Ishi's brain was preserved and the body cremated. Kroeber put Ishi's preserved brain in a Pueblo Indian pottery jar wrapped in deer skin. He sent it to the Smithsonian Institution in 1917. August 10, 2000, the Smithsonian returned it to the descendants of the Redding Rancheria and Pit River tribes. This followed the National Museum of the American Indian Act of 1989. According to Robert Fri, director of the National Museum of Natural History, "Ishi was not the last of his kind ... We learned that as a Yahi–Yana Indian his closest living descendants are the Yana people of northern California." His remains were also returned from Colma, and the tribal members intended to bury them in a secret place.