Ishi was the last known member of the Native American Yahi people from the state of California in the United States. The Yana were destroyed during the California Genocide in the 19th century. Ishi, who was widely acclaimed as the "last wild Indian" in America, lived most of his life isolated from modern American culture. In 1911, aged 50, he emerged near the foothills of Lassen Peak in Northern California.

Ishi, which means "man" in the Yana language, is an adopted name. The anthropologist Alfred Kroeber gave him this name because in the Yahi culture, tradition demanded that he not speak his own name until formally introduced by another Yahi. When asked his name, he said: "I have none, because there were no people to name me," meaning that there was no other Yahi to speak his name on his behalf.

Ishi was taken in by anthropologists at the University of California, Berkeley, who both studied him and hired him as a research assistant. He lived most of his remaining five years in a university building in San Francisco.

The Yana-speaking people comprised four groups: the North Yana, the Central Yana, the Southern Yana, and the Yahi. The noun stem Ya- means "person"; the noun suffix is -na in the northern Yana dialects and -hi in the southern dialects. The Yana continue to be in California as members of Redding Rancheria.

http://history.library.ucsf.edu/ishi.html

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