At that meeting, Killion confirmed that Ishi's brain was stored in a Smithsonian facility. With the search over, the repatriation process began. Killion and his colleagues worked with the Butte County committee to identify, as required by law, the closest living relatives to whom the Smithsonian could return Ishi's brain. These groups contain descendants of a larger Yana culture to which Ishi's Yahi belonged, as well as the Maidu. The two tribes still await final legal approval from the state of California to retrieve Ishi's cremated remains from the cemetery.
Tribal deliberations continue on where to hold the burial and how to conduct it.
After resolving those matters, representatives of the tribes will retrieve the brain from the Smithsonian. Although Native American groups were heartened by the Smithsonian's quick action on their repatriation request, they're upset that it took so long to locate Ishi's brain, Gemmill notes. For her part, Rockafellar wonders why Archambault at first denied the brain's existence and why Smithsonian officials who knew the location of the brain did not seek out the Butte County committee once its well-publicized search began. Killion and anthropologist Stuart Speaker, who works in the Smithsonian's Repatriation Office, say that repatriation workers knew the whereabouts of Ishi's brain all along, even if anthropologists in other Smithsonian departments didn't. After decades during which Ishi's brain attracted virtually no attention and underwent a couple of location changes, its official documentation had become muddled.