1 00:00:16,115 --> 00:00:29,275 Speaker 1: Pushkin, The Last Archive, A History of Truth. 2 00:00:32,515 --> 00:00:34,515 Speaker 2: When I was a kid, there were a few books 3 00:00:34,555 --> 00:00:37,075 Speaker 2: and movies that we watched all the time because my 4 00:00:37,195 --> 00:00:42,675 Speaker 2: dad taught them every year. He's a professor of business ethics, 5 00:00:42,955 --> 00:00:45,515 Speaker 2: just not the way you'd think. Instead of case studies 6 00:00:45,555 --> 00:00:49,675 Speaker 2: about business, he teaches stories about everything. In our house, 7 00:00:49,875 --> 00:00:51,955 Speaker 2: a story was never just about what she thought it 8 00:00:52,035 --> 00:00:56,115 Speaker 2: was about. It was about something else entirely. For instance, 9 00:00:56,435 --> 00:00:59,235 Speaker 2: if you ask most people to describe the film Blade Runner, 10 00:00:59,435 --> 00:01:01,195 Speaker 2: nine times out of ten they're going to tell you 11 00:01:01,235 --> 00:01:04,155 Speaker 2: it's a movie about Harrison Ford hunting robots. They might 12 00:01:04,275 --> 00:01:06,995 Speaker 2: mention he's struggling with the possibility that he is also 13 00:01:07,075 --> 00:01:10,115 Speaker 2: a robot. But if you ask my dad, he'd say, no, 14 00:01:10,515 --> 00:01:12,835 Speaker 2: what we have here is a film about the unethical 15 00:01:12,915 --> 00:01:17,315 Speaker 2: Tyrrell Corporation, the company that makes the robots. Same goes 16 00:01:17,315 --> 00:01:19,715 Speaker 2: for writing giants, a film some might say is about 17 00:01:19,715 --> 00:01:23,635 Speaker 2: surfing without realizing it's actually about leadership. And don't get 18 00:01:23,675 --> 00:01:26,675 Speaker 2: me started about the Country Bunny and the Little gold Shoes. 19 00:01:26,995 --> 00:01:30,715 Speaker 2: You thought that was a children's book. Oh No. The 20 00:01:30,795 --> 00:01:33,515 Speaker 2: problem with my dad, though, is he's usually right even 21 00:01:33,515 --> 00:01:37,195 Speaker 2: when he sounds totally wrong. This is particularly annoying to 22 00:01:37,195 --> 00:01:41,555 Speaker 2: my mom, but eventually you get used to it. One 23 00:01:41,595 --> 00:01:43,715 Speaker 2: of the big stories in the Dad canon for as 24 00:01:43,755 --> 00:01:46,555 Speaker 2: long as I can remember, is a science fiction story 25 00:01:46,595 --> 00:01:50,075 Speaker 2: called The Ones Who Walk Away from Omlas. It's by 26 00:01:50,195 --> 00:01:53,755 Speaker 2: Ursula k Legwinn, the science fiction writer with. 27 00:01:53,755 --> 00:01:57,195 Speaker 3: A clamor of bills that set the swallows soaring. The 28 00:01:57,235 --> 00:02:00,995 Speaker 3: festival of Summer came to the city Omlas, right towered 29 00:02:00,995 --> 00:02:01,795 Speaker 3: by the sea. 30 00:02:02,475 --> 00:02:04,635 Speaker 2: This story always struck me as a rare one for 31 00:02:04,715 --> 00:02:08,195 Speaker 2: my dad, because it seems pretty straightforward about what you think. 32 00:02:08,195 --> 00:02:09,755 Speaker 2: It's about a utopia. 33 00:02:10,195 --> 00:02:12,475 Speaker 3: How can I tell you about the people of Omolas? 34 00:02:13,035 --> 00:02:16,555 Speaker 3: They were not naive and happy children, though their children 35 00:02:16,555 --> 00:02:19,235 Speaker 3: were in fact happy. But I wish I could describe 36 00:02:19,275 --> 00:02:22,075 Speaker 3: it better. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined 37 00:02:22,075 --> 00:02:23,675 Speaker 3: it as your own fancy bids. 38 00:02:24,835 --> 00:02:27,555 Speaker 2: In the story, Legwen asks you to imagine the best 39 00:02:27,555 --> 00:02:30,995 Speaker 2: place you can this beautiful city by the sea, golden 40 00:02:31,035 --> 00:02:34,035 Speaker 2: in the light on a feast day in summer. Whatever 41 00:02:34,075 --> 00:02:37,475 Speaker 2: sounds best to you. There it is, But of course 42 00:02:38,115 --> 00:02:42,395 Speaker 2: things aren't what they seem. 43 00:02:42,595 --> 00:02:47,075 Speaker 3: Let me describe one more thing in a basement under 44 00:02:47,075 --> 00:02:50,315 Speaker 3: one of the beautiful public buildings of Omlass, or perhaps 45 00:02:50,355 --> 00:02:52,675 Speaker 3: in the cellar of one of its spacious private homes. 46 00:02:53,555 --> 00:02:57,635 Speaker 3: There's a room. It has one locked door and no window. 47 00:02:58,515 --> 00:03:01,275 Speaker 3: A little light seeps in dustily between cracks in the 48 00:03:01,275 --> 00:03:04,675 Speaker 3: board's secondhand from a cobweb window somewhere across the cellar. 49 00:03:05,275 --> 00:03:08,595 Speaker 3: In the room, a child is sitting. It shuts its eyes, 50 00:03:08,835 --> 00:03:12,075 Speaker 3: but it knows the door. Door is locked, and nobody 51 00:03:12,115 --> 00:03:17,995 Speaker 3: will come. The door is always locked, and nobody ever comes, 52 00:03:18,755 --> 00:03:22,995 Speaker 3: except that sometimes the door rattles terribly and opens, and 53 00:03:23,035 --> 00:03:26,595 Speaker 3: a person or several people are there. One of them 54 00:03:26,595 --> 00:03:28,835 Speaker 3: may come in and kick the child to make it 55 00:03:28,875 --> 00:03:32,635 Speaker 3: stand up. The others never come close, but peer in 56 00:03:32,675 --> 00:03:34,635 Speaker 3: at it with frightened, disgusted eyes. 57 00:03:36,635 --> 00:03:39,755 Speaker 2: This is the dark secret of Omilas. The child in 58 00:03:39,795 --> 00:03:43,275 Speaker 2: the basement. All the happiness in Omilas rests on that 59 00:03:43,395 --> 00:03:47,395 Speaker 2: kid's suffering. It's a thought experiment. Would it be worth it? 60 00:03:48,955 --> 00:03:49,875 Speaker 4: They all know. 61 00:03:50,075 --> 00:03:54,155 Speaker 3: It's there, all the people of Omolas, they all know 62 00:03:54,355 --> 00:03:56,875 Speaker 3: that it has to be there. They would like to 63 00:03:56,955 --> 00:04:00,235 Speaker 3: do something for the child. But if it were done 64 00:04:01,075 --> 00:04:04,315 Speaker 3: in that day and hour, all the prosperity and beauty 65 00:04:04,395 --> 00:04:09,595 Speaker 3: and delight of Omilas would wither and be destroyed. Those 66 00:04:09,875 --> 00:04:13,715 Speaker 3: are the terms. 67 00:04:14,955 --> 00:04:18,035 Speaker 2: It's a very famous story taught in classrooms around the 68 00:04:18,035 --> 00:04:21,755 Speaker 2: world half a century after its publication, including my dad's, 69 00:04:22,075 --> 00:04:24,315 Speaker 2: which again was weird to me because, if ever there 70 00:04:24,355 --> 00:04:26,395 Speaker 2: was a story that's just about what you think, it's 71 00:04:26,435 --> 00:04:29,355 Speaker 2: about the ones who walk away from omelas, is it 72 00:04:29,835 --> 00:04:33,235 Speaker 2: now there's a story that's just about ethics right and wrong. 73 00:04:33,355 --> 00:04:36,995 Speaker 2: Your basic meat and potato stuff A pure thought experiment, 74 00:04:37,955 --> 00:04:42,315 Speaker 2: or that's what I thought, until I realized it wasn't 75 00:04:42,355 --> 00:04:48,995 Speaker 2: the thought experiment at all. Welcome to the Last Archive, 76 00:04:49,475 --> 00:04:51,435 Speaker 2: the show about how we know what we know, how 77 00:04:51,435 --> 00:04:54,075 Speaker 2: we used to know things, and why it seems sometimes 78 00:04:54,155 --> 00:04:57,435 Speaker 2: lately like we don't know anything at all anymore. I'm 79 00:04:57,435 --> 00:05:02,155 Speaker 2: Ben Mattapaffrey. This episode is about the story behind that 80 00:05:02,195 --> 00:05:06,115 Speaker 2: thought experiment, and that story starts a little over a 81 00:05:06,155 --> 00:05:09,755 Speaker 2: century ago in a small gold rush town in California. 82 00:05:09,995 --> 00:05:21,555 Speaker 2: On August twenty eighth, nineteen eleven, at sundown that night, 83 00:05:21,875 --> 00:05:24,755 Speaker 2: at dusk, at a slaughterhouse on the outskirts of town, 84 00:05:25,275 --> 00:05:27,995 Speaker 2: a man named Ad Kessler was changing out of his 85 00:05:28,035 --> 00:05:28,635 Speaker 2: work clothes. 86 00:05:29,795 --> 00:05:34,595 Speaker 5: Now, I'll try to tell you as I remember it. 87 00:05:34,595 --> 00:05:37,155 Speaker 2: It's pretty clear in my mind there was a young 88 00:05:37,195 --> 00:05:40,955 Speaker 2: boy who hung around Kessler's crew while they worked. That evening, 89 00:05:41,075 --> 00:05:44,275 Speaker 2: the kid was out in the corral and then he 90 00:05:44,355 --> 00:05:44,995 Speaker 2: saw something. 91 00:05:47,995 --> 00:05:50,235 Speaker 5: He was frightened and he yelled to me. 92 00:05:51,915 --> 00:05:51,995 Speaker 6: Ad. 93 00:05:52,315 --> 00:05:53,595 Speaker 5: He says, there's a man here. 94 00:05:55,035 --> 00:05:57,315 Speaker 2: Kessler grabbed a meat hook and ran outside in his 95 00:05:57,395 --> 00:06:00,235 Speaker 2: long John's and riding boots. He thought maybe there was 96 00:06:00,275 --> 00:06:03,395 Speaker 2: a thief. But when he got to the corral, he 97 00:06:03,475 --> 00:06:08,155 Speaker 2: saw a part clothed, barefoot man, weakend and tired, leaning 98 00:06:08,195 --> 00:06:11,435 Speaker 2: against the fence. He tried to speak to the man 99 00:06:11,635 --> 00:06:12,555 Speaker 2: but got no answer. 100 00:06:13,315 --> 00:06:16,755 Speaker 5: At that time, I could talk pretty good Spanish, and 101 00:06:16,875 --> 00:06:20,275 Speaker 5: I talked a bit Spanish, but to no response. I 102 00:06:20,355 --> 00:06:22,835 Speaker 5: used a little profanity. He didn't understand that either. 103 00:06:24,195 --> 00:06:30,035 Speaker 7: Kessler was puzzled, so he called the sheriff and I. 104 00:06:30,035 --> 00:06:32,315 Speaker 5: Told him, I, John, I've got something out here the 105 00:06:32,395 --> 00:06:35,075 Speaker 5: slaughter house. I think you should come out and investigate. 