Ishi was the last surviving member of the Yahi tribe.  He was born about
1862.  The Yahi were related to the Yana Indians who once lived in
northern California.  Contact with whites began with the California Gold
Rush of 1849, which led to struggles over land, raids on white
settlements, and devastating counterattacks.  Two massacres of Yahi
Indians at Mill Creek in the 1860s all but wiped them out.  The remaining
survivors hid themselves away completely and were thought to have died
until Ishi, starving and alone, appeared at the town of Oroville in 1911. 
News of his appearance reached two anthropologists, Alfred Kroeber and
Thomas Waterman, who came to Oroville to learn more about him and his
people.  Ishi showed how the Yahi survived in the wilderness and shared
with them the songs and stories of his ancestors.  Kroeber brought Ishi to
San Francisco, where he lived in the Museum of Anthropology.  Ishi died of
tuberculosis in 1916.