“Ishi: The Last of His Kind”
After watching the Video (“Ishi: The Last of His Kind”) answer the following questions:
What events led to Ishi being the last survivor of his entire tribe?
What adjustments did Ishi need to make in order to live in a twentieth-century California city?
Why were researchers so interested in learning and writing down his language?
What valuable information other than language did Ishi provide for researchers that they would not have otherwise been able to obtain?
How does Ishi’s story refute Commissioner of Indian Affairs Dillon Myer’s statement that “Indians possessed no ‘legitimate culture’ of their own?” (First Americans, 524)
Part 2:
Why did the massacre of the buffalo herds precipitate the end of life for the Plains tribes as they knew it?
Part 3:
Examine the “Execution of Santee Sioux” image located on page 294. Please answer the following questions:
- What values or perceptions does the background and foreground imagery suggest?
- How does the painting address the concept of “identity”?