`STORYLINES' LEADS OFF WITH KROEBER'S `ISHI'.Byline: - Bernadette Murphy ``Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America'' by Theodora Kroeber Theodora Kracaw Kroeber Quinn (March 24, 1897 - July 4, 1979) was a writer and anthropologist, best known for her accounts of Ishi, the last member of the Yahi tribe of California, and for her retelling of traditional narratives from several Native Californian cultures. .'' Written in 1960, this biography profiles the sole survivor of a Northern California Northern California, sometimes referred to as NorCal, is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The region contains the San Francisco Bay Area, the state capital, Sacramento; as well as the substantial natural beauty of the redwood forests, the northern tribe, an American Indian American Indian or Native American or Amerindian or indigenous American Any member of the various aboriginal peoples of the Western Hemisphere, with the exception of the Eskimos (Inuit) and the Aleuts. man who turned up near death outside a white settlement in 1911 and who was subsequently made into a museum display in San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden . The man, who never revealed his real name - ``Ishi'' means ``man'' in his Yahi dialect - was cared for by anthropologists Thomas Waterman and Alfred Kroeber, whose wife wrote the book after Kroeber's death. The first part of the book gives a biography of Ishi's tribal life, the history of the region, background on California Indians in the region and how they subsisted, as well as information on their language. The second half, on which most of the discussion will focus, profiles Ishi's experience in his new world, living in a museum in San Francisco and experiencing modern urban life. ``What's most interesting is not the book itself,'' said David Ulin, program co-host, ``as much as what it represents: a kind of mirror on a previous time of California history, looking at both the Native American and dominant cultures.'' Though the anthropologists tried to treat Ishi respectfully, Ulin said that ``what's respectful in 1911 and 1999 are two different things.'' The program will ``look at what this book says about Ishi and California history, but also how we've changed the way we interpret that history.'' ``As a person of color Noun 1. person of color - (formal) any non-European non-white person person of colour individual, mortal, person, somebody, someone, soul - a human being; "there was too much for one person to do" , I'm fascinated by the story of this isolation,'' said co-host Lynell George, ``of people not understanding your experience but feeling like they do.'' The trade-off between Ishi and Kroeber trying to understand modern man is an area of fascination for George. ``What would happen to Ishi today if walked out of the forest? Would it be any better today?'' Scheduled guests for tonight's program include Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin [ˌɜɹsələ ˌkɹobɜɹ ləˈgwɪn] (born October 21, 1929) is an American author. , the prolific novelist, poet and essayist, who is the daughter of ``Ishi in Two Worlds'' author Theodora Kroeber; David Reid, a writer, editor and historian who has edited two books on Western literature, including ``Sex, Death and God in L.A.''; Leanne Hinton, an anthropologist from UC Berkeley; and Darryl Wilson, a professor of Native American Studies Native American Studies is an academic discipline that studies the experience of people of Native American ancestry in America. Closely related to other Ethnic studies disciplines such as African American studies, Asian American Studies, and Latino/a Studies, Native American who is a full-blooded American Indian himself. |
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