Ishi in Two Worlds 50th Anniversary EditionA Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America

by Karl Kroeber

Excellent Book

Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Jessica Abbe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is by Theodora Kroeber, with a foreward by Karl; mislabeled by Goodreads.

[John Hoole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading the subtitle of Ishi in Two WorldsA Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America -- I wince, feeling that this is likely not the appropriate language to describe what the book is about. Probably though, we just don't have resort to any handful of appropriately delicate words to accurately describe the unspeakable: everyday Californians in the early Twentieth Century (sometimes casually, sometimes with malice) dismantling the native civilization that predated white settlement in North America until it is reduced to a single man who stumbles, disorientated and starved onto a Northern California cattle ranch on August 29th, 1911. Trying to do justice to this weighty subject, the author (Ursula Le Guin's mother!) experiments in form, combining biography, ethnography, and history and the result is somewhat awkward in that it's trying to do several difficult things: reconstruct something of the language and culture of the Yahi people, paint a portrait of the intelligent, resourceful, deeply good man Ishi was, and bear witness to a terrible milestone of the genocide perpetrated by Americans. This is a difficult, profound book that I know I will return to.

[Charlie Scales · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of course, this book is primarily comprised of a deeply tragic story of the preventable, gluttonous, rapacious violence of white pioneers in California, complete with the greatest loss in the world: that of an entire people and culture. As hopeful as such a story can be, Ishi inspires me as a remarkable philosopher, mystic, woodsman, and friend. A man who stoically moved forward in life despite the tremendous grief that would have crippled any other in his situation. He should remind us that our hasty imaginations seldom approach the stellar detail and humanity of reality, in that the cultures of the world have never been and will never be any less philosophical, interested, mystic, and adept at the art of understanding and enjoying their world. Ishi will live forever in the mythos of the US empire; its crimes in the name of land, gold, and superiority never will be forgotten.