountains from the Ea.st. Few of the white settlers actually moved into ·Y ana country. They preferred the more hoapitab~’ va.lle:fs of· the Maidu and Win tun Indian~

farther west and south.

But they brought in smallpox, tuberculosis and

other previously unknown diseases. Their livesto ck ranged the Yana hills, depleting and destroyir. ig the native food sources and silt from their hy( irauJic mining polluted the ealmon streams. Deer t lnd other game became scarce and the noise of th. e settler’s guns made the animals shy and ha.rd to st :a.lk.

Always close to hunger, thle Yana became hungrier. Traditionally raiders amd fighters, they now raided and fought back with eve ·ry skill they could muster. Like guel’ilJas, they strn· ck unexpectedly and swiftly and then disappeared.

But their fear· some reputation led the whites to [^1]blame them for far more than they did. Even randc >m kiJJing, _every cabin boring, every raid on live-st .ock was laid to the Yana and brought savage reprien.ls.

By 1861, the Ya.bi’s southern 10eighbours, the southern Y ana. had ceased. to exist;. Three years later, when Ishi was about two years old, the un· explained ·murder of two white women set off the vigil antes on a.n orgy of wanton killing. ·At th’e beginning of the year, the central and northern Yana had numbered about 2,000 people; at the end of it, just 50 were alive. From this time, the only white men to interest themselves in the central and northern

Yana were scholars, linguists a.nd ethnographers.

The cunning of the local Indian fighters could now be concentrated on the remnants of the Y ahi-a tribe whose numbers had never exceeded four hundr~ But Iahi’s people in a lonely last stand &gaiDai.

366

fantastic odds. contrived to prolong their tribal history for another half century.

Our knowledge of that tragic period is spotty. In his final years. Ishi told much of the story to his friends at the university. Since it diatreased him to be questioned about many of the death· filled episodes, his friends contented themselves with picking up whatever lshi might occasionally volunteer.

For the rest, we are dependent on incomplete local records and the account.a of white participants remembered long after the events.

In 1865 when Ishi was about three years old, a ranch family W&R murdered some miles from Y:ahi territory. An avenging party · of 17 armed men attacked one of the large Y ahi Mill Creek villagea at dawn. Stationing themselves on three knolls which commanded every avenue of eaoape, they directed a continuous stream of gunfire down into the sleep· ing village and Mill Creek soon ran with blood. Among the few villagers who escaped this Three Knolls Massacre were the small child, Ishi and his mother.

Ishi remembered the attack well but would not talk of it ; it may have been then that hia father was killed. The attackers ransacked the wrecked village and went triumphantly home dangl· ing scalps from their belts. (The Y ana had never heard of seal ping, incidently, until the white Indian-fighters brought in this savage practice). The Ya.hi continued to be whittled down in numbers.

For hunger was now pushing them into reckless forays. And in retaliation. the vigilantes,

J67 often the most lawless and irresponsible among the settlera, swore to exterminate the tribe to the last woman and child.

It was four cowboys engaged in rounding up cattle from the Y ana Hills who performed the final •holeaaJe massacre of the Yahi.

Using dogs to track the hunters, who had hastily slaughtered one of their •teen in the Mill Creek area, they followed the trail far upstream to a large cave. In this remote and seemingly safe spot were gathered more than 30 Yahi, including young children and babies. The trapped Indians were helpless against the four &nned men who forthwith shot them all.

Silence now brooded over Mill Creek and for a time it was believed that the atubb6rn Y ahi had indeed been utterly exterminated. And 80 it seemed except that the bodies of the victims of this final massacre disappeared completely from the cave. Whether the handful of Y ahi acoompliahed this by their traditional cremation rites or resorted to burial was never determined. Iahi was eight or nine at the time, old enough poBBibly to have helped olean up the charnel house but he would never talk about it.

The Yahihad escaped total annihilation but were now ao reduced in numbers - there were perhaps 16 or 16 left • that any clash which risked the loSB of a single individual would make extinction imminent. The time of the concealment had come, the time for a Y ahi retreat to the inner fastneu of the~

36S own heartland where for some 40 years, they would constitute what Professor Kroeber later called •’the the smallest free nation in the world.”

