Ishi (c.1860-1916), considered the last aboriginal Native American in the United States, left his native homeland in 1911 when he walked into a settlement near Oroville, California. He lived for the next five years at the University of California at San Francisco's anthropology museum, where he was the subject of intense interest by the public and the academy. Ishi died in 1916; in 2000, Native American activists successfully petitioned the Smithsonian Institute to return Ishi's remains for a traditional Indian burial in California.

In August of 2000, the already fascinating story of an aboriginal American known only as Ishi added another chapter. The last surviving member of the Yahi tribe of the Yana Indians, Ishi was regarded as the last aboriginal Indian to survive in North America when he wandered into Oroville, California, on August 29, 1911. The middle-aged Ishi was regarded as both a public curiosity from the Stone Age as well...