part i

, in Papers of the Archæological Institute of America, American series, iii, Cambridge, 1890, p. 76. As already noted, it is probable that the Guayma lost their “antigua idioma” (Ramirez, op. cit. p. 149) long before M Pinart’s visit; and pending definite statement of the facts on which his conclusion rests it is necessary to retain the classification based on specific and repeated, albeit unskilled, observations of the identity of the Guayma speech with that of the Seri.

While M Pinart failed to publish, his linguistic collections were compared, systemized, and made public by Dr Albert S. Gatschet in a notable memoir on “Der Yuma-Sprachstamm”, 1883. Comparing the Seri, as represented by the Pinart and Bartlett and Pimentel vocabularies, with the Yavapai, M’Mat, and incidentally with the Konino, Tonto, Cochimi, and other tongues, Dr Gatschet was led to adopt the suggestion of Professor Wilhelm Herzog[210] that the Seri is a dialect of the Yuman stock. In the comparative vocabulary, which comprises about a hundred and forty Seri words (selected from the 611 terms in the Pinart collection), there are perhaps a dozen terms presenting some similarity to those of one or more Yuman dialects; among these are terms for ax, tree, split, tobacco, heaven, pigeon, dog, and others of presumptively or certainly alien character.[211]

[210] In correspondence with Dr Gatschet, op. cit., p. 133.

[211] Dr. Gatschet has recently revised the data and recognized the distinctness of the Seri tongue (Science, new series, vol. XII, 1900, p. 556-558).

Herzog’s suggested classification, with Gatschet’s indorsement, was accepted even more promptly and widely than the earlier classifications of Pimentel and Orozco. It was tacitly adopted by Director J. W. Powell in his classic arrangement of Indian linguistic families of America north of Mexico;[212] it was explicitly approved by Adolph F. Bandelier in his “Final Report of Investigations”;[213] and it was implicitly accepted and fortified by Dr Daniel G. Brinton in his work on “The American Race”.[214] Brinton’s Seri words were “chiefly from the satisfactory vocabulary obtained by the late John Russell Bartlett”; of the 21 terms, about 8 (including that for the alien concept “house”) suggest affinity with the Yuman, chiefly in the Mohave dialect; the others are either wholly distinct or only superficially similar, e. g., in the concurrence of a consonant or two, or merely in the correspondence in number of syllables.[215]

[212] Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1885-’86; Washington, 1891, p. 137.

[213] Op. cit., p. 74.

[214] The American Race: A Linguistic Classification and Ethnographic Description of the Native Tribes of North and South America; New York, 1891, p. 335.

[215] Mr. Hewitt’s discussion (postea, pp. 299-344) gives fuller details of this short vocabulary.

* * * * *

Stated briefly, the scientific researches relating to Seriland and the Seri during the fifty years from the fourth decade of the century to the middle of the last decade resulted in (1) a satisfactory survey of the coast, (2) the collection of two excellent Seri vocabularies, with a few others of less extent, and (3) two discrepant linguistic classifications of the tribe, both widely quoted and accepted.

During the half century of historical silence from 1844 forward, and pending the progress of the desultory researches, the Seri suffered a succession of external shocks more serious in their internal effects than any of those of the three centuries preceding; indeed it is just to say that during this half century the Seri range was curtailed, the Seri customs were modified, and the Seri population was diminished more effectively than during the preceding sesquicentury of fairly definite record. The chief factor in this transformation was an intrepid pioneer, who pushed actual settlement toward the Seri frontier more vigorously than any predecessor—Señor Pascual Encinas, a son of Sonora.[216]

[216] The following paragraphs are condensed from oral recitals by Señor Encinas (a notably straightforward and judicious authority), supplemented and corroborated in all essential details by Señores Andres Noriega, Ygnacio Lozania, and several other habitués of the Seri borderland, as well as by Kolusio and Mashém, several Papago informants, and various collateral documents.

