Magalia-Pines Family Practice Medical Clinic 

Ishi: 100 Years Anniversary

Five nights in the Ishi Wilderness

I hadn't had so much fun since my Special Forces days (1977-80) living out of a rucksack (military backpack).  I departed for the Ishi Wilderness the first week in October 2011 (a good time as rattle snakes begin retreat and poison oak leaves drop and cooler temperatures prevent overheating when hiking).  

My solo trip into the Ishi Wilderness was long overdue and included 2 star nights and 3 raining nights with one cold 38 degrees hard rain night (forecast was 1 day rain).  Fortunately, the rain lightened to intermittent drizzle during the daytime and so my exploring went mostly uninterrupted.  The entire hike was about 30 miles round trip (to include exploring side tours) and I carried 40 pounds ruck to include a robust Aid Bag with suturing capabilities, antibiotics and etc if needed.  My target was the Yahi Indian Camp and Ishi Caves not listed on most maps. 

I had researched Ishi (the last wild Native American Yahi Indian discovered in 1911) for years and I was curious about how his Yahi Indian Village and Ishi Caves would look one hundred years later. 

Double Rainbow

The picture below is of a double rainbow (between thunder storms) dipping down into the Ishi canyon (Deer Creek) about 4 miles upstream from my target Yahi Indian Camp (Ishi Caves).  My automobile is parked below Devil's Kitchen where Cohasset crosses the Deer Creek (about 6 miles behind the rainbow). 

Note the rock formation (center left) rises some 1000 feet above Deer Creek which is barely seen to the left of rainbow.  In contrast to the higher plateau grasslands, the north facing canyon walls are often thick with vegetation (right of rainbow) and difficult to cross its many thickets

 Introduction to Ishi 

Ishi was the last surviving Stone Age wild barefoot Native American Yahi Indian living free in the canyons of northeastern California (Sierra-Cascade Mountains Conjoin).  He was first seen in the wild in 1908 when only 4 of his Yahi Indian people remained alive.  Later in August 1911 Ishi was the last surviving Yahi Indian who left the wilderness and transcended into twentieth century civilization living with California University Archeology Professors Alfred L. Kroeber and Thomas T. Waterman, and Saxton T. Pope, M.D. at the University in San Francisco.  Ishi is credited for bridging the gap between the two worlds of the Stone Age and modern twentieth century America.  Ishi died only a few years later from the White Man's disease of Tuberculosis (intestinal route) on March 25, 1916.  Ishi is pictured below making a fish spear.

  Above the Yahi Indian Village

Below picture taken on North Slope of South Rim near base of Ishi Caves overlooking upstream Deer Creek.  The Digger Pine (left middle of picture) is old growth 4 feet diameter and about 100 feet left of Don's camp within the old Yahi Indian Village.  Across are 400-600 foot Clift bluffs (with another 400-600 feet steep grass until it banks the Deer Creek, (often like a river difficult to cross in some areas).  The creek cannot be seen in this view, but is at the bottom of the canyon.

Across from the Yahi Indian Village

The picture below is looking across to the Ishi Caves area that's above the Yahi Indian Village from the other side of Deer Creek, which water is deeper in the canyon and can't be seen in this photo.  

Best view of Yahi Indian Village:

Picture below is taken from the south upper bank Deer Creek (after crossing) and is looking back at the Yahi Indian Village (tree area left center of creek) which represents about 100 acres, but the ledge to Grizzly Bear's Hiding Place (Ishi's last Yahi home) is only a fragment of this area.

Closer view of Yahi Indian Village

Old ledge with Trail

In rout to the Yahi Indian Village just before entering the thickest brush (about two miles upstream from the Yahi Indian Village and about 400 feet elevation above Deer Creek) I came across this old ledge with trail to its left (note rocks placed forefront of rucksack showing retaining wall of old ledge).

Pick Head

Because a pick head (below) was found here it's probably Apperson or Speegle doings (White people who used the Supher creek tributary upstream from Ishi on Deer Creek). 

Brush Break

Impenetrable dense brush separated early White settlers from Ishi (below is a break between the brush groves).  Target camp is on horizon (left center horizon) where rock bump sticks out (characteristic rock is seen much closer in above two photos views of Yahi Indian Village.

Looking back at Brush

It took me some 5 hours to move through this 1.5 miles of brush on the North slope of Deer Creek (center-right of photo between lava outcropping in forefront to ridge slope behind). 