Withdrawal and retreat had been a Yahi pattern ever since 1850. In the long silence that now followed, it became a total way of life. The hidden ones fished with harpoon and net, hunted with bow and arrow, and set snares - silent weapons all. They lived at sites chosen for their inaccessi· bility, on the narrow canyon rims of upper Mill Creek and their small house and food storage shel· ters were carefully camouflaged with bent branches. They travelled by lea.ping from boulder to boulder, their bare feet leaving no print; or they walked up or down stream, making the creeks a highroad. On the ground, each footprint wa.s covered with dead leaves, oll:>literated. Their trails went under, not through t) e dense thickets of scrub brush and they travelled t 1hem on all fours.

A cow could not find

such trai. ls, even deer sought more open oneta. If a branch wa.E l in the way, it was bent back gradually farther and l farther and if need be, severed by wear• ing througl 1 with a crude stone tool, a slow but

silent proceE JS.

They never chopped - the sound of chopping bt ing an unmistakable announcement of human prese nee. They kept their fires small so that smoke never ‘ rose above the canopy of trees and later covm-ed the camp fire sites with broken rook. They gather\< ld acorns, ground them to flour on smooth atoneE ‘ and made their staple mush cooking it in baskets.

They wore capes of dee:Uin and

369

wildcat, occasionally of bearskin and slept under blankets of rabbltskin.

The y,ears passe\<l.

No Ya.hi were seen and there were no “Indian trot.hies”

The back country hogan to fill up ; ranches, sawmills and settlements mushroomed upstream into the hHls which were no longer shunne:d because of fear of Indians. Meanwhile etb nologists ::i.gree that the Ya.hi people were leading the most totally aboriginal nnd primitive lives on the continent. Yet morale remained high nnd ancient Yahi traditions were maintainefl. The sick, the dying and the bedridden Were ca.red for ; the dead were sent on their way with ritual formality nor di\<l the living neglect to

mourn them.

Ishi nn\<l his people remained incorrupt, humane, compassionate and with their faith intact even unto starvation and death.

In the l880’s ranchers reported lthat their calves were again dianppearing and their cabins

being robbed.

Dy this time, t.he Ya.hi had lost most of their few hunters nud whites moving in Upon :Mill Creek .b.ucl left little game to hunt. So the Indians ho.cl once more takon to raiding.

Returning to his cabin one April in 1885, a settler DA.med Norvall sa.w four Indians climb out

of the ca.bin’s single window.

:Findi.ng themselv~s

caught, they lined up quietly agarn8t the cabm wall, leaving the next move to him.

They had take.n

only old clothes from t.he cabin ; perhaps because 1t

contained no food oxcept mr.nned guod which to

~70

them probably did not appear to be food.

One oi

the four was a young woman wearing threo old jump6rs of Norvall’s and little else.

Ono was an

old man who had taken a shabby overcoat and an ancient rifle barrel. The third was a. young man

with a crippled foot.

The fourth was Ishi. Norvall indicated by signs that the Indians could keep their pathetic loot and waved them off.

They dis·

appeared and he saw no more of them. That fall the cabin was again entered. Nothing was missing from it this time but Norvall found two Ya.na. baekets on the table, apparently left in gratitude.

In 1894, the rai\<ling suddenly stopped as in· explicably as it h1Hl begun.

The Yahi, having failed to find living space on Mill Ureek made their

last retreat,

to Deer Creek.

There were, it is believed, only five Y ahi left to withdraw to the tiny tract (no more than four square miles) where

they might live with relative security. The five

included Ishi, hiH mother, his sister (or perhaps she wae a cousin), an old man and a young one who was not related to the others.

They all knew this country intimately and the five Y ahi built a new viJlage on a demrnly thicketed canyon ledge 500 feet

above Deer CreeJ.:.

The village included a two room storage houl’c; a three by four foot reservoir, four feet deep i.i ,t~ which winter snow was packed as a. water source : a smokehouse covered with old wagon canvar-; for ~rooking meat and salmon; & cookhouse with a Rtone fireplace ; I hi’s workshop where he mnrlc his a rrow and spear points and a

3’H tightly built Jiving house with space enough for

five persons

to sleep warm and dry.

Neither sound nor movement betrayed that this place was

occupied.

Years elapsed.

The old century ended and a. new one hegan and still the five stayed on. Then the younger man died and four were left, two of them now frail and old.

Toward the e.nd, Is.hi and his cousin-sister must have done most of the hunting, fishing and foraging.

In 1908, the Oro Light an\<l Power Company, planning a. dam on upper Deer Creek, sent engineers to survey for a. flume.