Born near Hermosillo in 1819, Don Pascual was in early maturity at the time of Colonel Andrade’s expedition, and was fully conversant with the later history of the Seri. Of adventurous disposition, and holding interests in Bacuachito, he was familiar with the Seri frontier; and in hunting deer and other large game over the vast delta plain of Rio Sonora he had perceived the agricultural possibilities of the region. During the struggle of 1844 he became impressed with the idea that the Seri might be controlled and gradually inducted into useful citizenship through a judicious combination of industrial, educational, and evangelical agencies; and before the end of the year he began the establishment of a rancho (the present Rancho San Francisco de Costa Rica) on the Seri borderland, with the double object of developing new resources and regulating the relations between tribesmen and settlers. Enlisting the aid of a corps of vaqueros, mechanics, and farmers, he excavated a deep well, erected corrals and adobe houses, cleared away the exceptionally luxuriant mesquite forests, fenced fields, and stocked the plains with horses, burros, and cattle. At the same time he sought Seri wanderers and treated them with such kindness and firmness as to gain their confidence; and while most of the tribe held aloof, some attached themselves to the rancho, and a few even were taught to labor; albeit in desultory fashion. In this stage, as for some years afterward, he was materially aided by his contemporary, Kolusio, then in his physical prime and still in good repute among his kinsmen. Meantime he obtained the assignment of two priests, who made it their chief duty still further to placate the tribesmen and their families and to induct them into religious observances and belief; and as the confidence of the Indians increased, he had two boys domiciled in the rancho and educated in the Spanish as well as in the faith, in the hope that they might pass into priesthood and so form a future bond with their kin. One of these neophytes disappeared in the troublous times of a later decade, though tradition indicates that he became a tribal outcast (like Kolusio still later) and slunk away to Pitiquito and Altar, and afterward to California; the other, christened Juan Estorga and nicknamed El Gran Pelado (“The Great Shorn”), survives as subchief Mashém, long since relapsed into his native savagery, save that he remembers the Spanish, affects a hat, cuts his hair to the neck (whence his nickname), and prefers footgear to the fashion of his fellows.

Industrially, Don Pascual’s venture proved successful; the fertile soil, periodically watered from below by the underflow of the semiannual freshets, yielded incredible crops; reveling in the exceptional floral wealth of the delta and tided over bad seasons by the artificial forage, the stock increased and multiplied beyond precedent; and so the rancho became a flourishing establishment, housing a score or more of families and harboring a hundred or two dependents, in addition to the thousands of half-wild horses and cattle. Meantime, the industrial lines ramifying from the rancho formed a drag net for Seri raiders, practically cutting off forays eastward toward Hermosillo and Horcasitas, and greatly reducing the sallies southeastward toward Guaymas and northeastward toward Bacuachito and Caborca; and Don Pascual began to receive recognition and state and federal concessions as a public benefactor. For a decade the industrial and evangelical influence and the effect of the bold kindness of El Patron extended and became felt throughout the tribe, and most of the families visited the rancho at least occasionally. Yet even the best of them remained averse to labor save in sporadic spurts, and indifferent to the religious teaching, save when sweetened by substantial largess; while all but the decrepit and the two carefully restrained neophytes came and went capriciously, and were much given to decamping incontinently by night to return shamefacedly one by one in the course of a week or two, without consistent or adequate excuse for their stampede—indeed the vaqueros habitually classed these nocturnal flights of the Seri and the reasonless stampedes of their stock in the same category. Ostensibly a few of the larger boys and girls and a still smaller number of the adults were helpers about the rancho; actually they were scavengers, consuming the waste of the shambles and the earth-mixed scatterings from the thrashing floors, and saving the rancheros the noisome duty of removing the carcasses of animals dead by disease or accident; and as their indolence increased under the easy régime, they grew into more and more open thievery. By no means deficient in shrewdness and cunning, they adopted numberless devices for imposing on the credulity of the majordomo and other officials of the rancho. When coin-like tokens of stamped copper were used in the transactions of the rancho as equivalents of labor, the Seri ingeniously obtained sheet copper by stealth or barter, systematically counterfeited the tokens, and exchanged them for supplies at the rancho store; it was a favorite trick to surreptitiously break the neck or a leg of a horse, cow, or burro, and report finding the dead or crippled animal, at the same time begging for the carcass; and, whenever opportunity offered, they slyly slaughtered a head of stock, consumed it to the hoofs and horns and larger bones, sucked up the blood stains, and buried the few remains in cactus thickets, impenetrable save by their own hardy limbs and bodies. Nor did any of the tribe except the two restrained neophytes ever really enter the collective life of the patriarchal group headed by Don Pascual; they attended no industrial or social or churchly function save in response to reminder and solicitation; they craved the white man’s medicines in slight disorders, but rejected them in extremis; and the dying or dead were spirited away to be inhumed and mourned, according to their wont, in their harsh but beloved motherland.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. VII

HOUSE FRAMEWORK, TIBURON ISLAND]

[Illustration: HOUSE COVERING, TIBURON ISLAND]