106 00:06:36,155 --> 00:06:39,475 Speaker 2: The sheriff came. They handcuffed the man and they headed 107 00:06:39,475 --> 00:06:42,875 Speaker 2: to the jail. They put him in a padded cell. 108 00:06:46,675 --> 00:06:49,195 Speaker 5: There he was all alone. He didn't have at least 109 00:06:49,235 --> 00:06:51,995 Speaker 5: idea of what was going to happen to him. Closed 110 00:06:52,035 --> 00:06:56,195 Speaker 5: the door, turned the key in it, and he stood 111 00:06:56,275 --> 00:07:00,635 Speaker 5: right behind them bars and looked in the morning. The 112 00:07:00,715 --> 00:07:08,515 Speaker 5: jailer was out sweeping off the steps, and I asked 113 00:07:08,555 --> 00:07:13,715 Speaker 5: to be sayst what happened to my boy last night? 114 00:07:14,915 --> 00:07:16,435 Speaker 5: He says he never slept a wink. 115 00:07:18,315 --> 00:07:20,555 Speaker 2: This tape is from a talk Ad Kessler gave to 116 00:07:20,595 --> 00:07:23,795 Speaker 2: a high school class in nineteen seventy three. Big guy 117 00:07:23,955 --> 00:07:26,515 Speaker 2: with a crew cut talking to a bunch of board teens, 118 00:07:26,915 --> 00:07:29,795 Speaker 2: telling his big story, the one that's been punching his 119 00:07:29,835 --> 00:07:33,675 Speaker 2: meal ticket for sixty two years, because that moment of 120 00:07:33,795 --> 00:07:37,235 Speaker 2: encounter set in motion a whole series of events that 121 00:07:37,355 --> 00:07:41,155 Speaker 2: forever changed California. It's a story that's been told in 122 00:07:41,195 --> 00:07:43,115 Speaker 2: a lot of ways by a lot of different people, 123 00:07:43,475 --> 00:07:46,755 Speaker 2: but Kessler is pretty ornery about his version, and his 124 00:07:46,795 --> 00:07:48,635 Speaker 2: story matches the newspaper record. 125 00:07:49,915 --> 00:07:50,395 Speaker 8: There is a. 126 00:07:50,315 --> 00:07:55,555 Speaker 5: Book wrote by a lady, but it's not correct. What 127 00:07:55,595 --> 00:07:57,795 Speaker 5: I've just told you is the facts. 128 00:07:59,475 --> 00:08:00,075 Speaker 9: As it were. 129 00:08:04,115 --> 00:08:06,795 Speaker 2: Word got out quick about the stranger who didn't speak 130 00:08:06,795 --> 00:08:11,435 Speaker 2: any language anyone recognized. There were sinceational stories in newspapers 131 00:08:11,435 --> 00:08:14,955 Speaker 2: across the state. They'd figured out the man was probably 132 00:08:14,995 --> 00:08:18,635 Speaker 2: an American Indian. The most plausible theory was that he 133 00:08:18,675 --> 00:08:20,635 Speaker 2: was the only survivor of a people who had been 134 00:08:20,675 --> 00:08:23,715 Speaker 2: wiped out by white settlers during and after the gold Rush, 135 00:08:24,315 --> 00:08:27,715 Speaker 2: killed by a genocide, though the word didn't yet exist, 136 00:08:28,075 --> 00:08:30,675 Speaker 2: and if it had, they wouldn't have used it, But 137 00:08:30,715 --> 00:08:33,195 Speaker 2: there is no other word for it. There had been 138 00:08:33,275 --> 00:08:35,715 Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of American Indians in the land we 139 00:08:35,755 --> 00:08:38,915 Speaker 2: now know as California before the gold Rush. There were 140 00:08:38,955 --> 00:08:41,715 Speaker 2: only about twenty thousand by the turn of the century. 141 00:08:42,635 --> 00:08:45,715 Speaker 2: And this man's people were gone, all of them gone, 142 00:08:46,675 --> 00:08:51,075 Speaker 2: save apparently for one him. 143 00:08:51,275 --> 00:08:54,715 Speaker 4: People had been looking for his group, his community for 144 00:08:54,875 --> 00:09:00,835 Speaker 4: some time. People knew that there were some Indigenous people 145 00:09:00,915 --> 00:09:04,635 Speaker 4: in the woods in that general area who they've speculated 146 00:09:04,675 --> 00:09:05,555 Speaker 4: were Yahis. 147 00:09:06,475 --> 00:09:09,315 Speaker 2: Andrew Garrett is a professor of linguistics at the University 148 00:09:09,355 --> 00:09:12,875 Speaker 2: of californ Ornia, Berkeley and directs the California Language Archive. 149 00:09:12,915 --> 00:09:17,875 Speaker 2: There because California, before Spanish, Mexican and American settlement was 150 00:09:17,915 --> 00:09:21,675 Speaker 2: full of languages, about ninety different ones, vastly different from 151 00:09:21,675 --> 00:09:24,715 Speaker 2: each other. I met Garrett in his office on campus 152 00:09:24,715 --> 00:09:27,315 Speaker 2: one day. There was a mountain of fresh mid terms 153 00:09:27,355 --> 00:09:29,795 Speaker 2: on the table and bits and pieces of a language 154 00:09:29,875 --> 00:09:30,595 Speaker 2: on the whiteboard. 155 00:09:31,755 --> 00:09:33,635 Speaker 4: So there was this sense that they were out there 156 00:09:33,635 --> 00:09:34,595 Speaker 4: somewhere those people. 157 00:09:35,875 --> 00:09:39,355 Speaker 2: Garrett works on how languages change over time, so he's 158 00:09:39,355 --> 00:09:42,235 Speaker 2: often in the archives using notes produced by the earliest 159 00:09:42,235 --> 00:09:46,195 Speaker 2: anthropologists in California, and he often refers back to one 160 00:09:46,275 --> 00:09:51,075 Speaker 2: in particular, Alfred Kroeber, who founded the anthropology department at 161 00:09:51,115 --> 00:09:56,515 Speaker 2: Berkeley in nineteen eleven. Kroeber was working with a colleague 162 00:09:56,515 --> 00:10:00,395 Speaker 2: to document the languages and cultures of indigenous people in California, 163 00:10:00,875 --> 00:10:04,275 Speaker 2: especially those cultures which they believed to be vanishing. The 164 00:10:04,315 --> 00:10:07,515 Speaker 2: community of people who spoke a language Kroeber called Yahe 165 00:10:07,675 --> 00:10:11,195 Speaker 2: after its word for person, had lived near Oroville, but 166 00:10:11,355 --> 00:10:14,915 Speaker 2: the townspeople hadn't seen them for years. If the stranger 167 00:10:14,915 --> 00:10:17,395 Speaker 2: in the jail was the last member of the Yahi people, 168 00:10:17,875 --> 00:10:21,515 Speaker 2: the anthropologists felt they needed to reach him, so Krober 169 00:10:21,555 --> 00:10:24,835 Speaker 2: telegrammed ahead and his colleague got on a train north 170 00:10:24,875 --> 00:10:27,315 Speaker 2: to the Oraville jail, where the man had been held 171 00:10:27,475 --> 00:10:31,315 Speaker 2: for two days. By the time he arrived, the jail 172 00:10:31,435 --> 00:10:34,315 Speaker 2: was a scene. This was the biggest thing that happened 173 00:10:34,315 --> 00:10:37,235 Speaker 2: to Oroville since the gold Rush. People had been sending 174 00:10:37,275 --> 00:10:39,955 Speaker 2: in food and clothes, crowding around trying to get a 175 00:10:39,995 --> 00:10:43,075 Speaker 2: look at the man. The anthropologist made his way through 176 00:10:43,115 --> 00:10:46,115 Speaker 2: the crowd and up to the cell. He sat down 177 00:10:46,195 --> 00:10:49,235 Speaker 2: opposite the man and pulled out a vocabulary book full 178 00:10:49,275 --> 00:10:52,035 Speaker 2: of Yana words, a related language to the one he 179 00:10:52,075 --> 00:10:55,155 Speaker 2: thought the yah he might speak. One by one, He 180 00:10:55,195 --> 00:10:59,715 Speaker 2: read the words off the list, nothing and more nothing, 181 00:11:00,715 --> 00:11:04,435 Speaker 2: until he reached the Yana word for yellow pine. He 182 00:11:04,555 --> 00:11:07,395 Speaker 2: set it and touched the pine bed frame in the cell. 183 00:11:08,155 --> 00:11:11,955 Speaker 2: The man's face lit up a match, then more matches. 184 00:11:12,515 --> 00:11:15,675 Speaker 2: The man asked the anthropologist if he was a Yahi. 185 00:11:16,875 --> 00:11:21,835 Speaker 2: It was the community Kroger had been looking for. In 186 00:11:21,915 --> 00:11:26,235 Speaker 2: nineteen eleven. American Indians weren't legally US citizens. They were 187 00:11:26,235 --> 00:11:29,395 Speaker 2: treated like wards of this state. So Kroger asked what 188 00:11:29,515 --> 00:11:32,195 Speaker 2: later became known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs for 189 00:11:32,275 --> 00:11:35,915 Speaker 2: permission to take the man into custody. It came within days. 190 00:11:36,635 --> 00:11:40,395 Speaker 2: The anthropologist, a Yana interpreter named Batwi, and the man 191 00:11:40,435 --> 00:11:43,355 Speaker 2: boarded a train to Oakland. From there, they took the 192 00:11:43,395 --> 00:11:46,355 Speaker 2: ferry to San Francisco and then the trolley to the 193 00:11:46,435 --> 00:11:50,075 Speaker 2: Museum of Anthropology. They got there just before midnight. 194 00:11:51,035 --> 00:11:53,395 Speaker 4: This was September nineteen eleven. They were kind of preparing 195 00:11:53,435 --> 00:11:56,915 Speaker 4: to open the Anthropology Museum to the public. Indian people 196 00:11:56,955 --> 00:11:59,075 Speaker 4: who came to visit often stayed there for some period 197 00:11:59,115 --> 00:12:03,235 Speaker 4: of time. There were always staff members who lived there. 198 00:12:04,235 --> 00:12:06,915 Speaker 2: There were apartments in the museum, and the Yahi man 199 00:12:06,995 --> 00:12:12,555 Speaker 2: slept there. The next morning, Alfred Krober came to meet him. 200 00:12:12,875 --> 00:12:16,635 Speaker 2: Krober was in his thirties, quiet, strong, chin, full beard. 201 00:12:17,115 --> 00:12:20,915 Speaker 2: People came to call him the Dean of American anthropology. 202 00:12:20,955 --> 00:12:23,995 Speaker 2: He was a cultural relativist who stood against the mainstream 203 00:12:24,035 --> 00:12:27,595 Speaker 2: of anthropology, which had this kind of racialized evolutionary theory 204 00:12:27,635 --> 00:12:29,995 Speaker 2: that thought cultures progressed from what they considered to be 205 00:12:30,075 --> 00:12:34,035 Speaker 2: more primitive states to something that, of course resembled European civilization. 206 00:12:34,835 --> 00:12:37,475 Speaker 2: Krober believed other cultures were valid in their own right, 207 00:12:37,915 --> 00:12:39,715 Speaker 2: but he was also trying to make a name for 208 00:12:39,755 --> 00:12:43,435 Speaker 2: his department in his new museum. In Krober's view, every 209 00:12:43,515 --> 00:12:46,395 Speaker 2: person was a product of their culture, like a codex. 