Ishi in Two Worlds
He was given the name "Ishi", meaning "man" in the Yana language, by Kroeber as a practical necessity; he was forbidden to say his own name by a traditional taboo, and his original name was never discovered.
[5] He was befriended and studied by Kroeber, Waterman, and Saxton Pope, a physiologist at the University Medical School in San Francisco.
[10] The first part begins with the history of California before European colonization, and describes the territory of the Yana people, within which the Yahi inhabited the southern region.
She writes that though they once occupied a large section of the Sacramento Valley, they were likely pushed into the hills by invasions of other, more numerous, Native American peoples.
Fierce military conflicts followed, leading to the destruction of the local Native American peoples over the next few decades,[13][14] until eventually only a small band were left to found the settlement where settlers encountered them in 1908.
[18] In addition to Kroeber, Waterman and Pope, Ishi befriended other Native American friends of the anthropologists, such as Juan Dolores, a Tohono O'odham Indian.
[20] The final chapter of the book tells of Ishi developing a tuberculosis infection in late 1914, and his death from the disease soon afterwards.
[30] Scholar Albert Elsasser, reviewing the 1976 edition, said that there was "something extraordinarily compelling about Theodora Kroeber's elegant prose", and that the addition of higher quality photographs had created a volume of "an impressive and subtle alchemy".
"[1] In contrast, scholar Augie Fleras wrote in 2006 that she found the book "slow", and said that it often romanticized and even stereotyped Ishi, occasionally "[lapsing] into a treacly sentimentality".
[32] Sackman stated that Ishi in Two Worlds "struck a chord" with its audience, and inspired greater interest in both Native American and environmental causes.
[33] Scholar Richard Pascal wrote that the book, "to its credit", did not evade the "horrors inflicted upon the Yahi by the invading whites".
[34] Scholar James Clifford wrote in 2013 that the account of Ishi's life in San Francisco was "absorbing", and written with "skill and compassion".
[6] Clifford noted that Ishi in Two Worlds contained a few factual mistakes, and that scholars had over time criticized some of the emphases placed by Kroeber.
[2] Kroeber, possibly influenced by her knowledge of the brutalities perpetrated by Western nations during World War II and its aftermath, was "uncompromising" in describing the systematic killing of Native Americans in California.
[35] However, Clifford criticized the implicit assumption that coming into the care of Alfred Kroeber was the best outcome for Ishi; other alternatives, such as settling him with other Native American peoples from the region, were not considered.
[36] Nonetheless, he said that "[w]ith a generous appreciation of human complexity and an eye for the telling detail, Theodora Kroeber, a novice author, created a masterpiece".