One evening two engineers

came upon a. rook in midstream on which a naked Indian was fishing with a harpoon. The Indian was Ishi. They retreated quickly and their excited report of the encounter was disbelieved in ca.mp by all except Merle Apperson, the party’s guide. Apperson, who knew Y ana. country well, early next morning went exploring up the canyon. He was progressing through thick brush when an arrow whizzed pa.st, narrowly missing him. · He took the pointed hint and turned back to rejoin the crew -whioh wa.s clearing a flume line along the creek, utilizing the very shelf on which their home was

built.

The four Indians left included one feeble old man and Iahi’s bedridden mother. As they watched this alarming activity they could do nothing but hope that the white~ would pass on. They hoped in vain. About ten o’clock the same morning, the crew walked directly into the village . . The brusfl

372

in that part on the canyon was so nearly impenetrable that the surveyors might not have seen the village had they chosen a line even 10 or 15 feet to the right or left. Now, the three Indians who could ran, following their prearranged escape plan but not until they had covered Ishi’s helpless old mother with hides in the hope that she might go

unnoticed.

None of the surveying party saw Ishi that morning although they briefly glimpsed his sister supporting the old ma.n as the two ran to the edge of the level shelf and then dropped downhill. Then they• searched the village. Under a pile of skins and rags, they found Ishi’s mother. Her face was deeply wrinkled, her white hair cropped close in mourning ; she seemed to be partly paralyzed and her swolle:n legs were wrapped in buckskin.

As the strange men uncovered her, she trembled with fear. They tried to talk to her and some· what reassured, she made some response but she understood no English.

The men looked further.

They found acorns and dried salmon, a driJI for starting fires, cooking utensils, arrow-flaking tools, a deer snare, bow and arrow quivers, baskets, moccasins, tanned hides and a fur robe made of wildcat pelts. The men collected every movable possessiou, even the food and for some unfathomably callous r~a.son took it a.II with them as souvenirs. Most of the property taken that fateful morning is now with the Ishi museum collection, easily contained in a single

373

small exhibition case. It was nonetheless, four persons’ total means of livelihood.

Merle Appt>r1:1on wanted to carry the old woman to camp Lut the others demurred.

Early the next morning Apperson came back to the spot to find that the old woman was gone ;

there were

no footprint.s nor any other trace of Indians. A1iporson and some of the surveyors searched uplltrcam and down but found no sign of the fleeing

villagers.

Ishi himself ne ver saw his sister or the oldman again. He had run one way that morning, they

another.

\Vhen he could not find them later, he Was convinced they had drowned in the treacherous Deer Creek crossing or met some other violent death, perhaps eaten by a bear or mountain Hon. Ishi somehow managed to carry his mothor away and they were together until her death which must have come soon for the weather was then cold.

After she was aone he was without human [^0]

,

companionship perh11ps almost the whoJo time from November 1908 until August 1911. Then finally the Yahi came to the end of their last retreat when Ishi, renouncing the known agony of Deer Creel•, turned his footsteps towards the unknown fate awaiting~him~ in Orovi11e.

374 The tres.tment meted out by the white ooloniets to the American Indian oonst.il,ute the blackest of all the pages o( American history. Now lot us witness the tragic fate of the Five Civilized Tribes who willingly adopted the religion and mode of life of the whites to the extent of formally requesting the U.S. Government offioia.l admission on the ha.sis of complete loyalty as American citizens a.a a.n Indian state in the union. The only answer the white American government could give was outright genocide :

“With the influx of new settlement into the southern states (colonies no longer) the world of change spun faster for the Civili?.ed Tribes who turned still more to the ways, fashions and ideas of their waite neighbours. The Cherokee built roads, schools, churches, adopted a system of government modelled on that of of the United States and a Cherokee warrior crippled in a hunting accident devoted himself to perfecting a system of writing the Cherokee language. He had no education and neither spoke nor wrote English but after 12 yea.rs of work, produced in 1821 a workable alphabet of Cherokee characters. The Cherokee studied it with such enthusiasm that within a ma.tter of months, thousands could read and write.

A printing press was obtained and in 1828, the Cherokee began publication of a regular newspaper.

When tho Spanish domination ended in the South-East, the Five Civilized Tribes were no longer of any use to the U.S. Government as buffer states. White settlers moved in all over the back country.

