Ishi, The Last Yahi

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6. The various films & books don't do Ishi justice

Of course he had no justice in life, dying of T.B. in 1916.

That was a plague at that time. T.B. took the lives of 80% of my family that was living around that time in San Francisco.

The one person that lived on was my grgrgrandfather who came to America from Ireland during the Great Famine c. 1850. He knew what justice was all about too and he, like the Indian never received it.

To me, the Irish immigrant of this time was much like the American Indian. Lots of discrimination and genocide took their lives.

My family from Ireland is the only one that a full-pedigree exists on. The rest of the families that had pedigrees were destroyed and never to be seen again after the Great Famine.

Word of mouth is what kept my own family's history alive. The same seems to be the case for the late Ishi.