Ishi Wilderness
Encyclopedia
The Ishi Wilderness is a 41,339 acre (167 km2) wilderness area
located on the Lassen National Forest
in the Shasta Cascade
foothills of northern California
, United States
. The Ishi Wilderness is located approximately twenty miles east of Red Bluff, California
. The wilderness was created when the US Congress passed the California Wilderness Act of 1984
. The land is etched by wind and water, and dotted with basalt
outcroppings, caves, and unusual pillar
lava
formation
s. The land is a series of east-west running ridge
s framed by rugged river canyons, with the highest ridges attaining elevations of 4000 feet (1,219.2 m). Deer Creek and Mill Creek are the principal drainages and flow into the Sacramento River
.
The Ishi Wilderness is the only protected area in California that preserves a significant portion of the Sierra/Cascade foothill region of the southernmost Cascade Range
s.
is the name given by anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber
to the last surviving Native American
from the Yahi Yana tribe
. The Yahi Yana tribe had lived in the area for over three thousand years. Sometime after 1850, white settlers moving into the area killed all but a few of the Yahi. A few escaped and hid for years in the harsh wild country. Only what the Yahi left in the earth behind them remains today to tell their story.
and historical sites and artifact
s are protected by federal law and should not be disturbed.
The Leave No Trace
principles of wilderness travel are highly encouraged also by both the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management
(the BLM manages a small portion of the wilderness-240 acres.)
brush. Pine
s and oak
s thrive on the moister slopes facing north and lush damp forests line the river banks. This area is home to pine clusters, dense areas of ponderosa pine
growing on terraces in river cut canyons.
The largest migratory deer
herd
in California
, the Tehama deer herd
, winters in this wilderness area. Wild hogs, mountain lions, black bear
s, coyote
s, bobcat
s and rabbit
s also live here. A State Game Refuge, where hunting is not permitted, occupies most of the Ishi Wilderness.
Special fishing regulations are in effect for fishing in Deer and Mill Creeks, home to many fish species. A valid California fishing license is required.
A variety of raptor
s including hawks, eagle
s, falcon
s, and owl
s nest in the rock cliffs. Wild turkey
, quail
, morning doves, canyon wren
s, band-tailed pigeons, and many songbirds are frequently seen.
Studying the arrowpoint
s Ishi made, Steven Shackley, a research archaeologist at the University of California
at Berkeley's Hearst Museum of Anthropology, has discovered that Ishi apparently wasn't the last full-blooded Yahi, or Yana, after all. Instead, Ishi, who was found, starving and afraid, near Oroville in 1911, was of mixed Indian blood—a finding that revises Ishi's famous history, which many people learned by reading Ishi in Two Worlds by Theodora Kroeber
.
An analysis of a large UC Berkeley collection of Ishi's arrowheads indicates that although he spoke Yahi and had lived in the ancestral Yahi homeland in the Mount Lassen foothills, he also had either Wintu
or Nomlaki
blood.
Arrowpoints made in the historic Yahi sites excavated by the UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology in the 1950s and housed at the museum are quite different from Ishi's products. But tools and arrowpoints made at historic Nomlaki or Wintu sites also housed at the museum bear striking resemblance to those made by Ishi. Hundreds of projectile points Ishi made after he left the wilderness had long blades with concave bases and side notches. In contrast, arrowheads in the museum from historic Yahi sites are short and squat, with contracting stems and basal notches.
Although Ishi was culturally Yahi, he learned to produce arrowpoints not from Yahi relatives, but very possibly from a Nomlaki or Wintu male relative. The Wintu, Nomlaki and Maidu belonged to a large group of Indians in the Sacramento Valley
who spoke a language called Penutian. They lived adjacent to their enemies, the Yana, who were in the Lassen foothills. The Yana had four subgroups—the northern, central and southern Yana, and the Yahi—and each had its own dialect, territory and culture.