During this period of mutual toleration the Seri were so deeply influenced by the white contact that, for probably the only time in their history, they voluntarily allowed an alien free entry into their territory; and Don Pascual explored the coast of Bahia Kino, projected a port, and even visited Isla Tiburon twice or thrice. In one of these visits he was ferried over Boca Infierno on a balsa, but, finding himself unable to keep pace with the swift-footed Seri on their hilly pathways, he returned for his saddle mule; halfway across, the poor animal swimming behind the balsa suddenly plunged and struggled, and, on landing, hobbled out on three legs—the fourth having being snapped by a shark. Warned by this incident, Don Pascual abandoned a half-formed plan of stocking the island, and afterward brought up a small vessel from Guaymas in which he carried across a dozen caballeros (including Don Ygnacio Lozania, who had visited the island with the Andrade expedition); and this party examined the southeastern quarter of the island, watering two or three times at Tinaja Anita, and pushing as far westward as Arroyo Carrizal. On this trip he studied the Seri house-building, and was the first to note the large use of turtle-shells and sponges in the process.[217]

[217] Typical Seri jacales, as described by Don Pascual in 1894, were observed on Tiburon by the 1895 expedition, as shown by the photographs reproduced in plates VII, VIII, and IX.

About the middle fifties it became apparent that the Seri were dividing into a parasitical portion clustered about the rancho (as their forbears gathered about Populo and Pueblo Seri long before), and a more independent faction clinging to their rugged ranges and gale-swept fishing grounds; and it became evident, too, that the thievery of the dependent faction would soon ruin the rancho if not checked, or at least greatly diminished. Accordingly the passive policy was modified by introducing a more active police service. At first the penalties for theft and misdemeanors were light, and the system promised well—especially as even a slight punishment was equivalent to banishment, the criminal fleeing to Tiburon on his escape or immediately after the crime; yet the experience of a year or two proved that the escaped parasites seldom resumed the hard customs of their tribal life, but generally returned to the borderland and there preyed on the wandering stock from the rancho. Finally, driven to extremity, and supported by the state and federal authorities (themselves confessedly unable successfully to cope with the condition), Don Pascual reluctantly adopted a severer régime. Sending out as messengers several Seri still remaining at the rancho, he convened the leading chiefs and clanmothers of the tribe in a council, and announced that the stock-killing must cease, on pain of a Seri head for each head of stock thereafter slain. The Indians seemingly acquiesced, and separated; but within two days a group of Seri women “milled” a band of horses, caught and threw one in such wise as to break its neck, and immediately sucked its blood, gorged its intestines, and buried its quarters to “ripen”, after their former fashion. Thereupon a matron remaining near the rancho was sent to demand the delivery of the perpetrators; and, when she failed to return, the vaqueros were instructed to shoot the first Seri seen on the llano. Within two days more, the tribe were on the warpath for revenge—and the war raged for a decade.

During the early months of the Encinas war Don Pascual’s vaqueros sought merely to enforce the barbaric law of a head for a head; but, as they found themselves beset by ambush, assailed and wounded by night, despoiled of favorite animals, and kept constantly in that most nerve-trying state of eternal vigilance, their rancor rose to an intensity nearly equal to the savage passion for blood-vengeance; and thenceforth the Seri were hunted from the plain east of Desierto Encinas precisely as were the stealthy jaguar and sneaking coyote—and the ghastly details were better spared. There were few open battles; commonly the vaqueros rode in groups and guarded against ambuscades, and the Seri were picked off one by one; but once in the early sixties Don Pascual, at the head of some 30 vaqueros, fell into an ambush on the frontier, and several of his horses were killed and some of his men wounded, while 60 or 70 Seri warriors were left on the field. Don Pascual’s horse received a slight arrow wound, to which little attention was paid; next morning the gash was swollen and inflamed and the beast too stiff and logy for use; in the afternoon the glands under the jaw were swollen, and there was a purulent discharge from eyes and nostrils. On the second morning the animal was hardly able to move, its head was enormously swollen, there were fetid ulcers about the jaws and throat, and the swelling extended to the legs and abdomen. On the third morning there were suppurating ulcers on various parts of the body, while rags of putrefied flesh and stringy pus hung from the head and neck, and the animal was unapproachable because of the stench; during the day it dropped dead, and even the coyotes and buzzards shrank from the pestilential carcass. This and parallel incidents impressed Don Pascual with the dangers incident to Seri war; but fortunately the fact that he—the leader of the party, the first to fall into the ambush, and the target of most of the arrows—had escaped unscathed impressed still more deeply the surviving savages, and they soon sued for peace. Thenceforth he was revered as a shaman greater than those of the tribe, feared as an invulnerable fighter, and honored as a just lawgiver; and gradually the condition of mutual tolerance was restored, to rest on a firmer basis than before.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. VIII

