The news of the “wild man of Oroville” went out on the wire. On August 30, 1911, the San Francisco Examiner carried a short piece titled “Last Lost Indian.” Alfred Kroeber read the report. His article on the elusive Mill Creek indians had just been published. Could this man be one of them? Or an imposter, some prankster who had read Kroeber’s article and now was playing a trick on everyone? He composed a message to the sheriff, edited it to make it as concise as possible (it cost money to magically send words over wire), and then had it typed up for transmission:
“Newspapers report capture wild Indian speaking language other tribes totally unable understand. Please confirm… If story correct hold Indian till arrival professor State University who will take charge. Matter important account aboriginal history.”
Kroeber couldn’t go himself. He had teaching duties; he was busy getting the museum ready to be opened to the public for the first time. He had “taken suddenly ill.” These were the official reasons Waterman was coming in the professor’s place. But something more personal was holding him back: worry about his wife’s health. She had tuberculosis.
Waterman was to be the official emissary of the university, the man to open up communication between the twentieth century and the Stone Age. Kroeber assembled all of the word lists of common nouns — man, tongue, wood, etc. — they had from the tribes to which the wild man might belong. There were no lists for the southern subgroups of the Yana, but there were those gathered by Edward Sapir from Betty Brown and Sam Batwi, speakers of the Northern Yana dialect. The elderly Sam Batwi was still living, in Redding. Perhaps he could help translate if he could come down to Oroville on the train.
On Thursday, August 31, the San Francisco Call carried a story wired in from Oroville about the “least civilized man in the United States.” A photograph of Ishi accompanied the story, taken in the padded cell. Requests for photographs of the Indian were coming in from all quarters, so Ishi had photo sessions with two photographers. Postcards were made, and images were secured for the newspaper stories. The man had little on his person that could be shared as tokens, but his picture could be taken. Through this means, the image of the man was captured, and everyone, far and wide, could consume a piece of the wild man.
Waterman packed the Call’s story in his suitcase; he intended to show it to the Indian. Of course, the Indian would not be able to read the story, but he could see the picture. What would he think of it? Would he even be able to recognize the image as himself? Waterman also packed an Indian fire-making kit. He said good-bye to his wife, Grace, and took the trolley to the ferry and the ferry to Oakland, where he boarded a Western Pacific train headed for Oroville. During his journey he anxiously looked through his word lists and planned his meeting with the man. Waterman was met at the station by Douglas Jacobs, the owner of the Union Hotel, and George Mansfield, editor of the Daily Register. It was 1:30 in the morning, but the two locals took the professor directly to the county jail. Waterman showed Mansfield the Call story; he was delighted to see it. He had sent it over the wire, his first big story. The officer on night duty took the men upstairs. Waterman was struck by what he saw: “The first impression received of the wild man was the sight of him, draped in a canvas apron they had hurriedly put on him at the slaughterhouse, sitting on the edge of a cot in his cell, still uncertain of his fate, and answering ‘ulisi’ (I don’t understand!) to all questions that were being fired at him in English, Spanish and a half a dozen Indian languages, by visitors. Waterman wrote as if his brain had received another image of the man, a photograph stuck in his mind.
Waterman proceeded slowly. He showed off his genuine Indian fire kit to Ishi. He began working through his word lists, but Ishi was still saying ulisi, ulisi. Nothing got across, until Waterman got to the word for wood on his list of Northern Yana. I’wi, Waterman said, and touched the yellow pine frame of Ishi’s cot. The man’s face “lit up” when he heard this, but he corrected Waterman; it wasn’t made of i’wi, wood, but si’win’i, yellow pine. “It was a picnic to see him open his eyes when he heard Yana from me,” Waterman told Kroeber. It was the first proof of the man’s tribal identity.-
Ishi was especially fascinated by Waterman’s word list. Waterman reported, “He looked over my shoulder at the paper in a most mystified way. He knew at once where I got my inspiration.” Here was a technology that impressed Ishi. The words had been translated from their oral form into writing; a special orthography was used to represent the unique sounds of the language, including “cracked consonants.”
Edward Sapir had taken them down from Batwi and Brown, two of the last speakers of Northern Yana. Now Waterman, with no prior experience with the language, was able to transform the markings on paper into sounds intelligible to Ishi. Salvage anthropology proved its worth: it allowed Waterman to start communicating with Ishi. Ishi was clearly impressed by the power of the written word and the ability of Waterman to use it.
Ishi was no longer alone, walled off within a private language no one else could speak. Were there others of his tribe still alive?, Waterman wanted to know. “He has a yarn to tell about his woman, who had a baby on her back and seems to have drowned, except that he is so cheerful about it.”
Waterman couldn't quite follow him yet. Maybe he was happy to be able to tell his story. Maybe he was saying something else. Maybe he wasn’t cheerful at all, just nervous. Despite the cultural chasm, Waterman believed he was making progress.
Later in the day Waterman pulled out the Call article, showing it first to the newspaper editor to attract Ishi’s attention. Then he gave it to Ishi. According to the Marysville Appeal, “The Indian gazed upon it, and a look of astonishment spread over his face. He still gazed upon it and, with a half credulous look, showed it to the callers and with wonder pointed at himself,” Waterman nodded, and “an expansive smile broke over his features, and with great awe he carefully laid the paper aside.” The Appeal concluded, “It is safe to say that the Indian is no greater wonder to the white men than the white men are to the Indian.”
Even if the Appeal exaggerated the drama of the moment, Ishi again passed their litmus test for aboriginality. Certainly, though, Ishi had seen his image reflected back to him before. After all, he had sat for the photographs in the studios the first day he was in Oroville. Before that, he could have looked at himself as often as he wanted to in the looking glass the Yahi survivors had in their possession. The white lawyer had Ishi’s arrows and arrowheads in his collection in Oroville; Ishi had the lawyer’s mirrors, triggers, and saw blades in Wowunupo’mu tetna.
Waterman and the Appeal were satisfied, but for different reasons. To the newspaper, the big news was that Ishi was as impressed with the modern white man as the modern man was fascinated with him. To Waterman, Ishi’s reaction to his image was further proof that the man was truly wild. Waterman’s own first impression, after all, was that Ishi was uncomfortable and out of place in the canvas shirt draped hastily over him. Waterman mentally removed it so that he could see the purely aboriginal man he wanted to see. But in fact nobody had put that shirt on him; it was the one he was wearing when he was discovered at the slaughterhouse.
Waterman wrote excitedly to Kroeber with the news, good news: “This man is undoubtedly wild.” His conclusion was based on appearances and inferences. First, there were his objects and his body: “He has thongs in place of ornaments in the lobes of his ears and a plug in the septum of his nose.” Next, there were his beliefs and practices. “If I’m not mistaken, he’s full of religion—bathing at sunrise, putting out pinches of tobacco where the lightning strikes, etc.” Finally, there was the proof of language, the solid sound of i’wi for wood. “He will be a splendid informant,” he told Kroeber.
Waterman knew that he had done well, but he admitted to his mentor that he hadn’t understood much of what the man was trying to tell him. “I have not communicated with him successfully enough to get his story, but what can you (crossed out and changed to) I expect.” Something of the relationship between Waterman and Kroeber was communicated in that strikethrough. He turned “What can you expect” into “What can I expect,” as if acknowledging that he was trying to meet Kroeber’s expectations but was trying not to put that onus on Kroeber himself.
At the end of this first dispatch to Kroeber, Waterman expressed the sentiment shared by both anthropologists: “I’m getting wild to get information and phonetics from this old bird. I think there ought to be worlds of stuff in him.”
So when does Ishi actually meet Kroeber?