Ishi was born into an extended family that, in order to perpetuate life, was forced to intermarry with outsiders, with enemies, and one of Ishi's parents may have been Wintu or Nomlaki. The number of Indians was dwindling, and an incest
taboo
kept them from choosing a relative as a mate.
In 1908, surveyors spotted four Indians in Yahi territory. But in 1909, Thomas Waterman, a UC Berkeley anthropologist, and two guides failed to find the group. Two years later, Ishi, who verified that he had been one of the four, appeared alone near Oroville, California
with his hair burned, a sign of mourning.
Ishi first made headlines on Aug. 29, 1911, when butchers found him outside a slaughterhouse near Oroville. Initially, he was jailed by the Butte County
sheriff. But two UC Berkeley anthropologists, Alfred Kroeber and Waterman, befriended Ishi and gave him shelter at the campus' anthropology museum, at that time located in San Francisco.
The anthropologists pronounced Ishi a Yahi because he spoke Yahi and was found near Yahi territory. They also considered him the last Yahi, since the only Yahi left in the hinterlands were believed to have been exterminate
d. They believed Ishi was the last Indian to have lived in the wild. Massacres, starvation and disease had taken the lives of countless Indians in Northern California during the mid-to-late-19th century. Many others had been forced into reservations.
Under pressure from reporters who wanted to know the stranger's name, Alfred Kroeber called him "Ishi," which means "man" in Yana. Ishi never uttered his real name, as it was culturally taboo to do so.
Ishi was given a home at the University of California's anthropology museum—then on the UCSF campus in an old law school building. He lived there for most of the rest of his life, except for the summer of 1915, when he lived in Berkeley with Waterman and his family. While at the museum, Ishi often worked on native crafts. By his own choice, he often did these crafts for museum audiences and would give some of his work away. Ishi formed close friendships with Waterman, Kroeber and with Saxton Pope, (a teacher at the university's medical school, next door to the museum). He also agreed to record linguistic
material on the Yahi language for UC Berkeley.
In December 1914, Ishi developed what doctors felt was tuberculosis
. After several hospitalizations, his friends moved him back to the museum to spend his last days. He died there on March 25, 1916.
National Wilderness Preservation System
The National Wilderness Preservation System of the United States protects federally managed land areas designated for preservation in their natural condition. It was established by the Wilderness Act upon the signature of President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 3, 1964...
located on the Lassen National Forest
Lassen National Forest
Lassen National Forest is a national forest of 1,700 square miles in northeastern California. It is named after pioneer Peter Lassen, who mined, ranched and promoted the area to emigrant parties in the 1850s.- Overview :...
in the Shasta Cascade
Shasta Cascade
The Shasta Cascade region of California is located in the northeastern and north-central sections of the state bordering Oregon and Nevada, including far northern parts of the Central Valley and the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The area is centered on Mount Shasta in the California Cascade Range,...
foothills of northern California
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The Ishi Wilderness is located approximately twenty miles east of Red Bluff, California
Red Bluff, California
Red Bluff is a city in and the county seat of Tehama County, California, United States. The population was 14,076 at the 2010 census, up from 13,147 at the 2000 census....
. The wilderness was created when the US Congress passed the California Wilderness Act of 1984
California Wilderness Act of 1984
The California Wilderness Act of 1984 is a federal law , passed by the United States Congress on September 28, 1984, that authorized the addition of over within the state of California to the National Wilderness Preservation System....
. The land is etched by wind and water, and dotted with basalt
Basalt
Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...
outcroppings, caves, and unusual pillar
Lava pillars
Lava pillars are common within collapsed sheet flow terrain. Lava pillars are hollow inside forming a pipe-like channel between the bottom and the top of a lava flow. They sometimes coalesce to form walls or can be attached to other pillars by natural bridges....
lava
Lava
Lava refers both to molten rock expelled by a volcano during an eruption and the resulting rock after solidification and cooling. This molten rock is formed in the interior of some planets, including Earth, and some of their satellites. When first erupted from a volcanic vent, lava is a liquid at...
