A man has been poisoned by the surfurous water and is mourned by howling coyotes. The palate is somber, the shadows are deep and dramatic, and dark clouds advance. Fire burns, cooks, heals, carries spirits to the next world. In the glowing painting Ishi at Iamin Mool, Day's recollection of a meeting with the famous Yahi Indian when he was a child with his father, everything is connected. This was apparently a few days before Ishi, his hair shorn in mourning, came out of hiding in Oroville and fell into the white man's curious world.
Day paints a healing circle of sun, water, touch, tree and sky.
No one knows if Day really saw Ishi, but it is possible, and he says he did. This is the kind of memory he could bind with imagination and interpret with the wisdom of a man of mature years who reflected deeply on the nature of things. A fisherman has caught an enormous sturgeon and is dancing in its skin. It would have represented a tremendous force of will to have caught one. Another painting that's very moving is The Burning, in part because of the great detail in the painting, the sense of the person being honored, clearly identified by the dance regalia.