We all have stories to tell. Each of us has a unique personal history, full of stories of joy and sorrow, victory and failure. Our lives and experiences become moments of living history. In reading stories of other people who live in a time or place far removed we can create an understanding of what life was like for them. While our stories and experiences may not seem important in the moment, at some point these narratives can become a clue as to what life was like in the second decade of the 21st century.
Consider the story of Ishi, a Yahi Indian, written by T.T. Waterman. As you watch the following video, consider what viewers can learn from Ishi's story about what it was like to live as a Native American in the early 1900s.
When Columbus discovered what Europeans would refer to as "the New World," there were already 10 million people living here. By the 1900s, this number had declined to fewer than 300,000. War and disease had reduced the population of Native Americans, and those remaining were forced to assimilate into the mainstream, European culture--or live on reservations assigned to them by the U.S. government.
In Northern California, east of the Sacramento River, lived a tribe that managed for many years to avoid either of these outcomes. They remained on their native lands and maintained a primitive lifestyle. However, the California Gold Rush and the influx of settlers that followed eventually lead to the demise of the Yahi tribe. In 1910, the lone survivor of the Yahi was a man named Ishi. A University of California professor named T.T. Waterman met Ishi and brought him to live at the university. Though unwilling to discuss certain information about his family or tribe, Ishi served as a sort of living exhibit during his time at the University of California. Professor Waterman describes his relationship with Ishi in this way:
"Our friendship started at Oroville, California, where loneliness and hunger had driven Ishi to come into a slaughter-house near town. In bringing him down to the University, where his home was to be for the rest of his life, it was necessary to take the train. Behold Ishi and myself, an attendant Indian, and some hundreds of interested pale-faces, waiting on the platform for the train to come in. As Number Five appeared in the distance and came whistling and smoking down the humming rails in a cloud of dust. We were standing some distance from the track as it was, for I felt that he might be afraid of the engine. My charge however wanted to hide behind something. He had often seen trains. Later he told us in his own language that he had in his wanderings seen trains go by in the distance. But he did not know they ran on tracks. When he saw them he always lay down in the grass or behind a bush until they were out of sight. He visualized a train as some devil-driven, inhuman prodigy. Security lay not in keeping off of the right-of-way, but in keeping out of its sight.
Here is another fact that illustrates his personal attitude. To a primitive man, what ought to prove most astonishing in a modern city? I would have said at once, the height of the buildings. But for Ishi, the overwhelming thing about San Francisco was the number of people. That he never got over. Until he came into civilization, the largest number of people he had ever seen together at any time was five! At first a crowd gathered around him alarmed him and made him uneasy. He never entirely got over his feeling of awe, even when he learned that everybody meant well. The big buildings he was interested in. He found them edifying, but he distinctly was not greatly impressed. The reason, as far as I could understand it, was this. He mentally compared a towering twelve-story building not with his hut in Deer Creek, which was only four feet high, but with the cliffs and crags of his native mountains. He had something in some way analogous to tall buildings stored up in his experience. And to see five thousand people at once was something undreamed of, and it upset him.”
Through T.T. Waterman's account of his encounter with Ishi, we are able to see an everyday experience, walking down the street, through Ishi’s eyes and see the experience in an entirely different light. What can we learn about Ishi from the stories of his life? Why are little moments like this important?
They provide perspective about how other people live, and also a new and different perspective on our own lives. For instance, we can see the isolated and remote life that Ishi and his tribe lived. We can also see glimpses of what he imagines the rest of the world to be--the fact that he could imagine large buildings but couldn’t envision the large number of people. Sometimes through the little moments we see the largest contrast between our lives and that of another person. Seeing how someone views something we don’t even think about can paint a picture of their life and beliefs.
What stories do you have to tell? In this lesson you will be writing a historical narrative. You will choose a moment in your life to write about and by telling your story and including your interpretations and opinions, you will create a picture for the reader of what life was like in the second decade of the 21st century, just as Waterman did with the story of Ishi.