210 00:12:46,995 --> 00:12:49,435 Speaker 2: So I think that meeting this man was to him 211 00:12:49,555 --> 00:12:53,875 Speaker 2: like finding the Rosetta stone, except for one sticky fact. 212 00:12:54,795 --> 00:12:58,035 Speaker 2: The man was a person, not an artifact. That's the 213 00:12:58,155 --> 00:13:04,435 Speaker 2: challenge of all anthropology, studying someone without betraying their humanity. 214 00:13:05,315 --> 00:13:08,115 Speaker 2: Krober needed a name to call the man by, but 215 00:13:08,235 --> 00:13:10,195 Speaker 2: the man wouldn't share his name with p people he 216 00:13:10,315 --> 00:13:13,155 Speaker 2: just met, so Kroeber called him by a Yahi word 217 00:13:13,515 --> 00:13:15,675 Speaker 2: that meant man Ishi. 218 00:13:16,955 --> 00:13:21,915 Speaker 4: Kerber he was never actually seemingly interested in present day cultures, 219 00:13:21,955 --> 00:13:24,635 Speaker 4: but only in former cultures, because the form only the 220 00:13:24,675 --> 00:13:29,235 Speaker 4: former cultures were uncontaminated by Europeans. So there's a way 221 00:13:29,235 --> 00:13:32,275 Speaker 4: in which like having only one person as a representative 222 00:13:32,275 --> 00:13:34,835 Speaker 4: of a culture is not problematic, because your goal is 223 00:13:35,675 --> 00:13:38,955 Speaker 4: just to find the exemplar of the pure culture. And 224 00:13:38,995 --> 00:13:42,635 Speaker 4: so I think from that perspective, the fantasy of Ishi 225 00:13:42,675 --> 00:13:45,875 Speaker 4: is that he's this pure exemplar, when actually, of course 226 00:13:45,875 --> 00:13:46,635 Speaker 4: he's just a person. 227 00:13:47,715 --> 00:13:51,115 Speaker 2: Yeshi moved into the museum, and soon after the work 228 00:13:51,115 --> 00:13:55,235 Speaker 2: of studying and preserving Yahi culture began. We'll be right 229 00:13:55,275 --> 00:14:03,635 Speaker 2: back over time. The anthropologist Alfred Kroeger got to know 230 00:14:03,715 --> 00:14:06,515 Speaker 2: Ishi's story, even though she didn't like to talk about 231 00:14:06,555 --> 00:14:09,955 Speaker 2: his past. It depressed him, and for good reason. His 232 00:14:09,995 --> 00:14:12,355 Speaker 2: hair was still burned short in mourning for his mother 233 00:14:12,395 --> 00:14:16,155 Speaker 2: and sister, who died some years before. He'd lived alone 234 00:14:16,195 --> 00:14:19,035 Speaker 2: in the canyons ever since then, and now he was 235 00:14:19,075 --> 00:14:21,635 Speaker 2: living in a museum in San Francisco. 236 00:14:21,995 --> 00:14:26,635 Speaker 4: But he was asked, supposedly multiple times by people, did 237 00:14:26,635 --> 00:14:28,515 Speaker 4: he want to go back or did he want to 238 00:14:28,515 --> 00:14:32,195 Speaker 4: go somewhere else, And supposedly he always said no. It's 239 00:14:32,235 --> 00:14:34,475 Speaker 4: a kind of complicated question because they were The people 240 00:14:34,515 --> 00:14:38,715 Speaker 4: who are reporting this are all people who benefit from 241 00:14:39,275 --> 00:14:41,955 Speaker 4: him being happy where he was, you know. And well 242 00:14:42,035 --> 00:14:45,115 Speaker 4: they were not neutral people. They were his white friends 243 00:14:45,155 --> 00:14:48,235 Speaker 4: who you know, I think the story is good if 244 00:14:48,915 --> 00:14:51,115 Speaker 4: he wasn't a prisoner from their point of view. 245 00:14:51,835 --> 00:14:54,915 Speaker 2: Reportedly, she told agents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs 246 00:14:54,955 --> 00:14:58,235 Speaker 2: through his Yana interpreter, quote, I will grow old here 247 00:14:58,315 --> 00:15:01,475 Speaker 2: and die in this house. He worked part time as 248 00:15:01,475 --> 00:15:04,355 Speaker 2: a janitor at the museum when it opened about a 249 00:15:04,395 --> 00:15:06,835 Speaker 2: month after his arrival. He was at the opening night 250 00:15:06,875 --> 00:15:10,475 Speaker 2: gala in a small back room. When people rehashed this 251 00:15:10,595 --> 00:15:13,355 Speaker 2: history now in a critical light, they say that Ishi 252 00:15:13,475 --> 00:15:16,475 Speaker 2: was a living exhibit stuck in the museum. Because he 253 00:15:16,515 --> 00:15:19,715 Speaker 2: soon began to do demonstrations of Yahie culture on Sundays, 254 00:15:20,395 --> 00:15:23,715 Speaker 2: he was a major draw. The San Francisco Examiner called 255 00:15:23,795 --> 00:15:28,755 Speaker 2: him creepily its most interesting exhibit. He'd show crafts like 256 00:15:28,835 --> 00:15:33,715 Speaker 2: making arrowheads, weaving baskets, starting fires, the things he made 257 00:15:33,835 --> 00:15:37,195 Speaker 2: the museum kept in its collection. Tens of thousands of 258 00:15:37,235 --> 00:15:40,355 Speaker 2: people came to those demonstrations over the course of the 259 00:15:40,355 --> 00:15:43,475 Speaker 2: next year, and that was more people in one place 260 00:15:43,715 --> 00:15:46,875 Speaker 2: than she had ever seen. Then there were all the 261 00:15:46,915 --> 00:15:50,795 Speaker 2: ancestral remains the Museum of Anthropology kept. He'd locked his 262 00:15:50,875 --> 00:15:56,115 Speaker 2: door each night, but he had some agency within a 263 00:15:56,115 --> 00:16:00,835 Speaker 2: limited band. Gerald Visner, the writer, scholar, and member of 264 00:16:00,875 --> 00:16:03,795 Speaker 2: the Chippawa tribe, has written a lot about how Yishi 265 00:16:04,075 --> 00:16:07,635 Speaker 2: had an act of role in shaping his situation. Visner 266 00:16:07,835 --> 00:16:13,035 Speaker 2: calls it his survivanceval and resistance, because is she seems 267 00:16:13,075 --> 00:16:16,515 Speaker 2: to have taken most everything in stride. He made some money, 268 00:16:16,955 --> 00:16:19,715 Speaker 2: memorized the street cars, and began to make his way 269 00:16:19,715 --> 00:16:22,675 Speaker 2: around town. He liked to go to the movies and 270 00:16:22,755 --> 00:16:26,835 Speaker 2: made friends around the city. Later people would remember him fondly, 271 00:16:27,195 --> 00:16:29,355 Speaker 2: like a little boy who said Ishi had made him 272 00:16:29,355 --> 00:16:31,755 Speaker 2: a bow and arrow and taught him how to shoot lizards, 273 00:16:32,115 --> 00:16:35,835 Speaker 2: made him a net for catching minnows and rabbits skin moccasins. 274 00:16:36,835 --> 00:16:39,955 Speaker 2: The newspapers told Ishi's story as if he time traveled 275 00:16:39,955 --> 00:16:43,355 Speaker 2: from the Stone Age to the modern world, like Whenihi 276 00:16:43,395 --> 00:16:46,195 Speaker 2: walked barefoot into a vaudeville show at the Orpheum Theater 277 00:16:46,515 --> 00:16:49,475 Speaker 2: and supposedly called it Heaven for white people. Or the 278 00:16:49,555 --> 00:16:52,035 Speaker 2: day she saw a plane in the sky and asked 279 00:16:52,035 --> 00:16:53,875 Speaker 2: in a kind of amused way if a white man 280 00:16:53,915 --> 00:16:57,435 Speaker 2: were flying it. He is exactly forty thousand years behind 281 00:16:57,475 --> 00:17:01,315 Speaker 2: the times. One journalist wrote, some writers were disappointed to 282 00:17:01,315 --> 00:17:05,235 Speaker 2: see their romantic fantasy, the uncontaminated man who never told 283 00:17:05,235 --> 00:17:09,195 Speaker 2: a lie, smoking cigars and wearing shoes. It was absurd 284 00:17:10,395 --> 00:17:12,995 Speaker 2: to me. It seems like he had apted unbelievably quickly. 285 00:17:13,315 --> 00:17:15,995 Speaker 2: I mean, he had completely reinvented his life, and he 286 00:17:16,075 --> 00:17:18,955 Speaker 2: was probably in his fifties. He was curious to try 287 00:17:18,995 --> 00:17:22,595 Speaker 2: new things and willing to set limits. Once a reporter 288 00:17:22,675 --> 00:17:25,395 Speaker 2: asked him to put on animal skins for a photograph, 289 00:17:25,515 --> 00:17:27,835 Speaker 2: and he said he wouldn't because he didn't see anyone 290 00:17:27,835 --> 00:17:28,795 Speaker 2: else wearing them. 291 00:17:29,275 --> 00:17:34,035 Speaker 6: He seems to land in this particular location with a 292 00:17:34,115 --> 00:17:39,315 Speaker 6: kind of intelligence and consciousness right of the situation that 293 00:17:39,635 --> 00:17:43,835 Speaker 6: people around him don't necessarily understand that he has. And 294 00:17:43,915 --> 00:17:49,915 Speaker 6: that makes him, you know, crafty and intelligent and wiy 295 00:17:50,075 --> 00:17:53,995 Speaker 6: and smart and in all in all kinds of ways. 296 00:17:54,955 --> 00:17:58,555 Speaker 2: That's Philip Delauria, a professor of history at Harvard. He 297 00:17:58,635 --> 00:18:02,155 Speaker 2: specializes in Native American and American studies and is of 298 00:18:02,235 --> 00:18:06,115 Speaker 2: Dakota descent. He wrote a book I love called Playing Indian, 299 00:18:06,435 --> 00:18:09,955 Speaker 2: which is about how white Americans navigated national identity and 300 00:18:10,035 --> 00:18:13,555 Speaker 2: their feelings about modernity through a kind of Indian cosplay. 301 00:18:13,915 --> 00:18:16,755 Speaker 2: It's why the country was so fascinated by Isshi. 302 00:18:17,835 --> 00:18:20,515 Speaker 6: It's why he's such an astonishing figure. He's not an 303 00:18:20,475 --> 00:18:23,515 Speaker 6: astonishing figure because he survives and comes out of the 304 00:18:23,555 --> 00:18:25,475 Speaker 6: woods and ends up in a museum. I think he's 305 00:18:25,475 --> 00:18:27,595 Speaker 6: an astonishing figure because of the ways in which he 306 00:18:27,675 --> 00:18:29,715 Speaker 6: sees his situation and acts within it. 307 00:18:32,475 --> 00:18:36,035 Speaker 2: To most people, Ishi was just a symbol, a tragic fantasy, 308 00:18:36,675 --> 00:18:39,835 Speaker 2: not just the last Yahi, but the last wild Indian. 