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Ishis Brain Study Guide

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History 121 Study and discussion questions for Ishi’s Brain 1. Prologue: a. What is it about Orin Starn’s own life that led him to Ishi? 2. Chapter 1: a. What does Starn mean when he writes: “It was perhaps inevitable that the retribalization of California would lead back to Ishi….?” (pg27) 3. Chapter 2: a. What was Ishi’s experience once he wandered into Oroville in 1911? b. What does this tell us about the Yahi? c. What does this tell us about anthropology in the early 20th century? 4. Chapter 3: a. What intellectual influences informed Alfred Kroeber’s anthropology and how did this affect his approach to Ishi? b. What influenced Theodora Kroeber’s understanding of Ishi and how did that contribute to the Ishi legend? 5. Chapter 4: a. What can archeology tell us about the Yahi? What are its limits? b. What do we know of first contact between the Yahi and Europeans? c. Were the Yahi as untainted by European contact as the story of Ishi usually suggests? 6. Chapter 5: a. Why are anthropologists looked at skeptically by some Native Americans? b. What impact did the gold rush in California have on Native Americans? c. Why was Art Angle interested in “repatriating” Ishi? 7. Chapter 6: a. How and why, according to Starn, is the traditional way of viewing Ishi and the destruction of the Yahi wrong and unhelpful? Why were the Yahi destroyed and who destroyed them? b. Is it accurate to call the Yahi of the late 19th century “wild?” c. Why did Ishi and his band go into hiding? 8. Chapter 7: a. What does the relationship between Saxton Pope and Ishi tell us? 9. Chapter 8: a. Is it accurate to call Ishi Kroeber’s pet buffalo? 10. Chapter 9: a. How did Starn manage to find Ishi’s brain? b. What do think it means that Kroeber was willing to send Ishi’s brain to the Smithsonian and that his wife left this out of her biography of Ishi? 11. Chapter 10: a. Describe the controversy around “repatriation.” b. Do you agree or disagree with Starn’s position on repatriation? Why? 12. Chapter 11: a. Discuss the moral and scientific issues raised by the early practice of physical anthropology. 13. Chapter 12: a. Why was seeing Ishi’s brain such an emotionally charged experience for Art Angle and his compatriots? 14. Chapter 13: a. What makes an Indian an Indian? b. Who should have rights to Ishi’s remains and why? c. Was Ishi the last Yahi? QUIZ 9/12 ________________________________________________________________________________________ 15. Chapter 14: a. What has changed in the experience, lives and identity of Native Americans in the recent past? 16. Chapter 15: a. What did Starn learn by trekking to Grizzly Bear’s Hiding Place? 17. Chapter 16: a. In what different ways have different people, Indian and non-Indian, gained meaning from Ishi’s life? 18. Chapter 17: a. Did the Dersch Meadow memorial achieve a kind of reconciliation for the various parties involved in Ishi’s life and memory? If so, how; if not, why? 19. Chapter 18: a. Does Ishi still remain a mystery?

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