Upper Yahi Village

Upstream about 2 miles from the Yahi Indian Village is this Upper Ishi Camp not found on any map except the drawings by Ishi himself contained within the book Ishi in Two Worlds.  Despite the cave looking robust, it is actually somewhat shallow with rough ledges left and right to sleep.  Also several small caves further either side. One can imagine 8-12 people living in general local.

 Wild Eatables

Picture aside Deer Creek: to the left of leather glove on rock are wild California Grapes, these along with wild blackberries were a treat to pack and consume for energy and were found while breaking through the thickest of brush for about 5 hours. 

 Indian Rhubarb

Below is pictured Indian Rhubarb which is abundant throughout these mountain creeks and the stem is most enjoyable earlier in the year when less fibrous.  The flavor reminds me of Mullen or Coyote Thistle stem, but better.  Great in salad or stew if not cooked too long.  The stems seem thinner at this lower elevation as compared to the higher Butte Creek mountain country I usually hike.  

 Grizzly Bear's Hidding Place?

The picture below is a cave just above the Yahi Indian Camp and is perfect size for one person to stay warm (a Grizzly would find it a perfect den).  Is this the Grizzly Bear's Hiding Place where Ishi's last Yahi shack/home was built and backed up against?  I wouldn't say even if it was, as surly all artifacts are left alone and the most secret of places not revealed.  Even Berkeley filmmaker Jed Riffe edited his documentary "Ishi the Last Yahi" to hide all clues to its exact location.  A secret known to only a few like Riffe, Bibby and Johnston (in 1989 Bibby and Johnston found Grizzly Bear's Hiding Place after a wild fire blaze cleared the brush from Cohasset Ridge into Deer Creek canyon), and which secret camp location is on about an acre size shelf. 

 Base Camp Yahi Indian Village

Drying out within the Yahi Indian Camp area with poison oak all about.

Poison Oak aside the tent (forefront).

 Water Crossing

Leaving the Yahi camp I crossed a deep spot in the Deer Creek where Ishi said the fishing was exceptional.  All things in the ruck were made water tight and the ruck served as floatation devise across (it began raining somewhat hard again just as I entered the water at about 9AM and continued for about 30 minutes).

Wet Pack

Below picture is of ruck on the other side of the creek and it was time to unpack the ruck for cloths and boots as I crossed it buck naked. Poison Oak bush next to ruck (the key is to wash the poison oak resin off often to minimize receptor binding and skin reaction). 

 Looking Back

Looking back at the trip one can appreciate the seriousness about hiking this wilderness, as cliff bluffs can drop an easy eighty feet to the creek below and one sometimes needs to walk animal trails that are just aside these dropoff ledges with rapid waters and hard rocks below.  Above ledge to right shows a few small caves with steep grass and then 40 foot drop.

Map Miracle!

When I departed on my journey I had some idea about where Ishi's last home was, because I had research Ishi a number of years.  I had allowed myself 7-10 days off from the clinic to find the old Yahi Indian Camp. 

I departed with the following maps: Ishi Wilderness map (great for foot trails between Deer and Mill Creeks, but unfortunately doesn't list the Yahi Indian Camp), Lassen National Forest map-1982 (does list the Yahi Indian Camp, but no contour elevation lines to confirm local), and I had drawings in my brain of maps from the book Ishi in Two Worlds.

After about 6 miles into my hike the Ishi trail ended and I started cross country through thickets and soon happened across an old military type map container with two maps, and one of the maps was from 1953 and had contour lines and showed precisely where the Yahi Indian Village was (a real find as this map cut days off my efforts to locate the Yahi camp).  

This 1953 Map that I found (below) shows the Yahi Indian Camp and Ishi Caves (left lower, south of Deer Creek).  Again, few maps list the actual location of the Yahi Indian Village on Deer Creek, but this one did and with contour elevation lines to boot!  This surely simplified things on confirming.  

Map below: 1953 Panther Spring, CA, N4000-W12145/15 shows contour of Yahi Indian Camp and Ishi Caves. The larger map area shows Kingsley Cave (large cave and site of a Yahi massacre - also not seen on other maps).

Map below: Ishi, Thousand Lakes,& Caribou Wildernesses map (does not show Yahi Indian Village). 

Map below: 1982 Lassen National Forest Map showing Yahi Indian Village (Ishi Caves) but does not have elevation contour lines.  My newer Lassen National Forest Map does not list the target site.  This was my main map on departure before finding the 1953 map above. 

From Text: 

Ishi in Two Worlds

Below picture is of Lassen Mountain watershed from the book Ishi in Two Worlds’ and shows Grizzly Bear's Hiding Place and Upper Yahi Camp as shown by Ishi.  No other map have I seen showing the upper camp.

