I. Franz Boas (1858-1942) and Scientific Anthropology

A. Comparative method: claims to anthropology as a science, taxonomy
B. Boas: racial types unclear, environment plays key role
C. Culture is relative
D. Scientific model: objective, meticulous observation
E. Excesses of "science": Qissuk's funeral (1897)

 

II. Alfred Kroeber's Theory of Culture

A. Shared Boas's relativism
B. Cultural Determinism
C. Patterning

 

III. Ishi: The Last Yahi

A. Born 1860s
B. Emerged near slaughterhouse outside of Oroville, CA, 1911
C. Had been spotted in 1908
D. Naming of Ishi and Yahi (branch of Yana)
E. Ishi as representative of nearly extinct people
F. Salvage ethnography, not missing link

1. Recordings of stories
2. Demonstrations of arrowhead making
3. Demonstration Yana hut
4. Picture taking in 1914 near Deer Creek

G. Died of tuberculosis in 1915

 

IV. Ishi's Remains

A. Dr. Saxton Pope's autopsy in the name of science
B. Cremation
C. What happened to the brain?

1. Cremated?
2. Preserved (Theodora Kroeber, Ishi in Two Worlds, 1961)
3. Shipped to Ales Hrdlicka, founder and head of physical anthropology at the Smithsonian's National Museum

 

V. Ishi and the Politics of Culture and Identity

A. To whom does Ishi belong?

1. White guilt and Theodora Kroeber's book
2. Emblem of lost civilization, simpler times
3. Kroeber as heroic recorder of vanishing culture: recent example
4. Ishi as blank slate

B. Late 20th century Native American activism

1. Symbol of suffering, imprisonment
2. Repatriation movement

a. Art Angle, Maidu
b. Pan Native Americanism
c. Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA): blood descendents or culturally affiliated group
d. Blood or culture? Mickey Gemmill and Pit-River Yana

3. Smithsonian's decision: language and common ancestry

C. Who has right to define Ishi's legacy?

 

For more information, contact:  aleshkow@holycross.edu