309 00:18:40,715 --> 00:18:44,355 Speaker 2: To white Americans, it represented the triumph of European civilization 310 00:18:44,715 --> 00:18:49,075 Speaker 2: over Indigenous America. Inevitable, the kind of thing you wept 311 00:18:49,075 --> 00:18:53,595 Speaker 2: over only once victory was assured. Anthropology was a kind 312 00:18:53,635 --> 00:18:57,315 Speaker 2: of rearguard action, salvaging what could be salvage, to use 313 00:18:57,355 --> 00:19:00,795 Speaker 2: their term in a sort of apologetic way. But some 314 00:19:00,875 --> 00:19:03,675 Speaker 2: of what's complicated here is that the things they preserved 315 00:19:03,755 --> 00:19:06,675 Speaker 2: were kept in institutions like Berkeley, which is on land 316 00:19:06,715 --> 00:19:11,435 Speaker 2: that was taken from the alone people. Anthropologists worked within 317 00:19:11,555 --> 00:19:15,115 Speaker 2: that paradox, but they weren't given to ask questions about 318 00:19:15,195 --> 00:19:18,395 Speaker 2: why these cultures were disappearing or what might be done 319 00:19:18,675 --> 00:19:22,235 Speaker 2: to stop it. The idea that it was already too late, 320 00:19:22,835 --> 00:19:25,675 Speaker 2: it was baked into the work. The field was a 321 00:19:25,675 --> 00:19:30,515 Speaker 2: puzzle box, just like Krober. He thought Eugenix was ridiculous, 322 00:19:30,635 --> 00:19:32,435 Speaker 2: but he was also the head of a department that 323 00:19:32,475 --> 00:19:36,235 Speaker 2: collected human remains from tribal grave sites. In one article, 324 00:19:36,475 --> 00:19:39,035 Speaker 2: he calls you Shet a man in every sense, and 325 00:19:39,075 --> 00:19:42,635 Speaker 2: then he compares him to a puppy Krober. 326 00:19:42,315 --> 00:19:45,715 Speaker 6: And all the generations that surround him and that came 327 00:19:45,795 --> 00:19:49,555 Speaker 6: after him, you know, they're all the errors of this 328 00:19:49,675 --> 00:19:51,955 Speaker 6: kind of you know, this kind of doubled consciousness of 329 00:19:51,995 --> 00:19:55,115 Speaker 6: the anthropologist of the time. You know, it feels like 330 00:19:55,155 --> 00:19:58,235 Speaker 6: you're making a very you know, progressive kind of move 331 00:19:58,955 --> 00:20:01,315 Speaker 6: while at the same time you're looking at them as 332 00:20:01,315 --> 00:20:04,395 Speaker 6: objects of study. You've got a whole kind of primitivist 333 00:20:04,475 --> 00:20:07,515 Speaker 6: veneer that's hard to get away from, you know. So 334 00:20:07,555 --> 00:20:10,595 Speaker 6: they couldn't help. These folks couldn't help but be contradictory, 335 00:20:10,715 --> 00:20:13,115 Speaker 6: you know, in their consciousness about how they were viewing 336 00:20:13,195 --> 00:20:17,955 Speaker 6: Native people as vestiges and remnants of these cultures the past, 337 00:20:18,075 --> 00:20:21,635 Speaker 6: and yet as opportunities for them to think in progressive 338 00:20:21,715 --> 00:20:24,755 Speaker 6: and you know, theoretically enlightened kinds of ways. 339 00:20:25,715 --> 00:20:28,755 Speaker 2: Is She was on stage during those demonstrations at the museum, 340 00:20:29,155 --> 00:20:33,115 Speaker 2: but so was Krober. They were both performing something is 341 00:20:33,235 --> 00:20:37,955 Speaker 2: She was playing Indian, Krober was playing anthropologists. Yes, she 342 00:20:38,115 --> 00:20:40,955 Speaker 2: was making the most of a bad situation. But he 343 00:20:41,035 --> 00:20:45,995 Speaker 2: barely spoke English, and the anthropologists barely spoke Yahi. So 344 00:20:46,115 --> 00:20:49,395 Speaker 2: this story, the way I at least can tell it, 345 00:20:49,395 --> 00:20:51,835 Speaker 2: it's as much about the people around Yishi as it 346 00:20:51,915 --> 00:20:54,635 Speaker 2: is about the man himself. And in the style of 347 00:20:54,635 --> 00:20:58,035 Speaker 2: my own family, it's about the meaning behind the story 348 00:20:58,075 --> 00:21:01,955 Speaker 2: they told about him, the ethics of their relationships, the 349 00:21:02,035 --> 00:21:05,555 Speaker 2: choices they made, and the ones they were about to make. 350 00:21:09,875 --> 00:21:12,755 Speaker 2: Krober and his crew were working with Ishi on setting 351 00:21:12,755 --> 00:21:16,155 Speaker 2: down what they could of the Ahi culture. They recorded 352 00:21:16,235 --> 00:21:19,875 Speaker 2: him telling stories on wax cylinders over fifty hours of 353 00:21:19,915 --> 00:21:21,435 Speaker 2: Is she telling Yahi tales? 354 00:21:22,115 --> 00:21:22,795 Speaker 10: Oh the work? 355 00:21:26,435 --> 00:21:29,875 Speaker 2: That's his voice, telling the story of the wood ducks, 356 00:21:30,195 --> 00:21:32,195 Speaker 2: about a man who'd been turned into a wood duck 357 00:21:32,715 --> 00:21:43,315 Speaker 2: looking for a wife. So wax cylinder recordings were hard 358 00:21:43,315 --> 00:21:46,675 Speaker 2: to make, but Ishi spent seven hours telling this story 359 00:21:46,715 --> 00:21:49,635 Speaker 2: across over one hundred different cylinders. It was one of 360 00:21:49,675 --> 00:21:52,995 Speaker 2: the first stories he told, and according to the anthropologist 361 00:21:53,235 --> 00:21:55,915 Speaker 2: Orin Starn, who wrote a great book about this history, 362 00:21:56,435 --> 00:22:00,115 Speaker 2: wood Ducks was at that point the longest recorded performance 363 00:22:00,195 --> 00:22:03,155 Speaker 2: of all time. It took a huge amount of stamina. 364 00:22:03,875 --> 00:22:06,235 Speaker 2: At one point, one of Krober's colleagues went to take 365 00:22:06,235 --> 00:22:09,195 Speaker 2: a phone call. When he got back, she told him 366 00:22:09,195 --> 00:22:12,555 Speaker 2: it would be better they kept working without breaks. He 367 00:22:12,635 --> 00:22:14,835 Speaker 2: was preserving a body of knowledge he knew would be 368 00:22:14,915 --> 00:22:18,235 Speaker 2: lost otherwise. But he also had things he wouldn't reveal, 369 00:22:19,035 --> 00:22:20,595 Speaker 2: just as he never revealed his name. 370 00:22:22,515 --> 00:22:24,955 Speaker 6: I think when you dig down into it, it's exactly 371 00:22:24,995 --> 00:22:28,155 Speaker 6: these kinds of things, of like, I know what you're doing, right, 372 00:22:28,435 --> 00:22:31,515 Speaker 6: the sort of sense where the indigenous person you know says, no, 373 00:22:31,595 --> 00:22:34,315 Speaker 6: I know exactly what you're doing, and I'm going to 374 00:22:34,395 --> 00:22:38,195 Speaker 6: act according to my own best rights and interests in 375 00:22:38,235 --> 00:22:41,035 Speaker 6: relation to what we're doing, so that what you're doing 376 00:22:41,075 --> 00:22:43,515 Speaker 6: becomes what we are doing together. Right. So there's an 377 00:22:43,515 --> 00:22:46,795 Speaker 6: insistence upon sort of active agency. It seems to me 378 00:22:46,915 --> 00:22:48,995 Speaker 6: like there's there's a fair bit of evidence for the 379 00:22:49,035 --> 00:22:51,035 Speaker 6: strategic use of anthropologists. 380 00:22:51,995 --> 00:22:55,795 Speaker 2: The anthropologists met with Esch often. They worked hours and 381 00:22:55,835 --> 00:22:58,995 Speaker 2: hours together. By this point they figured out how to 382 00:22:58,995 --> 00:23:01,755 Speaker 2: communicate to a degree, and they were, by all accounts, 383 00:23:01,795 --> 00:23:02,915 Speaker 2: friendly and easy. 384 00:23:02,675 --> 00:23:03,195 Speaker 7: With each other. 385 00:23:03,995 --> 00:23:06,595 Speaker 2: Is She would come over for dinner at Krover's, and 386 00:23:06,635 --> 00:23:09,075 Speaker 2: from everything I've read, it seems that he and Kroger 387 00:23:09,275 --> 00:23:13,715 Speaker 2: crew clothes. Ishi had a community of Berkeley acquaintances who 388 00:23:13,715 --> 00:23:15,995 Speaker 2: claimed to think of him as a friend, including a 389 00:23:16,035 --> 00:23:19,835 Speaker 2: man named Saxton Pope, a star surgeon at the University 390 00:23:19,875 --> 00:23:23,715 Speaker 2: of California. He and Ishi hung out a lot. They'd 391 00:23:23,715 --> 00:23:26,395 Speaker 2: go hunting with bows and arrows together, kind of like 392 00:23:26,435 --> 00:23:29,675 Speaker 2: a grown up version for Pope of playing Indian. Ishi 393 00:23:29,715 --> 00:23:32,755 Speaker 2: would visit Pope in the hospital. People thought he might 394 00:23:32,795 --> 00:23:34,995 Speaker 2: have been a healer in his past life because he'd 395 00:23:35,035 --> 00:23:37,995 Speaker 2: sit with sick patients and help the nurses clean their tools, 396 00:23:38,555 --> 00:23:41,155 Speaker 2: but he disapproved of how the hospital handled its dead, 397 00:23:41,595 --> 00:23:46,155 Speaker 2: cutting people open for autopsies. Ishi had a life in 398 00:23:46,195 --> 00:23:50,235 Speaker 2: San Francisco, but in the summer of nineteen fourteen, Crober, 399 00:23:50,715 --> 00:23:54,515 Speaker 2: his anthropologist colleague, and Saxton Pope proposed a trip back 400 00:23:54,555 --> 00:23:57,955 Speaker 2: to the land Ischi was from. Ishi was worried about 401 00:23:57,995 --> 00:24:01,835 Speaker 2: going back to that haunted place, but either he changed 402 00:24:01,835 --> 00:24:05,155 Speaker 2: his mind or they wore him down. They took the 403 00:24:05,235 --> 00:24:07,995 Speaker 2: train back up to the Yahi country where he'd hidden 404 00:24:07,995 --> 00:24:10,515 Speaker 2: alone for years, and they made camp. 405 00:24:12,835 --> 00:24:16,315 Speaker 8: It was on the left bank of rapid down hill Spree, 406 00:24:17,075 --> 00:24:18,195 Speaker 8: which I assume. 407 00:24:17,995 --> 00:24:22,755 Speaker 2: Was Dear Queen Saxton, Pope's son Saxton Jr. He went 408 00:24:22,795 --> 00:24:26,555 Speaker 2: on the trip. Years later, someone came to record his memories. 409 00:24:26,915 --> 00:24:28,675 Speaker 2: I think he must be reading a recollection. 410 00:24:28,755 --> 00:24:29,315 Speaker 7: He wrote. 411 00:24:29,475 --> 00:24:32,475 Speaker 2: It's a little stiff, but sometimes he laughs and sounds 412 00:24:32,475 --> 00:24:33,595 Speaker 2: to me like a kid again. 