Ishi's Brain: In Search of Americas Last "Wild" Indian

by Orin Starn

Overview

From the mountains of California to a forgotten steel vat at the Smithsonian, this "eloquent and soul-searching book" (Lit) is "a compelling account of one of American anthropology's strangest, saddest chapters" (Archaeology).

After the Yahi were massacred in the mid-nineteenth century, Ishi survived alone for decades in the mountains of northern California, wearing skins and hunting with bow and arrow. His capture in 1911 made him a national sensation; anthropologist Alfred Kroeber declared him the world's most "uncivilized" man and made Ishi a living exhibit in his museum. Thousands came to see the displaced Indian before his death, of tuberculosis. Ishi's Brain follows Orin Starn's gripping quest for the remains of the last of the Yahi.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393326987
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	06/17/2005
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Orin Starn is a professor in Duke University’s cultural anthropology department and has written for many years about Peru.