formation
Geologic formation
A formation or geological formation is the fundamental unit of lithostratigraphy. A formation consists of a certain number of rock strata that have a comparable lithology, facies or other similar properties...
s. The land is a series of east-west running ridge
Ridge
A ridge is a geological feature consisting of a chain of mountains or hills that form a continuous elevated crest for some distance. Ridges are usually termed hills or mountains as well, depending on size. There are several main types of ridges:...
s framed by rugged river canyons, with the highest ridges attaining elevations of 4000 feet (1,219.2 m). Deer Creek and Mill Creek are the principal drainages and flow into the Sacramento River
Sacramento River
The Sacramento River is an important watercourse of Northern and Central California in the United States. The largest river in California, it rises on the eastern slopes of the Klamath Mountains, and after a journey south of over , empties into Suisun Bay, an arm of the San Francisco Bay, and...
.
The Ishi Wilderness is the only protected area in California that preserves a significant portion of the Sierra/Cascade foothill region of the southernmost Cascade Range
Cascade Range
The Cascade Range is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, and the notable volcanoes known as the High Cascades...
s.
Yana Indian
IshiIshi
Ishi was the last member of the Yahi, the last surviving group of the Yana people of the U.S. state of California. Ishi is believed to have been the last Native American in Northern California to have lived most of his life completely outside the European American culture...
is the name given by anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber
Alfred L. Kroeber
Alfred Louis Kroeber was an American anthropologist. He was the first professor appointed to the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and played an integral role in the early days of its Museum of Anthropology, where he served as director from 1909 through...
to the last surviving Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
from the Yahi Yana tribe
Yana people
The Yana people were a group of Native Americans indigenous to Northern California in the central Sierra Nevada Mountains, on the western side of the range. The Yana-speaking people comprised four groups: the Northern Yana, the Central Yana, the Southern Yana, and the Yahi...
. The Yahi Yana tribe had lived in the area for over three thousand years. Sometime after 1850, white settlers moving into the area killed all but a few of the Yahi. A few escaped and hid for years in the harsh wild country. Only what the Yahi left in the earth behind them remains today to tell their story.
Wilderness rules
The US Forest Service reminds visitors to the Wilderness to respect the record of the Yahi Yana Indians. All archaeologicalArchaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
and historical sites and artifact
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
s are protected by federal law and should not be disturbed.
The Leave No Trace
Leave No Trace
Leave No Trace is both a set of principles, and an organization that promotes those principles. The principles are designed to assist outdoor enthusiasts with their decisions about how to reduce their impacts when they hike, camp, picnic, snowshoe, run, bike, hunt, paddle, ride horses, fish, ski or...
principles of wilderness travel are highly encouraged also by both the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management
Bureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior which administers America's public lands, totaling approximately , or one-eighth of the landmass of the country. The BLM also manages of subsurface mineral estate underlying federal, state and private...
(the BLM manages a small portion of the wilderness-240 acres.)
Flora and fauna
The sun-baked south slopes are covered with chaparralChaparral
Chaparral is a shrubland or heathland plant community found primarily in the U.S. state of California and in the northern portion of the Baja California peninsula, Mexico...
brush. Pine
Pine
Pines are trees in the genus Pinus ,in the family Pinaceae. They make up the monotypic subfamily Pinoideae. There are about 115 species of pine, although different authorities accept between 105 and 125 species.-Etymology:...
s and oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
s thrive on the moister slopes facing north and lush damp forests line the river banks. This area is home to pine clusters, dense areas of ponderosa pine
Ponderosa Pine
Pinus ponderosa, commonly known as the Ponderosa Pine, Bull Pine, Blackjack Pine, or Western Yellow Pine, is a widespread and variable pine native to western North America. It was first described by David Douglas in 1826, from eastern Washington near present-day Spokane...
growing on terraces in river cut canyons.