TEXT

Yahi Indian Village Layout

Below is pictured the Yahi Indian Camp layout also from the book Ishi in Two Worlds.

 Recent Bedding

The picture below is a typical cave only large enough for a human, mountain lion, bear or deer.  Note in this picture below the recent bed traffic as grass is matted down.  A few cougar and deer tracks were noted in the area.  The night before this picture was taken it had heavy rain and  surely animals were looking for a place to settled and one did here within this well matted grass.

 Cave with bone

Below is a cave with a bone in it (center just above grass).  Most caves are only 6 feet long and 3-5 feet deep, and many more only 3 feet by 4 feet  and thus perfect den for a mountain lion or black bear.  This bone was light and very old, and likely a deer some cougar ate, rather than 100 years old from Ishi time.

 Wood Storage

The picture below shows wood stored within an in-cropping of rock that is better appreciated with closer in view.  At first one might think it a rat nest, but on close inspection it’s branch sticks are more uniform in diameter and length compared to the chaos of wood stuffs in rat nests.  Two of these wood storage areas where found and the one pictured below is nearest Grizzly Bears Hiding Place.  Note: wood kept in a dry place can last over a century (like historic houses from the 1870's).

 View from Yahi Camp

Another Cave 

 Upper Camp Cave

My ruck is on cave ledge center right.  I'm standing within cave on a rough sleeping ledge taking this picture.  This is the upper Yahi Indian Camp.

And another Cave

The orange color on the pillar separating cave rooms below is lichen (many lichen and mosses are eatable and have been found in the stomach remains of prehistoric man).

Drying Out

Back at the car I dried my gear out, because it was 20 miles dirt road before asphalt and this dirt road is very rough with many difficult places and so the possibility remained that my old field car could break down via a rock into its oil pan et al and I might need walk and so dry gear was still important (always think survival).  I brought 7 meals for 10 days, but ate only 4 meals over the 6 days and supplemented with few wild eatables.  I drank directly out of Deer Creek (not recommended for most, but I have done so for many years and have acquired antibodies to all the rodent and dear e-coli in this area and have never had a problem). 

Unused Aid Bag

Below is picture of my Aid Bag which all fits in one large Ziploc bag.  Items include things like Injectables: Epinephrine, Benadryl, Kenalog, Lidocain with/without Epi and suturing material and simple instruments; and RXs: Z-pack, Flagyl, Sulfa, Amoxil, Cipro, Norco, Soma, Valium, Aleve, Imodium; Creams: triamcimilone, e-mycin opth, triple antibiotic oint and simple Band-Aids and a few large dressings, but most other things can be improvised (i.e., splints and slings).

This country is too steep for much beaver activity, but I had metronidazole ready for Giardia and  susceptible bacteria TMP/SMX for Shigella and doxycyline for our black footed tick that carries Lyme disease out here, but with access to Bay leaves I needed no insect repellent.  Simply, I was prepared to break a leg and stay awhile if needed. 

Healthier after the Trip

Below is a picture of Don Sakal after returning home from his 30 miles 6 days backwoodsman trip into the Ishi Wilderness (at 53 years old, he can still enjoy life with Ziploc bags between his dry socks and wet moccasins after a cold hard night's rain).

Don Sakal on Ishi

The last surviving Native American Yahi Indian

A tribute: some paragraphs from Don’s pending novel:

  ... So eluding and enduring a people were some of these California Native Americans that it was not until 1911 when the last Stone Age surviving wild Native American Indian was finally discovered…   Indeed, sixty-two years after the gold rush had begun, and one hundred and twenty-four years after the United States government had already been formed (Constitution signed, September 17, 1787) a real live Stone Age wild Indian man was discovered still living in America’s wild in the wilderness in northern California…  

  ... When Ishi first walked out of the greater Sierra-Cascade Conjoin…  into the town of Oroville, California (in August 1911)…   America was astonished…  long believed that all the Yahi Indian people were dead a half century earlier…

  ... It was soon learned that a band of some fifty Yahi people had managed to avoid or elude American society for about five decades.  After Ishi shared his life story with Anthropologists at the University of California (not an easy task, as no person was able to speak Ishi’s language), he remained there as a respectable and honored anthropological resource until his death on March 25, 1916 (Ishi died after contracting tuberculosis from white people)...

