Genocide

Genocide is a central theme in "Ishi: Last of His Tribe", as it was the massive slaughter of Native Americans by the European settlers that led Ishi’s family into hiding. Ishi grows up among the seven remaining Yahi who have escaped the saldu, or white men, and have built the village of Tuliyani, hidden in the foothills of Mount Lassen. Ishi asks his Grandfather about the arrival of the saldu, whom Grandmother claims had come from within the mountain.

According to Grandfather, “One day, the People at Bushki, Timawi’s village, sent a lookout to tell us at Three Knolls Village that fifteen or twenty saldu—men-like beings with pale skin and eyes—had come out of the desert which begins at the far edge of the Eastern Meadows of Waganupa and extends no one knows how far” (Chapter 1, p. 34). The saldu had entered the village, which...