413 00:24:34,755 --> 00:24:40,835 Speaker 8: I was so, I thought. Chef with the group. It's 414 00:24:40,915 --> 00:24:43,195 Speaker 8: true that is She was in high good spirits on 415 00:24:43,275 --> 00:24:43,715 Speaker 8: the trip. 416 00:24:44,995 --> 00:24:47,595 Speaker 2: They hunted and cooked together, and they took a lot 417 00:24:47,635 --> 00:24:50,275 Speaker 2: of photos, many of them posed with is She once 418 00:24:50,315 --> 00:24:53,915 Speaker 2: again playing Indian. They wanted him to recreate an ancient 419 00:24:53,955 --> 00:24:57,275 Speaker 2: life that really he himself had never experienced, like this 420 00:24:57,355 --> 00:24:59,395 Speaker 2: one photo of Vish hunting the deer. 421 00:25:00,115 --> 00:25:03,915 Speaker 8: It will be noted that the deer from which he 422 00:25:04,635 --> 00:25:08,315 Speaker 8: is retrieving an arrow is propped up from behind with 423 00:25:08,435 --> 00:25:10,075 Speaker 8: a stick. And I did that. 424 00:25:15,515 --> 00:25:17,795 Speaker 2: It's all a bit of a mess, cringey in the 425 00:25:17,875 --> 00:25:20,515 Speaker 2: un self conscious way. They were asking Ishi to reenact 426 00:25:20,595 --> 00:25:23,955 Speaker 2: his past. They were idealizing the time before white people 427 00:25:23,995 --> 00:25:26,235 Speaker 2: had made contact with the Yahi. It was one of 428 00:25:26,275 --> 00:25:29,435 Speaker 2: the worst impulses of this type of anthropology, but of 429 00:25:29,435 --> 00:25:32,715 Speaker 2: course it was more complicated than that too. In some 430 00:25:32,795 --> 00:25:36,195 Speaker 2: of the other photos, there's a real affection. They lie 431 00:25:36,235 --> 00:25:38,555 Speaker 2: out at night in sleeping bags, swim in the river, 432 00:25:38,875 --> 00:25:42,195 Speaker 2: hunt together. The real historical value of the trip wasn't 433 00:25:42,235 --> 00:25:44,835 Speaker 2: the photos, but rather the maps of the land where 434 00:25:44,955 --> 00:25:47,715 Speaker 2: she had grown up, the place names for the places 435 00:25:47,755 --> 00:25:50,195 Speaker 2: where he'd lived and watched his family die. 436 00:25:50,875 --> 00:25:54,795 Speaker 8: What did not strike me at the time, and unexpected 437 00:25:55,395 --> 00:25:59,835 Speaker 8: certainly does now, how after such a life and such 438 00:25:59,915 --> 00:26:03,875 Speaker 8: early experiences he could ever have crusted a white man again. 439 00:26:05,755 --> 00:26:10,955 Speaker 8: His adjustment, however, was not without its complexities. On his 440 00:26:11,075 --> 00:26:15,035 Speaker 8: explosions into the Yanna cut feat on several occasions he 441 00:26:15,035 --> 00:26:18,675 Speaker 8: heard his mother and sister calling where no other member 442 00:26:18,715 --> 00:26:23,435 Speaker 8: of the party could hear, and presumably they weren't there. 443 00:26:24,595 --> 00:26:26,475 Speaker 2: They got back from the trip a little under a 444 00:26:26,515 --> 00:26:30,275 Speaker 2: month later, and life in San Francisco resumed its regular 445 00:26:30,355 --> 00:26:34,435 Speaker 2: rhythms for them all Kerber left on sabbatical, eventually landing 446 00:26:34,475 --> 00:26:38,595 Speaker 2: in New York, but somewhere in that time she became 447 00:26:38,715 --> 00:26:44,795 Speaker 2: visibly ill. It was tuberculosis, a disease to which American 448 00:26:44,835 --> 00:26:50,075 Speaker 2: Indians had no resistance. Five years after his arrest, is 449 00:26:50,195 --> 00:26:54,035 Speaker 2: she was dying. Kerber knew that when he did there 450 00:26:54,035 --> 00:26:57,515 Speaker 2: would be talk of an autopsy. That's what often happened 451 00:26:57,515 --> 00:27:00,995 Speaker 2: when someone died at the hospital. But in Hi's case, 452 00:27:01,195 --> 00:27:04,115 Speaker 2: there would be people who are especially interested, who thought 453 00:27:04,155 --> 00:27:06,675 Speaker 2: the final act of studying Yahia culture would be to 454 00:27:06,715 --> 00:27:07,835 Speaker 2: look inside his body. 455 00:27:08,755 --> 00:27:10,955 Speaker 7: Saxton Pope thought it much so. 456 00:27:11,075 --> 00:27:13,595 Speaker 2: Kroeber wrote a letter to the director of the museum 457 00:27:13,755 --> 00:27:17,915 Speaker 2: on March twenty fourth, nineteen sixteen, a furious and now 458 00:27:17,995 --> 00:27:21,995 Speaker 2: famous message. He wrote, as to the disposal of the body, 459 00:27:22,035 --> 00:27:24,635 Speaker 2: I must ask you, as my personal representative, to yield 460 00:27:24,675 --> 00:27:27,715 Speaker 2: nothing at all under any circumstances. If there is any 461 00:27:27,755 --> 00:27:30,315 Speaker 2: talk of the interests of science, then say for me 462 00:27:30,515 --> 00:27:33,595 Speaker 2: that science can go to hell. We propose to stand 463 00:27:33,595 --> 00:27:37,595 Speaker 2: by our friends. Besides, I cannot believe that any scientific 464 00:27:37,675 --> 00:27:41,595 Speaker 2: value is materially involved. We have hundreds of Indian skeletons 465 00:27:42,035 --> 00:27:46,355 Speaker 2: that nobody ever comes to study. The day after Kroger 466 00:27:46,395 --> 00:27:51,435 Speaker 2: sent that letter y she died, and then Pope had 467 00:27:51,435 --> 00:27:56,715 Speaker 2: an autopsy performed. They cremated is She's body afterwards, but 468 00:27:56,795 --> 00:28:01,115 Speaker 2: before they did, they removed his brain and they preserved it. 469 00:28:02,555 --> 00:28:05,355 Speaker 2: When Krober returned from a sabbatical, it was waiting for 470 00:28:05,435 --> 00:28:09,395 Speaker 2: him like a sick taunt, the physical container of all 471 00:28:09,395 --> 00:28:13,835 Speaker 2: that he'd been trying to prize FISHI. But it represented 472 00:28:13,835 --> 00:28:17,315 Speaker 2: something else too. Krober knew that she hated the way 473 00:28:17,355 --> 00:28:20,915 Speaker 2: anthropologists kept human remains in the museum. He now had 474 00:28:20,915 --> 00:28:23,955 Speaker 2: the chance to cremate the last part of Ishi's body 475 00:28:24,275 --> 00:28:27,035 Speaker 2: and reunite it with the rest of him, to do 476 00:28:27,155 --> 00:28:31,395 Speaker 2: the last right thing in a bad situation, but he didn't. 477 00:28:32,355 --> 00:28:34,875 Speaker 2: He sent Ishi's brain to the Smithsonian. 478 00:28:39,115 --> 00:28:41,915 Speaker 6: This is the thing about this story, right is you 479 00:28:41,955 --> 00:28:45,235 Speaker 6: know this kind of this kind of final betrayal you 480 00:28:45,275 --> 00:28:49,515 Speaker 6: know from Krober, really changes the story up. You don't 481 00:28:49,515 --> 00:28:52,035 Speaker 6: have to do what Kroeber did. You see the pictures 482 00:28:52,035 --> 00:28:54,395 Speaker 6: of them and they're you know, doing these things, and 483 00:28:54,435 --> 00:28:57,315 Speaker 6: it looks like a kind of partnership. It looks like 484 00:28:57,355 --> 00:29:00,475 Speaker 6: a potential friendship, It looks like this kind of relationship, 485 00:29:01,155 --> 00:29:03,395 Speaker 6: and you have to think, well, Okay, it probably was 486 00:29:03,475 --> 00:29:06,475 Speaker 6: at some level. But if at the end of the day, 487 00:29:07,275 --> 00:29:09,555 Speaker 6: you know, Kroeber is able to continue this kind of 488 00:29:09,595 --> 00:29:13,395 Speaker 6: prectice of dehumanization, you know, how does that? How can 489 00:29:13,395 --> 00:29:15,155 Speaker 6: you look back at all of these sort of images 490 00:29:15,195 --> 00:29:18,635 Speaker 6: of them together, sort of accounted them together, you know, 491 00:29:18,715 --> 00:29:20,315 Speaker 6: and see it in the same light. I just don't 492 00:29:20,315 --> 00:29:21,915 Speaker 6: think you you know, I just don't think you can. 493 00:29:24,635 --> 00:29:27,915 Speaker 2: What's hard about this history is there is no reliable narrator. 494 00:29:28,435 --> 00:29:32,235 Speaker 2: It's always more myth than fact. All the people setting 495 00:29:32,275 --> 00:29:34,475 Speaker 2: down the accounts. We have a Vish in San Francisco. 496 00:29:34,675 --> 00:29:36,715 Speaker 2: We're trying to see him as a record of his culture, 497 00:29:37,395 --> 00:29:40,595 Speaker 2: to practice pure anthropology, even if they thought of him 498 00:29:40,595 --> 00:29:43,475 Speaker 2: as a friend. That was how they told the story. 499 00:29:44,195 --> 00:29:48,755 Speaker 2: A man and a culture preserved. But that story left 500 00:29:48,755 --> 00:29:53,355 Speaker 2: a whole lot out. That's why I think Krober's daughter 501 00:29:53,755 --> 00:29:57,475 Speaker 2: retold it. She'd been born a Krober, but when she 502 00:29:57,555 --> 00:30:00,835 Speaker 2: got married, she took her husband's last name and added 503 00:30:00,875 --> 00:30:04,835 Speaker 2: it to the end of her own ursula croeber Legwin. 504 00:30:08,075 --> 00:30:08,875 Speaker 2: We'll be right back. 505 00:30:12,955 --> 00:30:16,075 Speaker 3: Well, I want to start out with a serious question 506 00:30:16,195 --> 00:30:20,635 Speaker 3: to you all, is what on earth are we all 507 00:30:20,635 --> 00:30:21,355 Speaker 3: doing here? 508 00:30:23,835 --> 00:30:27,435 Speaker 2: Ursula Kerber was born thirteen years after she died. She 509 00:30:27,515 --> 00:30:30,435 Speaker 2: was the fourth child, the youngest, and the only girl 510 00:30:30,435 --> 00:30:33,195 Speaker 2: in the bunch. She grew up spunky in a loud, 511 00:30:33,235 --> 00:30:36,915 Speaker 2: boisterous house of academics and academics to be. She was 512 00:30:36,995 --> 00:30:39,635 Speaker 2: very close to her mother, a lip smart woman named 513 00:30:39,675 --> 00:30:42,475 Speaker 2: Theodora who seemed like she could see into her kid's souls. 514 00:30:43,115 --> 00:30:46,435 Speaker 2: Her father, Alfred, looked outwards. Ursula thought of him as 515 00:30:46,475 --> 00:30:49,755 Speaker 2: a kind of wizard. He'd tell her creation myths and legends, 516 00:30:50,195 --> 00:30:55,555 Speaker 2: stories about other worlds. Every story could be told, except one, 517 00:30:56,115 --> 00:30:59,355 Speaker 2: a family one, the one about e she and her father. 518 00:31:00,315 --> 00:31:03,475 Speaker 10: She always said that it wasn't brought up when she 519 00:31:03,595 --> 00:31:04,115 Speaker 10: was a kid. 520 00:31:05,315 --> 00:31:09,035 Speaker 2: Julie Phillips is a writer, specifically the writer Ursula Lagwyn 521 00:31:09,155 --> 00:31:10,915 Speaker 2: handpicked to be her biographer. 