Dr. Baldy questions ethnographic and anthropological beliefs about California Indians by highlighting
Native culture's disregard for Native American customs and traditions, more specifically with women.
Alfred Kroeber, an established anthropologist, organized an exhibition at the UC Berkeley museum in
1911 which featured Ishi, a Yahi man from California who had been living in the wilderness. Ishi, whose
real identity was never made public, became known as the "Last Wild Indian," a term that contributed to
his international popularity. Ishi collaborated closely with Kroeber for the next five years, living in the
Berkeley Museum. During this time, Ishi offered detailed information about his tribe's storytelling,
musical traditions, tools, and cultural customs. This raised serious concerns about the ethical
implications of demonstrating and studying Native Americans within the setting of museum shows,
putting light on the power dynamics at work. Baldy intends to discredit Kroeber's research by
highlighting how his values went opposite to the Native American tribes he studied. Rather than
understanding more about the tribe, he ignored researching women and affected what he discovered.
Baldy highlights that Native woman abandoned ethnography as an act of security in the aftermath of the
Native American genocide, which serves to support this. As a means of demonstrating one Native
culture's superiority over another, Kroeber classified women's menstrual and coming-of-age rituals as “a
mark of inferior cultural development.” (Baldy 83). The inability of Native women and their communities
to engage with anthropologists lead to a withdrawal from the discussion about women's responsibilities;
others suppressed information to protect them. Baldy harshly criticized Native American anthropological
research, emphasizing its insufficient representation of women. She follows her critique by examining
the ways in which Western ideas of gender roles and patriarchy are preserved by this research.
Anthropologists who exclude women from their published studies led to the Western culture of Native
gender roles and customs, pushing them into a preexisting framework. Baldy goes on to say that this
exclusion also impacted cultural practices, which led to the colonization and rewriting of traditions that
were not essentially patriarchal. Her critique spans beyond the lack of regard for women and embraces
the narrow-minded view of customs and culture. On the other hand, early researcher Victor Golla
studied the flower dance of the Hupa people, dismissing the idea that it originated from a ceremony and
putting its origins in an outside source (Baldy, 90). Golla unwittingly lends credibility to the idea that
Native Americans' believed migrations based on disparities in ceremonial practices have robbed them of
their land and sovereignty. Baldy quickly corrects this, claiming that rituals may change while keeping
their essential components. She adds that historical misinterpretations have lasting effects, as seen in
current tribe efforts to repatriate their ancestors from institutions, and that spreading the idea that
Native people were not true Natives robbed them of their sovereignty. Tribes routinely run into
problems while attempting to repatriate relatives from different institutions throughout the United
States because of loopholes in the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)
that these institutions take advantage of. NAGPRA was founded in the 1990s, but it hasn't finished
restoring remains to tribes. Organizations have been using this excuse to block efforts to return remains
to their ancestral homes, claiming there isn't enough proof to connect them to any living individuals
(ProPublica). This loophole has rendered this modern legislation useless for promoting the return of
remains.