 ...  Before his death, Ishi took the University Professors (who became his true and dear friends) to his native homelands, and together they mapped and documented important Indian sites, plants and Yahi survival skills while camping about for months...

      Ishi is considered to be both the last surviving Native American Yahi Indian and Stone Age survivor in America.  Ishi is credited for having bridged a very important gap between the two worlds of modern industrialized society and the Stone Age…

 ....  Although, Ishi taught America much about its own heritage, to his friends Ishi was probably best known for his enlightened peaceful spirit, and it is this characteristic trait that has relevance to this book.  Theodore T. Waterman, Professor of Anthropology at Berkeley, and respected best friend of Ishi, described Ishi’s character as being that of a “unique gentlemanliness”, which was “beyond all civilized breeding and training”, and he summarized Ishi’s character by saying that Ishi was uniquely an “outward expression of a pure inward spirit”…   This character of Ishi’s is most important to this book, because it reveals that Stone Age people may differ from modern people in some subtle way…

 ...  Perhaps Ishi understood and appreciated and accepted the true nature of things better than civilized people do today (despite our superior intellect)…  Ishi’s life experience had included watching his people be rounded up and murdered, which somewhat parallels Anne Frank’s experience during the inhuman Aloft Hitler’s German holocaust when segregating and murdering the Jewish people…  The numbers of massacres of Yahi people were smaller than for the Jewish people…   but the emotional experiences were still similar... 

  ...  Somehow, despite Ishi having endured the horrors and hardships of seeing his people murdered, and continuously aware that Americans might find and kill him too, Ishi continued to accept life as each new day came his way.  Even after every other person in his clan was gone, Ishi lived on alone like a signal beautiful flower firmly accorded in the soil of a hillside that had already eroded away.  Indeed, “a unique gentlemanliness… beyond all civilized breeding and training… an outward expression of a pure inward spirit…” were all words that Professor Waterman had used to try and credit Ishi with something very special…

  ... Professor Waterman was the first person to communicate with Ishi in theButte county jail where the so-called “wild man” had been housed immediately after his capture (mostly for his own personal protection from civilized people).  After reading about the discovery, University Professors wasted no time in taking charge of the situation and communicating withWashingtonD.C. about the significance of the wild Indian discovery and about the care that needed to be instituted regarding the situation.  Soon the University had charge of the situation...

 ...  After Professor Waterman arrived at the ButteCountyjail he began reading a list of Yana Indian words (the Yana were ancestor to the Yahi Indians some four thousand years earlier).  After saying hundreds of Yana words, which Ishi did not understand, finally there was one word that had not change via the evolution of Yana to Yahi dialect, and that word was pine (as in yellow pine or pine tree,), which Ishi’s jail cot or bed was make out of.  Finally the two men began to communicate to both their grand delights, but ever so slowly, as they repeated the Yana/Yahi word “siwini, siwini” (meaning pine) and repeatedly tapped on the pine wood frame to Ishi’s jail cot...

  ... Dr. Waterman was younger than Ishi and so it was natural for him to show respect to Ishi, because after all this was a older person, and importantly, a Native American Indian man who must have endured unimaginable hardships and possessed superior survival skills and understanding to most anyone.  Dr. Waterman certainly appreciated Ishi and presented himself humbly and Ishi likely sensed it, although, surely Dr. Waterman had to hide some frustrations as he moved forward with the hundreds of more words to better try and communicate with Ishi.  (Yahi language was never interpreted entirely, and so it remains mostly a mystery today within the hundreds of hours of recorded Yahi stories and songs that Ishi made on wax cylinders at the university, which can still be heard.  Ishi understood that his good professor friends were very interested in documenting the Yahi culture with respect, and so he did his best to communicate until his death in 1916 and much did become known as result of his efforts.)...

  ... Actually, Ishi’s story really started some years earlier before his discovery in 1911.  In November 1908, a surveyor team in northeastern California, hired by the Oro Light and Power Company, traveled to Deer Creek (a watershed of Mount Lassen or the southern most Cascade peak) and they stumbled upon an Indian man fishing.  Curious, the next day, the surveyors set out and managed to find a small Yahi Indian village.  Although, the Indian man that they had seen fishing the day before was not in the village, three other people were.  As the surveyors approached the village, an old man and young woman fled and escaped the scene while an elderly woman who was very sick and could not run had to hide under some blankets hoping to go unnoticed...

