Stereotype. A stereotype is an unexamined, false idea about a type of person or group of people. As you begin this selection, note the terms used to describe Ishi. Together, how do these reveal a stereotype?

• Science Connection. Anthropology is the scientific study of humans and human culture. Anthropologists study the ways that people live in social groups, including all of the rules and beliefs that group members learn and share. Anthropologists also study the ways that different humans adapt to different environments and the ways in which groups are similar or different from one another.
• When Ishi met mainstream Americans in 1911, he was thought to be one of the last of the Yahi Indians, a subgroup of the Yana. Indeed other Yana were living, but within American society. Until 1911, Ishi had been living with three others in a remote region of northern California. Upon his arrival at Oroville, California, Ishi was first placed in jail and then brought to the University of California in San Francisco. He lived at the museum until his death in 1916.
• After Ishi died, his body was cremated and his brain was sent to the Smithsonian Institution for study. At that time, scientists commonly studied the remains of Native peoples, a practice that enraged many Native groups. This opposition eventually led to restrictions and to the National Museum of the American Indian Act of 1989, which required the museum to repatriate, or return, the remains of Native Americans to the Native American groups of which they were a part.

Imagine finding yourself in a foreign place where no one else speaks your language or shares your customs. How would you communicate? What would you do?