a tweek to my paper

I was originally going to write my paper on some form of Native American traditional story. And thought my new idea is not far from that, it is not as broad but at the same time broad enough. Ishi the last "wild" Indian came out of the woods in Northern California about 100 years ago into a world of literacy. HE had to leave the comfort of his home in the hills outside of Oraville, CA to survive. His oral culture was dying with every step he took closer to the town of white settlers, many of whom had killed his family members in years past. This man survived snow storms, floods, heatwaves, animal encounters, and massacres but he could no longer survive in his oral culture. He was the last of his tribe the Yahi. He embarked on a magical and magnificent journey that seemed to have taken him in a time machine from ancient traditional ways of life-by living off, worshiping, and caring for the land his people were created from-to a modern time filled with trains, automobiles, millions of people, and the alphabet.

Much of the oral culture is unknown to us in the literate world. We think we know, but truly we don't. Ishi was one of the last to know what it was like to live in a simpler world of words. Our complex system of spelling, punctuation, grammar, gestures, definitions, and names was completely foreign to this man of little words. His culture was not less intelligent that the one he walked into, it was simply oral, and focused on the traditions of memory and experience. He knew how to hunt, and fish, how to survive in the elements, he knew what plants to eat, and what plants to use for medicinal purposes, he knew how to live outside in harmony with the natural world. Ishi had a connection to spirituality that no one in the literate world will ever be able to feel, he was in sync with his soul.