James Dalton Trumbo was an American screenwriter who scripted many award-winning films, including Roman Holiday (1953), Exodus, Spartacus, and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944). One of the Hollywood Ten, he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947 during the committee's investigation of alleged Communist influences in the motion picture industry.
Edward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States.
Ishi was the last known member of the Native American Yahi people from the present-day state of California in the United States. The rest of the Yahi were killed in the California genocide in the 19th century. Widely described as the "last wild Indian" in the U.S., Ishi lived most of his life isolated from modern North American culture, and was the last known Native manufacturer of stone arrowheads. In 1911, aged 50, he emerged at a barn and corral, 2 mi (3.2 km) from downtown Oroville, California.
Theodora Kroeber was an American writer and anthropologist, best known for her accounts of several Native Californian cultures. Born in Denver, Colorado, Kroeber grew up in the mining town of Telluride, and worked briefly as a nurse. She attended the University of California, Berkeley, for her undergraduate studies, graduating with a major in psychology in 1919, and received a master's degree from the same institution in 1920.
Alfred Louis Kroeber was an American cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. He was also the first professor appointed to the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. He played an integral role in the early days of its Museum of Anthropology, where he served as director from 1909 through 1947. Kroeber provided detailed information about Ishi, the last surviving member of the Yahi people, whom he studied over a period of years. He was the father of the acclaimed novelist, poet, and writer of short stories Ursula K. Le Guin.
Orin Starn is an anthropologist and writer at Duke University.
The Yana language is an extinct language that was formerly spoken by the Yana people, who lived in north-central California between the Feather and Pit rivers in what is now the Shasta and Tehama counties. The last speaker of the southernmost dialect, which is called Yahi, was Ishi, who died in 1916. When the last fluent speaker(s) of the other dialects died is not recorded. Yana is fairly well documented, mostly by Edward Sapir.
The Yana are a group of Native Americans indigenous to Northern California in the central Sierra Nevada, on the western side of the range. Their lands, prior to encroachment by white settlers, bordered the Pit and Feather rivers. They were nearly destroyed during the California genocide in the latter half of the 19th century. Descendants of the Central and Southern Yana continue to live in California as members of Redding Rancheria.
Robert Ellis Miller was an American film director.
Jed Riffe is an American filmmaker. For over 30 years his documentary films have focused on social issues and politics including: Native American histories and struggles and agriculture, food and sustainability issues. He lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Christopher Trumbo was an American television writer, screenwriter and playwright. Trumbo was considered an expert on the McCarthy-era Hollywood blacklist. His father, screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, was blacklisted by Hollywood for nearly a decade for refusing to testify to Congress, as one of a group known as The Hollywood Ten.
The Last of His Tribe is a 1992 American made-for-television drama film based on the book Ishi in Two Worlds by Theodora Kroeber which relates the experiences of her husband Alfred L. Kroeber who made friends with Ishi, thought to be the last of his people, the Yahi tribe. Jon Voight stars as Kroeber and Graham Greene as Ishi. Harry Hook directed the film.
Victor Golla (1939–2021) was a linguist who specialized in the indigenous languages of California and Oregon, especially the Pacific Coast Athabaskan subgroup of the Athabaskan language family and the languages of the region that belong to the Penutian phylum. He was emeritus professor of anthropology at Humboldt State University and lived in Trinidad, California.
National Lampoon's Bag Boy is a 2007 American comedy film directed by Mort Nathan, starring Dennis Farina, Paul Campbell and Marika Dominczyk. The plot involves a teenager who enters the competitive world of grocery store bagging.
Harry Hook is an English screenwriter, film/television director and photographer. Hook is best known for such films as The Last of His Tribe and the 1990 version of Lord of the Flies.
Eloy Phil Casados was an American film, television and voice actor. He appeared in more than 20 films and 30 television series.
Grand Avenue is a 1996 American drama film directed by Daniel Sackheim and written by Greg Sarris. It is based on the 1994 novel Grand Avenue by Greg Sarris. The film stars Irene Bedard, Tantoo Cardinal, Eloy Casados, Deena-Marie Consiglio, Alexis Cruz, Diane Debassige, Jenny Gago, Cody Lightning, A Martinez, Simi Mehta, August Schellenberg, Sheila Tousey and Sam Vlahos. The film premiered on HBO on June 30, 1996. The film is one of the only American films to feature an indigenous Native American lead role for an actress, played by Menominee actress Tousey.
Ishi in Two Worlds is a biographical account of Ishi, the last known member of the Yahi Native American people. Written by American author Theodora Kroeber, it was first published in 1961. Ishi had been found alone and starving outside Oroville, California, in 1911. He was befriended by the anthropologists Alfred Louis Kroeber and Thomas Waterman, who took him to the Museum of Anthropology in San Francisco. There, he was studied by the anthropologists, before his death in 1916. Theodora Kroeber married Alfred Kroeber in 1926. Though she had never met Ishi, she decided to write a biography of him because her husband did not feel able to do so.
Harmon Augustus Good led a life as an “Indian hunter.” His closest friends in California addressed him as Hiram or simply "Hi" Good. On May 4, 1870, at the age of 34 he was killed by members of Ishi’s Yahi band, who, especially would have had the motive. Good became a ruthless leader of volunteer vigilante parties, who battled the diverse mix of Native Americans in northern California during the Indian war years, 1857 to 1865. Many locals proclaimed him the “Boone of the Sierra.” According to Butte County historian George Mansfield, “Good, in particular, was held in the most bitter hatred among the Indians.” In 1923 fellow Indian hunter Sim Moak recalled that “at one time Good had forty scalps hanging in the poplar tree by his house” and described Good adorning the outseam of his pants with scalps: “you can imagine a great tall man with a string of scalps from his belt to his ankle”.
Alfred Kroeber: A Personal Configuration is a 1970 biography of the anthropologist Alfred Louis Kroeber, written by Theodora Kroeber. Theodora was married to Alfred between 1926 and his death in 1960. She began writing professionally in the 1950s, after her children were grown: the books she authored included Ishi in Two Worlds (1962). Theodora began a biography of her husband after his death in 1960, but could not complete it before her 1969 marriage to John Quinn, with whose encouragement she published it. The term "configuration" in the title refers to Alfred's exploration of cultural change in his work.