The largest migratory deer
Deer
Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...
herd
Herd
Herd refers to a social grouping of certain animals of the same species, either wild or domestic, and also to the form of collective animal behavior associated with this or as a verb, to herd, to its control by another species such as humans or dogs.The term herd is generally applied to mammals,...
in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, the Tehama deer herd
Tehama deer herd
The Tehama deer herd is a herd of deer in eastern Tehama County, California. During the 1950s and 1960s, the deer herd was California's largest, with more than 100,000 deer. As of 2001, the herd was reduced to 22,100 deer....
, winters in this wilderness area. Wild hogs, mountain lions, black bear
American black bear
The American black bear is a medium-sized bear native to North America. It is the continent's smallest and most common bear species. Black bears are omnivores, with their diets varying greatly depending on season and location. They typically live in largely forested areas, but do leave forests in...
s, coyote
Coyote
The coyote , also known as the American jackal or the prairie wolf, is a species of canine found throughout North and Central America, ranging from Panama in the south, north through Mexico, the United States and Canada...
s, bobcat
Bobcat
The bobcat is a North American mammal of the cat family Felidae, appearing during the Irvingtonian stage of around 1.8 million years ago . With twelve recognized subspecies, it ranges from southern Canada to northern Mexico, including most of the continental United States...
s and rabbit
Rabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
s also live here. A State Game Refuge, where hunting is not permitted, occupies most of the Ishi Wilderness.
Special fishing regulations are in effect for fishing in Deer and Mill Creeks, home to many fish species. A valid California fishing license is required.
A variety of raptor
Bird of prey
Birds of prey are birds that hunt for food primarily on the wing, using their keen senses, especially vision. They are defined as birds that primarily hunt vertebrates, including other birds. Their talons and beaks tend to be relatively large, powerful and adapted for tearing and/or piercing flesh....
s including hawks, eagle
Eagle
Eagles are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species can be found in the United States and Canada, nine more in...
s, falcon
Falcon
A falcon is any species of raptor in the genus Falco. The genus contains 37 species, widely distributed throughout Europe, Asia, and North America....
s, and owl
Owl
Owls are a group of birds that belong to the order Strigiformes, constituting 200 bird of prey species. Most are solitary and nocturnal, with some exceptions . Owls hunt mostly small mammals, insects, and other birds, although a few species specialize in hunting fish...
s nest in the rock cliffs. Wild turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, quail
Quail
Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally considered in the order Galliformes. Old World quail are found in the family Phasianidae, while New World quail are found in the family Odontophoridae...
, morning doves, canyon wren
Wren
The wrens are passerine birds in the mainly New World family Troglodytidae. There are approximately 80 species of true wrens in approximately 20 genera....
s, band-tailed pigeons, and many songbirds are frequently seen.
UC Berkeley research
Ishi is a household name in Northern California, where school children have been taught for 85 years that he was the last Yahi, a subgroup of the Yana Indians.Studying the arrowpoint
ArrowPoint
ArrowPoint Communications was a leading provider of content switches that speed up the transmission of web content.It was founded in 1997 by Cheng Wu and was acquired by Cisco Systems in 2000 for $5.7 billion.-External links:*...
s Ishi made, Steven Shackley, a research archaeologist at the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
at Berkeley's Hearst Museum of Anthropology, has discovered that Ishi apparently wasn't the last full-blooded Yahi, or Yana, after all. Instead, Ishi, who was found, starving and afraid, near Oroville in 1911, was of mixed Indian blood—a finding that revises Ishi's famous history, which many people learned by reading Ishi in Two Worlds by Theodora Kroeber
Theodora Kroeber
Theodora Kracaw Kroeber Quinn 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.Theodora Kracaw was born in Colorado and later moved to...
.
An analysis of a large UC Berkeley collection of Ishi's arrowheads indicates that although he spoke Yahi and had lived in the ancestral Yahi homeland in the Mount Lassen foothills, he also had either Wintu
Wintu
The Wintu are Native Americans who live in what is now Northern California. They are part of a loose association of peoples known collectively as the Wintun . Others are the Nomlaki and the Patwin...
or Nomlaki
Nomlaki
The Nomlaki are a Wintun people native to the area of the Sacramento Valley, extending westward to the Coast Range in Northern California. Currently one person speaks Nomlaki...
blood.