522 00:31:11,955 --> 00:31:17,435 Speaker 10: She grew up understanding the value of cultural relativism, of 523 00:31:17,755 --> 00:31:21,155 Speaker 10: the notion that the culture that you're immersed in is 524 00:31:21,235 --> 00:31:25,235 Speaker 10: not the only culture, and that there are always other 525 00:31:25,275 --> 00:31:28,875 Speaker 10: ways of doing things, And she talks about how liberating 526 00:31:28,915 --> 00:31:30,315 Speaker 10: that was for her to know. 527 00:31:30,395 --> 00:31:35,835 Speaker 2: That anthropology was the backdrop to Legwin's life. But as 528 00:31:35,875 --> 00:31:39,635 Speaker 2: a kid, she wasn't reading textbooks. She was reading science fiction. 529 00:31:40,515 --> 00:31:42,955 Speaker 2: In the nineteen thirties and forties, sci fi was not 530 00:31:43,035 --> 00:31:46,475 Speaker 2: exactly held in high regard to her, though it probably 531 00:31:46,515 --> 00:31:50,515 Speaker 2: read like the best part of her dad's stories, exotic, exciting, 532 00:31:50,955 --> 00:31:53,195 Speaker 2: especially to a kid who never quite fit in. 533 00:31:54,235 --> 00:31:56,875 Speaker 10: She said, you know, in high school, I was in 534 00:31:57,035 --> 00:32:01,355 Speaker 10: exile in this Siberia of adolescent social mores. In the library, 535 00:32:01,395 --> 00:32:02,395 Speaker 10: I was home free. 536 00:32:03,635 --> 00:32:06,995 Speaker 2: Legwin always wanted to be a writer. After college, she 537 00:32:07,115 --> 00:32:10,515 Speaker 2: was writing poems and realist novels, and it was around 538 00:32:10,515 --> 00:32:13,955 Speaker 2: that time, in the late nineteen fifties, that she first 539 00:32:13,955 --> 00:32:18,595 Speaker 2: heard the story Avishi. Her dad kept getting asked to 540 00:32:18,595 --> 00:32:22,075 Speaker 2: write about it all, but he wouldn't. Instead, her mom, 541 00:32:22,115 --> 00:32:25,715 Speaker 2: Theodora did. Her book was published in nineteen sixty one, 542 00:32:26,035 --> 00:32:29,435 Speaker 2: and it was called Ishi in Two Worlds, A Biography 543 00:32:29,595 --> 00:32:33,475 Speaker 2: of the Last Wild Indian in North America. Ursula Legwin 544 00:32:33,635 --> 00:32:37,195 Speaker 2: always hated that subtitle because she said she wasn't wild. 545 00:32:37,515 --> 00:32:39,635 Speaker 2: He came out of a more deeply rooted culture than 546 00:32:39,675 --> 00:32:42,355 Speaker 2: the one he went into. But the book became a 547 00:32:42,395 --> 00:32:45,915 Speaker 2: big bestseller. It's been in print since the sixties. It 548 00:32:46,035 --> 00:32:49,115 Speaker 2: sold over a million copies and been translated into a 549 00:32:49,115 --> 00:32:52,155 Speaker 2: slew of languages, and it added a whole new dimension 550 00:32:52,195 --> 00:32:56,475 Speaker 2: to Ischi's story, the fact of genocide. It was, for 551 00:32:56,555 --> 00:32:59,835 Speaker 2: its time and author revolutionary, but it was also an 552 00:32:59,875 --> 00:33:03,555 Speaker 2: attempt to transform that pain into a healing narrative, a 553 00:33:03,675 --> 00:33:07,075 Speaker 2: salve for white liberal guilt. Legwinn talked about learning that 554 00:33:07,155 --> 00:33:10,875 Speaker 2: story late in her life in a documentaryalled The Worlds 555 00:33:10,875 --> 00:33:11,835 Speaker 2: of Versula Legwin. 556 00:33:12,835 --> 00:33:17,555 Speaker 11: My mother's book opened many people's eyes, including my own, 557 00:33:17,875 --> 00:33:21,835 Speaker 11: to the appalling history of the white conquest of California. 558 00:33:22,475 --> 00:33:27,275 Speaker 11: It's kind of hard to admit that your people did 559 00:33:27,315 --> 00:33:32,795 Speaker 11: something awful when I absorbed something like that. The way 560 00:33:32,835 --> 00:33:35,755 Speaker 11: I handle it is probably too put it into a novel. 561 00:33:37,035 --> 00:33:40,235 Speaker 2: Legwin was famously evasive about where her ideas came from 562 00:33:40,435 --> 00:33:43,675 Speaker 2: author's privilege. But I think that the revelation of Eshi's 563 00:33:43,715 --> 00:33:46,715 Speaker 2: story is at the foundation of her career because right 564 00:33:46,755 --> 00:33:49,955 Speaker 2: before her mother's book on Yeshi came out, her father died, 565 00:33:50,515 --> 00:33:54,955 Speaker 2: and at that exact moment she ditched her realist novels 566 00:33:55,395 --> 00:33:59,035 Speaker 2: and she started to write sci fi. Her mother began 567 00:33:59,115 --> 00:34:01,635 Speaker 2: working on a young person's version of the Eshi story, 568 00:34:01,955 --> 00:34:04,515 Speaker 2: a lightly fictionalized account which a lot of fourth graders 569 00:34:04,515 --> 00:34:06,515 Speaker 2: in California have probably had to read over the last 570 00:34:06,515 --> 00:34:10,915 Speaker 2: half century. Legwin read drafts and gave notes, and meanwhile, 571 00:34:11,115 --> 00:34:13,395 Speaker 2: she'd begun to work on her own first published novel, 572 00:34:13,955 --> 00:34:16,115 Speaker 2: a book called Rocanan's World. 573 00:34:17,355 --> 00:34:20,875 Speaker 10: She's just had a baby, her first child, and she 574 00:34:20,995 --> 00:34:23,755 Speaker 10: has really bad cabin fever, and I think that she 575 00:34:23,995 --> 00:34:27,635 Speaker 10: just needed to get out of the house. Imaginatively. So 576 00:34:29,355 --> 00:34:33,075 Speaker 10: Rocannon is her first anthropologist here, and she sends him 577 00:34:33,115 --> 00:34:35,715 Speaker 10: to explore a planet. 578 00:34:36,635 --> 00:34:40,115 Speaker 2: The anthropologist narrator was one of Legwin's first major innovations 579 00:34:40,115 --> 00:34:43,675 Speaker 2: in science fiction. It allowed her to smuggle a whole 580 00:34:43,715 --> 00:34:47,115 Speaker 2: set of big ideas from academic anthropology into science fiction, 581 00:34:47,755 --> 00:34:50,955 Speaker 2: because science fiction has always been sort of anthropological in 582 00:34:50,995 --> 00:34:54,835 Speaker 2: the worst way. Manifest destiny in outer space, like Flash 583 00:34:54,835 --> 00:34:59,715 Speaker 2: Gordon encountering aliens on the planet Mango, I can. 584 00:34:59,555 --> 00:35:02,435 Speaker 9: Only account for them as being a seller from the 585 00:35:02,515 --> 00:35:06,435 Speaker 9: original race thousands of years ago and having a numerous 586 00:35:06,475 --> 00:35:08,155 Speaker 9: planets on the Solar system. 587 00:35:08,715 --> 00:35:09,515 Speaker 8: Primitive, all right. 588 00:35:10,115 --> 00:35:12,155 Speaker 2: It was the exact same kind of story the white 589 00:35:12,195 --> 00:35:16,155 Speaker 2: settlers in California told themselves in Oraville in eighteen forty nine, 590 00:35:16,635 --> 00:35:19,475 Speaker 2: the same story white American kids were learning from their 591 00:35:19,515 --> 00:35:24,555 Speaker 2: favorite science fiction difference as threat until people began to 592 00:35:24,595 --> 00:35:28,155 Speaker 2: notice a changing guard in science fiction, including Legwin's writing 593 00:35:28,435 --> 00:35:30,835 Speaker 2: and her work as a public figure speaking at events 594 00:35:30,915 --> 00:35:32,715 Speaker 2: all over the world like Ossicon. 595 00:35:33,395 --> 00:35:35,395 Speaker 3: Do you people realize by the way that, to my 596 00:35:35,475 --> 00:35:38,195 Speaker 3: three children, science fiction is not a low form of 597 00:35:38,235 --> 00:35:41,715 Speaker 3: literature written by little contemptible hacks. It's the kind of 598 00:35:41,755 --> 00:35:43,235 Speaker 3: thing your own mother does. 599 00:35:45,795 --> 00:35:48,875 Speaker 2: She was raising three kids, living in Oregon. When the 600 00:35:48,955 --> 00:35:51,635 Speaker 2: kids were at school, she'd write. She'd start out in 601 00:35:51,635 --> 00:35:54,395 Speaker 2: September with a premise and finish a first draft by 602 00:35:54,435 --> 00:35:57,875 Speaker 2: March to polish off before summer vacation began. She'd found 603 00:35:57,875 --> 00:36:01,475 Speaker 2: a set of ideas, and in nineteen sixty six, five 604 00:36:01,555 --> 00:36:03,875 Speaker 2: years after her mom's book on he she came out 605 00:36:04,115 --> 00:36:09,235 Speaker 2: the floodgates opened. A Wizard of Earth, See the Left 606 00:36:09,275 --> 00:36:12,595 Speaker 2: Hand of Darkness, The Lathe of Heaven, The Dispossessed, and 607 00:36:12,635 --> 00:36:14,795 Speaker 2: The Word for World as Forest are some of the 608 00:36:14,795 --> 00:36:17,835 Speaker 2: most famous science fiction books of all time, and they 609 00:36:17,835 --> 00:36:20,155 Speaker 2: were all written in the ten year period that began 610 00:36:20,275 --> 00:36:23,115 Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty six, and I think all of them 611 00:36:23,195 --> 00:36:26,275 Speaker 2: are dealing with those themes from anthropology, the things that 612 00:36:26,315 --> 00:36:28,835 Speaker 2: were left out of the first telling of the Issy story. 613 00:36:29,755 --> 00:36:32,595 Speaker 2: I don't think it's a coincidence that during that same stretch, 614 00:36:32,955 --> 00:36:36,715 Speaker 2: an American Indian civil rights movement was gaining steam. They 615 00:36:36,755 --> 00:36:39,235 Speaker 2: were responding to a new federal Indian policy in the 616 00:36:39,315 --> 00:36:43,555 Speaker 2: nineteen fifties known as Termination. After World War Two, the 617 00:36:43,595 --> 00:36:46,555 Speaker 2: government had wanted to end its recognition of tribes, move 618 00:36:46,635 --> 00:36:50,675 Speaker 2: them off reservations, and stop honoring its treaties to assimilate 619 00:36:50,755 --> 00:36:54,595 Speaker 2: American Indians into the mainstream. Alfred Kober had worked with 620 00:36:54,635 --> 00:36:58,115 Speaker 2: tribes on court cases early in those years. American Indians 621 00:36:58,155 --> 00:37:00,315 Speaker 2: responded with what came to be known as the Red 622 00:37:00,355 --> 00:37:03,315 Speaker 2: Power movement. One of their most famous actions came in 623 00:37:03,395 --> 00:37:07,595 Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine, when a group of American Indians occupied Alcatraz, 624 00:37:07,835 --> 00:37:09,475 Speaker 2: the island prison in the Bay Area. 625 00:37:10,235 --> 00:37:12,595 Speaker 9: We will approach a set at Alcatraz Island for twenty four 626 00:37:12,635 --> 00:37:15,195 Speaker 9: dollars in glass beads and red cloth. We know that 627 00:37:15,235 --> 00:37:16,995 Speaker 9: twenty four dollars of trade goods is more than was 628 00:37:17,035 --> 00:37:19,475 Speaker 9: paid when Manhattan Island was sold, but we know that 629 00:37:19,595 --> 00:37:21,475 Speaker 9: land values have risen over the years. 