There was a Native American man called Ishi,
which in his language meant “person” or “human
being.” He was a good example of what it means to be
a child of illusion. Ishi lived in northern California at
the beginning of the century. Everyone in his whole
tribe had been methodically killed, hunted down like
coyotes and wolves. Ishi was the only one left. He
had lived alone for a long time. No one knew exactly
why, but one day he just appeared in Oroville, Cali-
fornia, at dawn. There stood this naked man. They
quickly put some clothes on him and put him in jail,
until the Bureau of Indian Affairs told them what to
do with him. It was front-page news in the San Fran-
cisco newspapers, where an anthropologist named
Alfred Kroeber read the story.
Here was an anthropologist’s dream come true.
This native person had been living in the wilds all his
life and could reveal his tribe’s way of life. Ishi was
brought on the train down to San Francisco into a to-
tally unknown world, where he lived—pretty happily,
it appears—for the rest of his life. Ishi seemed to be
fully awake. He was completely at home with himself
and the world, even when it changed so dramatically
almost overnight.
For instance, when they took him to San Fran-
cisco, he happily wore the suit and tie they gave him,
but he carried the shoes in his hand, because he still
wanted to feel the earth with his feet. He had been
living as a caveman might, always having to remain
34 Let the World Speak for Itself