wildflowers cover the mesa

Oroville is perhaps best known for being the place Ishi, last of his tribe, wandered out of the wilderness, hungry and alone, in 1911. he was ‘taken in’ by anthropologists with the University of California and died in San Francisco in 1916.

the dam, the reservoir, the earthquake in 1975

despite Ishi’s request not to have his body undergo an autopsy, his brain was extracted and sent to the Smithsonian.

wildflowers cover the foothills

members of the Wintu tribe, thought to be closest to the extinguished Yahi tribe, recovered Ishi’s brain and joined it with his ashes in a ceremony at Mt. Shasta in 2000.