630 00:37:21,915 --> 00:37:26,235 Speaker 2: The occupation lasted until nineteen seventy one. LeGuin was watching 631 00:37:26,355 --> 00:37:29,595 Speaker 2: as the script flipped on an entire history. Her family 632 00:37:29,595 --> 00:37:32,875 Speaker 2: had borne direct witness to, and she was writing her 633 00:37:32,875 --> 00:37:35,555 Speaker 2: most influential books at that exact moment. 634 00:37:37,075 --> 00:37:40,555 Speaker 10: She said that a lot of my protagonists are alone 635 00:37:40,555 --> 00:37:43,675 Speaker 10: of their kind among people of another kind. This is 636 00:37:43,715 --> 00:37:48,355 Speaker 10: Ishi's situation, also the situation of a field anthropologist, also 637 00:37:48,395 --> 00:37:51,715 Speaker 10: the situation, or so it seems to me, of most adolescents, 638 00:37:51,795 --> 00:37:56,155 Speaker 10: most intellectuals, most artists. I a stranger and afraid in 639 00:37:56,195 --> 00:37:57,155 Speaker 10: a world I never. 640 00:37:57,035 --> 00:38:02,315 Speaker 2: Need once you start looking for it. The traces of 641 00:38:02,355 --> 00:38:05,635 Speaker 2: Ishi's story are everywhere in le Guin's work, but the 642 00:38:05,715 --> 00:38:09,035 Speaker 2: really clear one about her father ANII. As the anthropologist 643 00:38:09,115 --> 00:38:12,515 Speaker 2: James Clifford is noted, is the word for world is forest. 644 00:38:13,235 --> 00:38:15,435 Speaker 2: People think of it as a novel written in protests 645 00:38:15,435 --> 00:38:18,235 Speaker 2: of the Vietnam War, also part of the basis for 646 00:38:18,275 --> 00:38:21,755 Speaker 2: the film Avatar. But it mirrors the concerns of the 647 00:38:21,795 --> 00:38:24,915 Speaker 2: American Indian movement. And it's profoundly about one of the 648 00:38:24,955 --> 00:38:29,435 Speaker 2: central tensions in anthropology, between being an objective observer or 649 00:38:29,475 --> 00:38:31,435 Speaker 2: an active activist participant. 650 00:38:32,515 --> 00:38:35,995 Speaker 11: And I suppose it's not too surprising in the anthropologist's 651 00:38:36,075 --> 00:38:40,795 Speaker 11: door to talk about two cultures bumping up against each 652 00:38:40,835 --> 00:38:42,035 Speaker 11: other that don't understand. 653 00:38:42,155 --> 00:38:42,835 Speaker 7: He said. 654 00:38:45,195 --> 00:38:47,795 Speaker 2: In the book, Earth has run out of lumber, so 655 00:38:47,835 --> 00:38:51,315 Speaker 2: they colonize a forest planet called Eths, She populated by 656 00:38:51,315 --> 00:38:54,715 Speaker 2: an alien race of gentle tree people descended from humans. 657 00:38:55,155 --> 00:38:59,155 Speaker 2: An anthropologist embeds with the colonizing force. He makes friends 658 00:38:59,195 --> 00:39:01,875 Speaker 2: with one of the aliens, and together they make a 659 00:39:01,875 --> 00:39:05,595 Speaker 2: careful record of Ethschian culture and spend hours working on 660 00:39:05,595 --> 00:39:08,955 Speaker 2: a dictionary of the native language together. But while the 661 00:39:08,995 --> 00:39:13,435 Speaker 2: anthropologist working on recording the culture, the colonizing force rapes, 662 00:39:13,555 --> 00:39:17,155 Speaker 2: pillages and burns the people in the planet. It would 663 00:39:17,155 --> 00:39:19,635 Speaker 2: be better if I had never known you, the alien 664 00:39:19,675 --> 00:39:24,675 Speaker 2: tells the anthropologist. LeGuin writes quote, he was not in 665 00:39:24,675 --> 00:39:28,675 Speaker 2: the anthropologist's nature to think what can I do? Character 666 00:39:28,715 --> 00:39:32,035 Speaker 2: and training disposed him not to interfere in other men's business. 667 00:39:32,595 --> 00:39:35,715 Speaker 2: He preferred to be enlightened rather than to enlighten, to 668 00:39:35,715 --> 00:39:38,875 Speaker 2: seek facts rather than the truth. But even the most 669 00:39:38,955 --> 00:39:42,475 Speaker 2: unmissionary soul, unless he pretends he has no emotions, is 670 00:39:42,515 --> 00:39:46,955 Speaker 2: sometimes faced with a choice between commission and omission. What 671 00:39:46,995 --> 00:39:51,075 Speaker 2: are they doing abruptly becomes what are we doing? And 672 00:39:51,115 --> 00:39:53,235 Speaker 2: then what must I do? 673 00:39:55,115 --> 00:39:57,435 Speaker 10: It seems to me that she was commenting on her 674 00:39:57,475 --> 00:40:01,875 Speaker 10: father's situation, and it seems to me that she would 675 00:40:01,875 --> 00:40:04,875 Speaker 10: not have admitted even to herself that she was commenting 676 00:40:04,955 --> 00:40:07,315 Speaker 10: on that situations. 677 00:40:06,235 --> 00:40:09,475 Speaker 7: And so clear though it feels so direct. 678 00:40:10,155 --> 00:40:10,995 Speaker 10: Yeah, I think it is. 679 00:40:11,955 --> 00:40:14,315 Speaker 2: In the end of the Word for worlds Forest, the 680 00:40:14,355 --> 00:40:17,795 Speaker 2: anthropologist dies in an alien raid, but his work saves 681 00:40:17,795 --> 00:40:20,515 Speaker 2: the planet. It leads to the end of the colony 682 00:40:20,635 --> 00:40:25,555 Speaker 2: and freedom for its indigenous people. But in reality, Legwynton 683 00:40:25,595 --> 00:40:28,715 Speaker 2: must have known that the situation is never that easily resolved, 684 00:40:29,435 --> 00:40:31,635 Speaker 2: and so I think it left the more interesting work 685 00:40:31,795 --> 00:40:33,955 Speaker 2: for the year after the Word for World is Forest. 686 00:40:35,195 --> 00:40:37,635 Speaker 2: That year began with a group of American Indian Movement 687 00:40:37,715 --> 00:40:41,395 Speaker 2: and Iglala Lakota activists occupying Wounded Knee in a high 688 00:40:41,435 --> 00:40:44,595 Speaker 2: profile protest, and it was the year La Gwynn published 689 00:40:44,595 --> 00:40:47,955 Speaker 2: one of her most famous stories, another story about the 690 00:40:47,995 --> 00:40:51,275 Speaker 2: dynamic between yes she and her father, The. 691 00:40:51,275 --> 00:40:57,195 Speaker 10: Really obvious story where she asks questions about her father's legacy. 692 00:40:57,515 --> 00:41:01,155 Speaker 10: Is the ones who walk away from Omlas. 693 00:41:02,555 --> 00:41:07,075 Speaker 2: Omlas, the story my dad loves about the utopia that 694 00:41:07,115 --> 00:41:09,795 Speaker 2: depends on that kid in the basement, the one that's 695 00:41:09,835 --> 00:41:12,315 Speaker 2: about what you think it's about, except. 696 00:41:12,115 --> 00:41:18,315 Speaker 10: It's not Omolas is us omilas is. You know, every 697 00:41:18,355 --> 00:41:21,795 Speaker 10: culture everywhere in a lot of ways, but it is 698 00:41:22,955 --> 00:41:30,115 Speaker 10: you know, it maps quite well onto European cultures in California, 699 00:41:30,475 --> 00:41:36,715 Speaker 10: which exist and thrive. You know, in the aftermath of genosime. 700 00:41:37,955 --> 00:41:41,275 Speaker 2: In Amalas, le Guinn tells you to imagine your own utopia, 701 00:41:41,875 --> 00:41:45,355 Speaker 2: but she's also describing hers, and I think she's describing 702 00:41:45,395 --> 00:41:48,435 Speaker 2: the Bay area. Here she is again reading from it. 703 00:41:49,155 --> 00:41:53,035 Speaker 3: In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, 704 00:41:53,075 --> 00:41:56,115 Speaker 3: between old moss grown gardens and under avenues of trees, 705 00:41:56,835 --> 00:42:02,155 Speaker 3: past great parks and public buildings. Processions moved far off 706 00:42:02,195 --> 00:42:04,395 Speaker 3: to the north and west. The mountain stood up half 707 00:42:04,475 --> 00:42:07,995 Speaker 3: encircling Omlas on her bay. The air of morning was 708 00:42:07,995 --> 00:42:10,795 Speaker 3: so clear that the snow still crowned the eighteen peaks 709 00:42:11,075 --> 00:42:13,955 Speaker 3: burned with white gold fire across the miles of sunlit 710 00:42:14,035 --> 00:42:16,195 Speaker 3: air under the dark blue of the sky. 711 00:42:16,995 --> 00:42:19,035 Speaker 2: The person in the room in the public buildings of 712 00:42:19,035 --> 00:42:22,155 Speaker 2: Omolas is she in the room in the San Francisco 713 00:42:22,275 --> 00:42:26,075 Speaker 2: Museum of Anthropology. He was crafty and creative. He made 714 00:42:26,075 --> 00:42:28,395 Speaker 2: a new life for himself, but he never should have 715 00:42:28,435 --> 00:42:31,115 Speaker 2: had to. And the tens of thousands of people who 716 00:42:31,155 --> 00:42:33,835 Speaker 2: saw him in the museum, they knew what his presence 717 00:42:33,875 --> 00:42:36,835 Speaker 2: there meant, why he was there, what had been lost, 718 00:42:37,395 --> 00:42:39,715 Speaker 2: the costs that had been paid for, all the remains 719 00:42:39,715 --> 00:42:42,155 Speaker 2: of the cultures filling that building in the city by 720 00:42:42,195 --> 00:42:42,515 Speaker 2: the bay. 721 00:42:43,795 --> 00:42:46,915 Speaker 3: Sometimes also a man or woman much older, falls silent 722 00:42:46,955 --> 00:42:50,155 Speaker 3: for a day or two and then leaves home. These 723 00:42:50,195 --> 00:42:52,435 Speaker 3: people go out into the street and walk down the 724 00:42:52,435 --> 00:42:56,115 Speaker 3: street alone. They keep walking, and they walk straight out 725 00:42:56,115 --> 00:42:59,835 Speaker 3: of the city of Omilas through the beautiful gates they 726 00:42:59,875 --> 00:43:04,555 Speaker 3: go on. They leave Omolas, walk ahead into the darkness, 727 00:43:04,795 --> 00:43:10,195 Speaker 3: and they do not come back. The place they go to, Howards, 728 00:43:10,715 --> 00:43:13,435 Speaker 3: is a place even less imaginable to most of us 729 00:43:13,715 --> 00:43:17,715 Speaker 3: than the city of Happiness. I cannot describe it at all. 730 00:43:18,755 --> 00:43:22,635 Speaker 3: It's possible that it doesn't exist, but they seem to 731 00:43:22,675 --> 00:43:25,875 Speaker 3: know where they're going. The ones who walk away from Omanas. 