  ... Yahi concerns about their safety were valid, as the surveyors wasted no time ransacking the little village, and as they did so they discovered the old sick women lying helplessly.  The surveyors looked at the old women’s face and eyes and they knew that she was too sick to move (likely heart failure as her legs were so swollen).  However, instead of offering her a sip of water or a helping hand of any kind, they instead choose to continue to ransack the village and took the old sick women’s food and stole everything thing they could carry out.  Supposedly, their thoughts were that they would need many Indian artifacts as proof of these Yahi Indian’s existence before anyone would believe their story about seeing these remaining Indians...

  ... Later, Ishi told university Anthropologists that the 1908 surveying encounter was actually with Ishi’s mother (the sickened old woman) and younger sister (the young women who fled).  Sadly, after that incident, Ishi never saw his sister or the elderly man who escaped with her again (it is difficult to know for certain if they survived beyond Ishi’s time).  Ishi said that they likely drowned in the rapids or fell off a bluff and or were attacked and consumed by a mountain lion, as Ishi could find no trace of them over the next several years despite going to all the familiar places where they surely would have returned to.  (Later, when Ishi returned with the university professors to his homeland, he said that he was uneasy about his ancestors’ spirits.  However, after leaving his professor friend’s camp one evening and taking off on his own for one night, he returned the next day at ease about things.  Ishi said that he had heard his sister’s voice calling him and that he now knew that his people had found their way (whatever that means).  Indeed, no one knows for certain what Ishi meant, but one might assume that Ishi had a vision, which brought him a sense of closure with his people...

  ... It was shortly after Ishi lost his sister and his older friend, who had been like an uncle to him, that Ishi’s mother died of her sickness and Ishi was then totally alone from 1908 through 1911.  For those three years, while all alone, Ishi was still living with the assumption that white people were hunting him and would kill him if he were ever captured.  Ishi’s lonely mourning was overwhelming.  With no food to be found and another winter soon approaching, Ishi finally decided to start walking south, not really caring about whether he might be captured or killed by white people or some other Indian tribe that he might encounter (Ishi had no idea that he was the last surviving wild Stone Age Indian in the area, let alone the all of the United States)...

  ... Yet, after his discovery, Ishi did not seem overwhelmingly depressed from grief and loneness, but instead he had morale and interest about his new situation.  On the one hand Ishi had given up realizing that he was too starved to remain another winter in the wild, but on the other hand he risked being killed by letting himself be known and captured by the white people.  Once in the accompaniment of Professor Waterman, Ishi must have felt a sense of security.  Soon, Ishi’s child-like interest was actively exploring and interacting with all the new phenomena of modern civilization around him...

 ...  Eventually, Professor Waterman and other scholars learn about the many Yahi hardships, such as, when Ishi was a young boy and saw his father murdered by white people during a Yahi village massacre at Three Knolls on the Mill Creek (about seven cross-country miles from where this story takes place).  Ishi and his mother had escaped the slaughter, which killed his father, by jumping into the river, Mill Creek, and floating downstream amongst the freshly dead bloody bodies of their immediate tribe family.  The Indian massacre at Three Knolls was but only one of many horrible historical happenings...

  ... One other historic case that’s documented was called the KingsleyCavemassacre, which occurred by Mill Creek sometime between 1867-1868.  At KingsleyCave, white people had slaughtered many Yahi Indians after trapping them in the large cave there whereby they could not escape.  As the white people shot the large groups of trapped helpless Native American Yahi Indians to death, they noticed that their rifle rounds were ripping apart the babies even beyond their liking.  So, during the slaughter, rifles (.56-caliber Spencer) were exchanged for revolvers (.38-caliber Smith and Wesson) to lessen the grossness of infantile murder, which continued even thereafter as Indian bounties had encouraged such massacres.  (Today Kingsley Cave is located about two miles from Wild Horse Corral in the Ishi Wilderness, but it is not listed on the Ishi Wilderness or National Forest Service maps.  If the reader ever goes there, remember that all these sites mentioned are federally protected, and so look, but do not disturb anything.)...

  ...There were many American insults against the Yahi Indians (too many to name in this story).  These terrible happenings can be read about in more detail in the book Ishi In Two Worlds, written by Theodora Kroeber, in 1961, wife of professor Alfred Kroeber who was in charged of the museum where Ishi spent his later life.  Professor Alfred Kroeber was senior to Professor Waterman’s and another best friend to Ishi.  It is amazing that Ishi was able endear anyone in the outside world after so many of his people (even his father) had been killed by the white people.  Somehow, Ishi managed to trust his intuitive reason that some white people like Professors Waterman and Kroeber, and later best friend Physician and Surgeon Dr. Pope were all good souls...

   The END: