News From Native California - Spring 2016 Volume 29 Issue 3 | Page 39

Ishi’s life, was published in 1965 and became a phenomenal
success. In 1967 she wrote a children’s novel, Ishi, The Last
of His Tribe. This book also became popular and was widely
used in California schools and read by elementary school
children for generations. Despite errors of fact and important
omissions, these two books spurred budding young scientists,
Native American writers, and many others; young and old
became entranced by Ishi’s courageous story of survival in
the strange world of the white man.
The telling of Ishi’s story, even a hundred years after his
death, is unfinished. Storytellers embellish here and change
a name there; crimes, betrayals, or tragedy are sometimes
omitted. This inadequate introduction only sets the stage
and is written to commemorate a man who had every reason
to hate the people who destroyed his culture, his community,
and his family, to be distrustful of every aspect of white civilization and everyone who was a part of that world. Instead,
he shared his stories with us with dignity and kindness, as
a grandfather would. We are the richer for his sharing. It is
to us to continue to tell the stories, to laugh and learn from
their telling, and to pass his stories and our on to our
children and grandchildren.

Ishi would always go around
like an old friend to the men,
giving out those smiles of his or
some small thing he had made.
Sometimes when a patient was
very ill he would sing a song trying
to heal the man.

He shared his stories
with us with dignity
and kindness, as a
grandfather would.
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