PART ONE: ISHI THE YAHI
Prologue: Outside the Slaughter House
1 Copper -colored People on a Golden Land
2 A Living People
3 A Dying People
4 Episodes in Extermination
5 The Long Concealment
6 The Yahi Disappear
PART TWO: MISTER ISHI
Prologue: Outside the Jail
7 Ishi's New World
8 Life in a Museum
9 The Craftsman
10 The Brightest Year
Epilogue: Death in a Museum
Notes
Bibliography
Theodora Kroeber (1897--1979), wife of Alfred Louis Kroeber, is also the author of The Inland Whale (California). Karl Kroeber, son of Theodora Kroeber, is Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University and coeditor, with Clifton Kroeber, of Ishi in Three Centuries (2003). Lewis Gannett was a critic for the New York Herald-Tribune.
"Let me put it to you in these terms: If you read no other book
this year, you must read this one."
*Los Angeles Times*
"A highly original literary work and a great human story. . . .
stirring and fascinating."
*San Francisco Chronicle*
"A book that all Americans should read."
*New York Times*
"This book is remarkably lively and interesting anthropology."
*Atlantic*
"Kroeber's book, one of the few scholarly volumes of this [the
20th] century to reach the best seller list, presents a sensitive
and sympathetic discussion of this 'stone age' man. . . . As a
biography, this book is remarkable. As a reference work on central
California ethnology it is outstanding. As a record of
acculturation-of carefully observed sudden impingement of one
culture upon another-it is unique, and its record of psychological
reactions is worthy of careful note."
*American Anthropologist*
"The story of Ishi is indescribably sad. Theodora Kroeber has told
it concisely, factually, sympathetically, and beautifully. She has
avoided the excesses of pathos or condemnation to which such a
story lends itself."
*Ethnohistory*
“One of the first widely read books to offer an unvarnished account
of the near-extermination of indigenous Californians in the late
19th century. . . . [which] remains a staple of that state’s
high-school curriculum.”
*Chronicle of Higher Education*
"If we wish to know something of the inhabitants of this continent
before Western Man arrived, what is surely known of them, what they
believed, what our part was in their ultimate fate, this book can
give many answers. And the answers are truly moving, elements of
drama and high tragedy."
*American Scientist*
"Kroeber's book, one of the few scholarly volumes of this [the
20th] century to reach the best seller list, presents a sensitive
and sympathetic discussion of this 'stone age' man. . . . As a
biography, this book is remarkable. As a reference work on central
California ethnology it is outstanding. As a record of
acculturation-of carefully observed sudden impingement of one
culture upon another-it is unique, and its record of psychological
reactions is worthy of careful note."
*American Anthropologist*
"Through it all, Ishi emerges a man, an individual; always a man
who himself embodied not only the history of his people, but also
an acceptance of the world that destroyed them. That she has been
able to accomplish this blend of personal reality and symbol, while
at the same time telling an important story, is Mrs. Kroeber's
triumph."
*Social Forces*
"Either as an historical or ethnographic document, or as the moving
narrative of an appealing human being, this book must be regarded
as a truly worthwhile addition to the literature."
*Journal of American Folklore*
"One of the reasons that Ishi stands out so clearly is that Mrs.
Kroeber has recon- structed this background history with such
thoroughness and skill. The biography does justice to the man and
his two worlds."
*Pacific Historical Review*
"The extremely readable, seemingly effortless style produced by
Theodora Kroeber is that of a master craftsman. . . . The
techniques which Mrs. Kroeber applies to the handling of historical
materials are well worth study by anyone interested in presenting
history in valid, yet interesting, form."
*Hispanic American Historical Review*
"A unique and vividly written account of the successive steps
in the extinction of an aboriginal California people."
*Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science*
"Kroeber, after compiling all the facts with careful research and
questioning, has produced a beautifully written, fascinating, and
accurate book."
*Pacific Northwest Quarterly*
"Ishi is probably the best book concerning American Indians yet
written. Were one to read no other book about American Indians,
this one would do."
*Arizona and the West*
"All in all, this is a perceptive and humane study of Ishi by a
writer of sensitivity and intuition."
*Plains Anthropologist*
“A remarkable book.”
*Oregonian*
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