Ishi In 2 Worlds

Ishi was literally a Stone Age man, the last of a "lost" tribe, when in 1911 he stumbled into 20th century California. In the following five years thousands of visitors watched him chip arrowheads, shape bows and make fire in the halls of the museum where he made his home.

This book is like an archaeologist's reconstruction of a bead necklace from which some pieces are scattered. Theodora Kroeber puts together two necklaces: first, the story of a tribe that survived undisturbed for hundreds of years. The second necklace is the story of Ishi's adjustment to the trolley-world of San Francisco--proof, as the author says, that Stone Age man and modern man are essentially alike.

"The warmth and understanding with which Ishi's story is told gives this book its special quality. It can be called one of the great American stories." --Lewis Gannett