Indian tradesmen and merchants east of the Mississippi were of no further importance. The spirit of the white frontiersmen -“clear t he India.us out”-had already outgrown all opposition to become the prime moving force behind American policy when in 1828, it took over the Govern· ment completely “it h the election of Andrew Jackson-the ombocliment of the frontier spirit-as ~resident. One of the first pieces of business for the new administration was the passage of what was kno\\’n as the” Indian Removal Bill’’ which became 111,w in the spring of 1830 and was aimed specifically 375 at the powerful intact nations of tho Suuth-East-Chootaw, Chicasaw,

Cheroke\<’ nnd

Creeks.

Force was necessary since these nat · l ‘d .

ions \< [^1]uot. want to move.

The states principally involved-Georgia., Alabama, and Mississippi-all at once pas~ed legislation outlawing tribal governments and plauing the Ind[^1]an nations under tho jurisdiction of the state laws. Indian l~nda Wero now wide open for tresspass by anyone, including liqueur dealers.

Bootleggers of liquour crowded into Indian territory and grog shops multiplied fast. State laws were enacted prohibiting ,;, court from accepting the testimony of an Indian against a. white man so that a.

claim, no matter how fraudulent, brought by a white man a.go.inst an Indian could not be legally protested. White squatters and land spocula.to1·s mo>cd in by the swarm, stripping the Indian of their lands and property by fraud, liquour and force.

Large numbers of Indians, many of whom had been comfortable and prosperous, took refuge in the forests and swamps in terror, di vested of their possessions and driven from their homos.

, ometimcs they were even divested of tho clothes they were wearing by frolicking armed whites. All appeals were referred to a. protest to President Jackson whose solution was the wholesale exile of the entiro population of the Civilized Tribes to the West at once.

It happened to be an unusually hard wint\<>r. The Mississippi River was so choked with ice as to bo impassable for days at a time. There wa.s zero weatlwt· and heavy snow. But sti!I these Indians had to Joavo their homes a.nd march to •Jxile, destitute and nearly naked. Cholera appeared in the summer of 1831, setting up a. belt of death which hal ted mosl traffic but through which thf\ armios of Indian exiles had to be moved, the Federal Government and the statl’s concerned l1eing inflexibly opposed to any delays.

Pressuroe and harrassm\<’nts not withstanding. the Lndians left their homola.nd with tht• gn•atcst roluctanre.

Tht>y did not. b

· b

I ·a,·s [^8]are the white frontiermau’s rostlcss pa~s1on to o a” · lllovin~ on. The whites could not comprnhend the Indians 376 “ They cannot n.ppreoiate passionat-0 n.ttachrul’lnt to their laud.

the feelin••s of a. man who loves his country,” said the Creek “‘ chief, Enea.h Ema.thin.. Somo watching whites were moved and sorno amused whou d\<’parting l11di11nc; went nbout touching leaves, troes. roC’ks nnd streams in f.irel\ oll.

So the educ-n teJ nud lhe ignornut . tho good and tho bad, those used to high.style gracious Ii\ i11~ nml those from huts in the depths of tlto forcsl wt’ro hercl\<’d together, reduced to tho lowest cnrnnt•lll rlonominator by liquour, dogradation and despair. S:i ill nawspaf:>or storie of the time, “To see a wholo peoplo des tit uto of food-tho incossau t cry of tho emaciated creatures boing “ Brc.ad ! Breed I” is boyond description. Tho existence of many of the Indians is prolonged hy eating roots and th” hark of trees. Nothing that can nfford nourishment is

They beg their food froru rejectC\d h’lwovcr o{fonsivo it may 110.

doo?’ Lo door. It is really painful to soo tho wretched crea·

furea wandering about tht\ streets haggard and naked.• “Ever sinoo Christopher Colomhus set foot in the Western ]·omisphere .480 years 11.go this month the original Indian in· ho.bitan!,s have heGn in rekeo.t.

A wave of revisionist historians in the Unit.od States has made many North Americans &!!hamed of their aMestors’ ruthlt•ssne!.’s and some steps have bef}n taken to help the survivors.

Fow South Americans, however, feol any weight on their eouseien\<’cs and in some parts of the vast continent tho war is going on today.

“The brunt of the white man’s onslaught is being borne hy the lndia.ns of tho Ama?.on basin, Stone-age trioosmen in parts of ColomliiR. and Braz.ii are regarded Ls many settlers as ‘\’Mmin and slaughtered withuut mercJ.