Arrowpoints made in the historic Yahi sites excavated by the UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology in the 1950s and housed at the museum are quite different from Ishi's products. But tools and arrowpoints made at historic Nomlaki or Wintu sites also housed at the museum bear striking resemblance to those made by Ishi. Hundreds of projectile points Ishi made after he left the wilderness had long blades with concave bases and side notches. In contrast, arrowheads in the museum from historic Yahi sites are short and squat, with contracting stems and basal notches.
Although Ishi was culturally Yahi, he learned to produce arrowpoints not from Yahi relatives, but very possibly from a Nomlaki or Wintu male relative. The Wintu, Nomlaki and Maidu belonged to a large group of Indians in the Sacramento Valley
Sacramento Valley
The Sacramento Valley is the portion of the California Central Valley that lies to the north of the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta in the U.S. state of California. It encompasses all or parts of ten counties.-Geography:...
who spoke a language called Penutian. They lived adjacent to their enemies, the Yana, who were in the Lassen foothills. The Yana had four subgroups—the northern, central and southern Yana, and the Yahi—and each had its own dialect, territory and culture.
Ishi was born into an extended family that, in order to perpetuate life, was forced to intermarry with outsiders, with enemies, and one of Ishi's parents may have been Wintu or Nomlaki. The number of Indians was dwindling, and an incest
Incest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
taboo
Taboo
A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...
kept them from choosing a relative as a mate.
In 1908, surveyors spotted four Indians in Yahi territory. But in 1909, Thomas Waterman, a UC Berkeley anthropologist, and two guides failed to find the group. Two years later, Ishi, who verified that he had been one of the four, appeared alone near Oroville, California
Oroville, California
Oroville is the county seat of Butte County, California. The population was 15,506 at the 2010 census, up from 13,004 at the 2000 census...
with his hair burned, a sign of mourning.
Ishi first made headlines on Aug. 29, 1911, when butchers found him outside a slaughterhouse near Oroville. Initially, he was jailed by the Butte County
Butte County, California
Butte County is a county located in the Central Valley of the US state of California, north of the state capital of Sacramento. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 220,000. The county seat is Oroville. Butte County is the "Land of Natural Wealth and Beauty."Butte County is watered by the...
sheriff. But two UC Berkeley anthropologists, Alfred Kroeber and Waterman, befriended Ishi and gave him shelter at the campus' anthropology museum, at that time located in San Francisco.
The anthropologists pronounced Ishi a Yahi because he spoke Yahi and was found near Yahi territory. They also considered him the last Yahi, since the only Yahi left in the hinterlands were believed to have been exterminate
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
d. They believed Ishi was the last Indian to have lived in the wild. Massacres, starvation and disease had taken the lives of countless Indians in Northern California during the mid-to-late-19th century. Many others had been forced into reservations.
Under pressure from reporters who wanted to know the stranger's name, Alfred Kroeber called him "Ishi," which means "man" in Yana. Ishi never uttered his real name, as it was culturally taboo to do so.
Ishi was given a home at the University of California's anthropology museum—then on the UCSF campus in an old law school building. He lived there for most of the rest of his life, except for the summer of 1915, when he lived in Berkeley with Waterman and his family. While at the museum, Ishi often worked on native crafts. By his own choice, he often did these crafts for museum audiences and would give some of his work away. Ishi formed close friendships with Waterman, Kroeber and with Saxton Pope, (a teacher at the university's medical school, next door to the museum). He also agreed to record linguistic
Natural language
In the philosophy of language, a natural language is any language which arises in an unpremeditated fashion as the result of the innate facility for language possessed by the human intellect. A natural language is typically used for communication, and may be spoken, signed, or written...
material on the Yahi language for UC Berkeley.
In December 1914, Ishi developed what doctors felt was tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
. After several hospitalizations, his friends moved him back to the museum to spend his last days. He died there on March 25, 1916.