732 00:43:28,235 --> 00:43:31,835 Speaker 2: The two choices in the story are stay or walk away. 733 00:43:32,875 --> 00:43:36,275 Speaker 2: But Legwin didn't neither. She kept coming back to the 734 00:43:36,355 --> 00:43:38,795 Speaker 2: same place and talking about it as if it were 735 00:43:38,835 --> 00:43:42,035 Speaker 2: another planet, talking about what was really going on there. 736 00:43:42,595 --> 00:43:44,915 Speaker 2: I think in the hopes that if she made it 737 00:43:44,955 --> 00:43:48,995 Speaker 2: strange enough, people would be able to see finally the 738 00:43:49,035 --> 00:43:50,795 Speaker 2: world around them. 739 00:43:50,995 --> 00:43:53,515 Speaker 6: It feels like every generation is trying to escape the 740 00:43:53,595 --> 00:43:57,035 Speaker 6: generation before and the generation before that, and you know, 741 00:43:58,475 --> 00:44:02,075 Speaker 6: always unsuccessfully, right, I mean always with partial success. 742 00:44:02,675 --> 00:44:06,715 Speaker 2: Philip Deloria, again historian of Native American and American history, 743 00:44:07,115 --> 00:44:09,315 Speaker 2: but also the son of one of the leading figures 744 00:44:09,315 --> 00:44:14,155 Speaker 2: in the Red Past movement, Vindaloria Junior, the intellectual lawyer 745 00:44:14,595 --> 00:44:17,275 Speaker 2: and member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe who came 746 00:44:17,355 --> 00:44:20,435 Speaker 2: up with the term Red Power and famously thought very 747 00:44:20,435 --> 00:44:23,955 Speaker 2: little of anthropologists. Here he is in nineteen seventy two. 748 00:44:24,955 --> 00:44:28,715 Speaker 3: They continued to act as if the only valid Indians 749 00:44:28,755 --> 00:44:32,515 Speaker 3: were the first Indians that one of the anthropologists ran acrossed. 750 00:44:33,475 --> 00:44:36,595 Speaker 2: Leguinn was trying to escape her past without disowning it, 751 00:44:37,155 --> 00:44:40,475 Speaker 2: to keep working it over and reworking it. She did 752 00:44:40,515 --> 00:44:45,435 Speaker 2: not do it perfectly, but she tried. Her fiction was 753 00:44:45,475 --> 00:44:47,755 Speaker 2: one of the pathways the ideas of the Red Power 754 00:44:47,795 --> 00:44:51,155 Speaker 2: movement traveled to reach the mainstream. She helped pave the 755 00:44:51,195 --> 00:44:54,875 Speaker 2: way for reimagining the future, and she created new stories 756 00:44:54,995 --> 00:44:57,315 Speaker 2: to hold in the back of your mind if you 757 00:44:57,355 --> 00:45:00,155 Speaker 2: should ever find yourself in the corral at some slaughterhouse 758 00:45:00,155 --> 00:45:03,275 Speaker 2: in the future, looking at a person you don't understand, 759 00:45:03,915 --> 00:45:10,915 Speaker 2: trying to bridge the gap between two worlds. Ursula Crober 760 00:45:10,955 --> 00:45:14,755 Speaker 2: Legwin's writing changed science fiction, expanded the boundaries of what 761 00:45:14,795 --> 00:45:18,875 Speaker 2: could be imagined with huge moral imagination and empathy. But 762 00:45:18,955 --> 00:45:21,475 Speaker 2: there have been new futures hidden inside her father's work 763 00:45:21,515 --> 00:45:25,355 Speaker 2: that he didn't imagine either, because she was, of course 764 00:45:25,555 --> 00:45:29,115 Speaker 2: not the last. American Indian and tribal identity was more 765 00:45:29,155 --> 00:45:32,195 Speaker 2: complex and overlapped and long lasting than the turn of 766 00:45:32,235 --> 00:45:36,275 Speaker 2: the century anthropologists realized, and so a new generation of 767 00:45:36,315 --> 00:45:39,915 Speaker 2: American Indians in California are pulling the work their ancestors 768 00:45:39,955 --> 00:45:42,955 Speaker 2: did with the anthropologists at Berkeley out from the archives 769 00:45:43,275 --> 00:45:48,835 Speaker 2: and reclaiming that knowledge. Ishi's story had an unexpected future too. 770 00:45:49,195 --> 00:45:52,675 Speaker 2: In the late nineteen nineties, a mad man named Art Angle, 771 00:45:53,275 --> 00:45:57,795 Speaker 2: the anthropologist or In Starn and historian Nancy Rockefeller went 772 00:45:57,915 --> 00:46:00,355 Speaker 2: looking for Hi's brain, even when it was said to 773 00:46:00,395 --> 00:46:04,835 Speaker 2: be lost destroyed. But they kept looking for years until 774 00:46:04,835 --> 00:46:08,115 Speaker 2: they found it in a tank in an archive at 775 00:46:08,115 --> 00:46:11,755 Speaker 2: the Smithsonian. They got is She's brained back and buried 776 00:46:11,795 --> 00:46:13,995 Speaker 2: it with the rest of his remains on his ancestral 777 00:46:14,075 --> 00:46:17,555 Speaker 2: land in an undisclosed place. It was a big story 778 00:46:17,595 --> 00:46:20,235 Speaker 2: once again, and it became a rallying cry for a 779 00:46:20,235 --> 00:46:23,755 Speaker 2: movement to repatriate native remains from collections around the world. 780 00:46:24,595 --> 00:46:27,755 Speaker 2: In twenty twenty one, in response to activism on campus, 781 00:46:28,075 --> 00:46:30,715 Speaker 2: Berkeley took Crober's name off the building that houses the 782 00:46:30,755 --> 00:46:34,155 Speaker 2: department he founded, but they have been slow to repatriate 783 00:46:34,195 --> 00:46:38,675 Speaker 2: the many ancestral remains still in their collection. Meanwhile, one 784 00:46:38,795 --> 00:46:41,915 Speaker 2: hundred and twelve years after she turned up at that slaughterhouse, 785 00:46:42,395 --> 00:46:45,395 Speaker 2: no one's any closer to some essential truth about his story. 786 00:46:46,235 --> 00:46:50,475 Speaker 2: I asked Lauria about Legwin's work telling and retelling, excavating 787 00:46:50,555 --> 00:46:51,555 Speaker 2: that story's meaning. 788 00:46:52,395 --> 00:46:54,835 Speaker 6: And you can see yourself trying to escape some of 789 00:46:54,835 --> 00:46:59,475 Speaker 6: those things, which are negative possibilities, always unsuccessfully, you know, 790 00:46:59,875 --> 00:47:02,715 Speaker 6: And yet because you're conscious and you're aware of them, 791 00:47:02,915 --> 00:47:05,835 Speaker 6: you're dealing with them, perhaps writing five page short stories, right, 792 00:47:05,995 --> 00:47:09,515 Speaker 6: you know. I mean, so you're trying to come to terms, 793 00:47:10,155 --> 00:47:12,715 Speaker 6: never fully adequately, but you know the fact that you're 794 00:47:12,755 --> 00:47:15,955 Speaker 6: trying is actually probably worth something. 795 00:47:17,515 --> 00:47:20,115 Speaker 2: You have to try, even if you can never escape 796 00:47:20,155 --> 00:47:22,915 Speaker 2: the past, kind of like how you never quite escape 797 00:47:22,955 --> 00:47:25,995 Speaker 2: your parents, Which is why I guess I've just told 798 00:47:26,035 --> 00:47:28,435 Speaker 2: you a story that seems like it's about one thing, 799 00:47:29,515 --> 00:47:32,035 Speaker 2: when really it's about something else. 800 00:47:32,555 --> 00:47:32,955 Speaker 7: Entirely. 801 00:47:44,755 --> 00:47:48,595 Speaker 2: The Last Archive is written and hosted by Me Ben Nataphaffrey. 802 00:47:49,315 --> 00:47:52,395 Speaker 2: It's produced by me and Lucy Sullivan and edited by 803 00:47:52,395 --> 00:47:56,755 Speaker 2: Sophie Crane. Jake Gorsky is our engineer. Fact checking on 804 00:47:56,795 --> 00:48:01,155 Speaker 2: this episode by Arthur Gomberts. Sound design by Jake Gorsky 805 00:48:01,315 --> 00:48:05,595 Speaker 2: and Lucy Sullivan. Our executive producers are Sophie Crane and 806 00:48:05,715 --> 00:48:09,795 Speaker 2: Jill Lapourt. Thanks also to Julia Barton, Pushkin's executive editor. 807 00:48:10,675 --> 00:48:13,955 Speaker 2: Original music by Matthias Bossi and John Evans of stell 808 00:48:14,035 --> 00:48:17,355 Speaker 2: Wagon Symphonet. Many of our sound effects are from Harry 809 00:48:17,435 --> 00:48:21,395 Speaker 2: Jannette Junior in the Star Ganette Foundation Special Thanks to 810 00:48:21,435 --> 00:48:24,395 Speaker 2: Andrew Garrett and his upcoming book, The Unnaming of Croper 811 00:48:24,435 --> 00:48:27,635 Speaker 2: Hal Thanks also to Laura n Ader and the University 812 00:48:27,675 --> 00:48:31,995 Speaker 2: of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives. The Ones Who 813 00:48:32,035 --> 00:48:34,835 Speaker 2: Walk Away from Omolas by Ursula k Legwin is used 814 00:48:34,835 --> 00:48:38,915 Speaker 2: by permission of Curtis Brown Limited, Copyright nineteen seventy three. 815 00:48:39,395 --> 00:48:43,595 Speaker 2: All rights reserved. For a bibliography, further reading, and a 816 00:48:43,595 --> 00:48:46,195 Speaker 2: transcript and teaching guide to this episode, head to the 817 00:48:46,235 --> 00:48:50,235 Speaker 2: Last Archive dot com. The Last Archive is a production 818 00:48:50,355 --> 00:48:54,155 Speaker 2: of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show. Consider subscribing 819 00:48:54,195 --> 00:48:57,555 Speaker 2: to Pushkin Plus, offering bonus content and ad free listening 820 00:48:57,595 --> 00:49:00,555 Speaker 2: across our network for four ninety nine a month. Look 821 00:49:00,555 --> 00:49:03,475 Speaker 2: for the Pushkin Plus channel on Apple Podcasts or at 822 00:49:03,475 --> 00:49:06,515 Speaker 2: pushkin dot fm, and please sign up for our newsletter 823 00:49:06,635 --> 00:49:11,235 Speaker 2: at pushkin dot fm Slash Newsletter. Find more Pushkin podcasts, 824 00:49:11,355 --> 00:49:14,955 Speaker 2: listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 825 00:49:14,955 --> 00:49:15,915 Speaker 2: get your podcasts. 826 00:49:16,715 --> 00:49:17,875 Speaker 7: I'm Ben Mattahaffrey.