Earlier this year a Colombian jury o.cq1titted seven men o.ccuRed of clubbing to death a numhei· of Indian men, wom\<’.l and children because ho said, “they had been taught from childhood that there is nothing ‘Hong with killing Indians and had therefore “acted in good

“Tli\< .hMrica1i llc.it«ycBookofIndion11. W 1111& rn Brandon, Dflll Pubhdbing 011,. Xew York. 1~”1. ~l’i·’.?’.?7 raLr i\<lt!\<’’\<I).

377 faith.” Aftor numerous protests, the judge overturned tho mdict and ordered tho men to stand trial again.

“Ta Brazil, t ht• con8ict is on a far larger . ca le. A groat toad being built through the ~\ma=nn junglo iii opening up to rhite colonization big areas that were formerly tho preserve of forest tribes ~ome of whom had nevor ha\<l contact with whitos. Continual skirmishes are taking place between road workers llld Indians “‘hilo families of settlers are being killed by bandJ of Indians on tho warpath.

Only this yea.l” did Brazilians hear ofmassacrea porpttuatcd in 1963 by a gang of white Indian. huntere employed by o. land-developing company in tho hugo IOl!thefn at&te of Mato Grosso where rich mineral deposits a.re inspected bonl’ath land up to now occupied by ln\<lians. Tho huntera’ victims wero members of tho Cintas Largas (Long Ribbons) triho which aftor making a nine-year trek to the town of Cuiaba, told thoir story to local officials. Tho white men had carried out their task with sadistic brut&lity.

Whole villages •ere massacred with machine-guns.

On ouo occ~l!ion, a. young lndiao girl was tied upside down betwocn two trees nod tho killers hacked open her abdomen.

The girl died screaming in agony. Earlier tho whites had shot off the head of her baby cndd!od in her arms.

1’ho Cuiaba court has ordered the arrest oftbe mercenaries but they are still at largo. The Indian Pllpulation of Brazil is steadily dwindling. It wa.s estimated •tabout two million whon the white mon arrirc\<l bu ~ is now down to 100,000. l!aoy anthropologisti> tiiink the remnants “ill be wiped out within 20 years.

For much of this Ol’ntury, the Brazilian Jodi ans were P.ro· lected by a spooi&I Indian service founded by Marshal Cund1do Rondon.

It~ motto wM: -’dio if you most but nevor kill.” In tho 1960’e hie Indio.n Protection Service degenerated into an organization that worked hand in hand with land developing to111panies helping them hunt down and kill Indians occupying Potontially valuable land.

At a famous trial in 1968, the> d opt h of the

P(‘rVi\<’~R’ll 378 corruption was nwea.led to t.hc world. As well a.s using dynamite and guns 1o gl’t rid of India.nR, it had a.lso presented to them clothing i mprcgnanted with such white ma.n’s diseases as sma.ll-pox whit•h the Indians could not resist. Rivers were poisoned, peoplo wol’0 hacked to pieces or fed to giant ants. Cynical Brazilians haptised it is “ Indian Prostitution Service” because it had rounded up hundreds of girls to serve in brothels.

Tho Brazilian Covornment ha.s been reluctant to shoulder its respon;.,ibilitios towards the country’s original inhabitants. It ha.s tried to rli ;>miss accusations of genocide as “sensational· ism” and had done little to restrain iudi vidua.ls or Government agencies that :.tre frying to open up areas where Indians Jive as it secs tho de>oloprnl’nt of the interior e1:1sontial to its drive to make Brazil a major world power.

Latin American’! show no inclination at all to learn even tho major Indian languages. The minor ones such as Ona in Tierra dol Fuogo which is spoken by one or two very old people wiJI disappear within a few yea.rs ta.king a. world with them.•

It ca.n safely be assumed that if the Spanish Arabio·speak· ing “Muslims instead of European Christians had discovered America. (which they very neit.rly did), the red Indiana of North America would not ha.ve been exterminated. Wherever the Muslims wont, ·whether for trade, exploration or missionary purposes, they novo1· holu themselves aloof from the indigenous populations aR a scpnru to caste. Thora was never any ooneept of racial superiority nnd inferiority.

As one English orientalist writes:

Tho ma.rvcllons success that has been achieved in Africa and Indonesia in pt’opagn.ting Islam and its ways of life ha[^9] been lill’gely tho work of traders and meroh&nh who won won their way to the hearts of tho nati\”es by learning their l&nguage, adopting their manners and customs and settling