SPONGE USED FOR HOUSE COVERING, TIBURON ISLAND]

Don Pascual estimates that during the dozen years of strife between his men and the Seri forces about half of the tribe were slain. The horror of the history of this period may be passed over; it may merely be noted as a casual fact that one of the two Mexicans accompanying the 1895 expedition was credited with 17 Seri heads. When he pointed out the site of his last exploit, a mile or two south of Rancho Libertad, and some incredulity was expressed, he immediately galloped to the spot and brought back a silent witness in the form of a bleached Seri skull.[218]

[218] The specimen described by Dr Hrdlička, postea, p. 141.

At the close of the war Don Pascual continued the industrial development of the plains lying east of the desert border of Seriland, received new concessions in recognition of his conquest, and developed the ranches of Santa Ana and Libertad; but the evangelical arm of his vigorous mission gradually withered. For a dozen years the Seri looked up to “El Patron” as a quasi ruler, whose approval was requisite for the ratification of chieftainship, and through him ran a slender thread of nominal fealty to the state and the republic; yet few parasites gathered about the rancho. Mashém had gone back to his clan; and when depredations were committed at Bacuachito or elsewhere and the criminals were caught, usually through Don Pascual’s instrumentality, they were sometimes haled to Hermosillo for trial, and Kolusio was kept there as the official interpreter of charges and evidence and findings. Sometime during the sixties a few Seri youths were coaxed to Pueblo Seri for education, but when they were instructed to cut their hair they slunk dejectedly to their temporary domicile, only to decamp during the ensuing night; again, in 1870, Kolusio was commissioned to bring in a few young people and a matron or two of the tribe, and succeeded in doing so just in time to encounter an epidemic of measles, from which some died, while the others shook the dust of the pueblo from their feet forever; and this last straw, added to his alien residence and his presence at the dreaded trials, broke down the tribal toleration of Kolusio and made him an outlaw forever.

In the later seventies Don Pascual’s energies began to wane, while the Seri population was waxing again; and, although the Encinas frontier was protected, raids began to recur toward Bacuachito, on the ranchos southwest of Caborca, and sometimes toward Guaymas; and the hostilities then engendered have never terminated. In the eighties Don Pascual suffered from cataract, gradually losing his sight, and his rule relaxed still further; Rancho Libertad was abandoned, and a condition of armed neutrality supervened at San Francisco de Costa Rica and Santa Ana; and this condition still persists, save as occasionally modified by a crude sort of diplomacy on the part of the Seri: when blood-feud is not burning (and it is usually extinguished by the killing of an alien on the coast or some remote part of the frontier), and when no stock have been slaughtered for some months, an aged woman may be seen skulking about the mesquite clumps in sight of the rancho; if her presence is tolerated for a day or two, she approaches to beg for water and food and to receive the cast-off rags hastily forced on her nakedness by the sensitive señoras; if she deem her welcome not too chill, she erects a jacal a few hundred yards away, and there she is usually found, a morning or two later, to be accompanied by a younger matron with a child or two; and if these are tolerated, the rancheria may grow to half a dozen jacales and half a hundred persons.[219] The band may remain a fortnight or even a month; but in case of serious illness of any of their number, or of threat or punishment for petty peccadillos, or of an unusual storm, or of a brilliant meteor, or of any exceptional occurrence about the rancho, the rancheria is commonly found empty next morning. If the attachés of the rancho are indisposed to tolerate the first envoy, yet feel kindly rather than rancorous, she is merely dogged and stoned away like a depredating domestic animal from another hacienda; if the rancor of past encounters remains, the mercy accorded her is precisely that shown the predatory coyote or other feral animal from the fastnesses of the sierras—and the tribe take warning and doubtless rejoice that their loss is no greater.

[219] A typical single jacal and the entire rancheria gathered at Costa Rica in 1894 are shown from photographs in plates X and XI.

* * * * *

Any recital of the common history of the peculiarly savage Seri and the whites necessarily conveys an exaggerated notion of intimacy and mutual influence, since it emphasizes the few positive interrelations scattered along the decades of neglected nonrelation; and this is true of the Encinas régime as of earlier centuries. The great fact is that throughout their recorded history the Seri have touched civilization so slightly and so seldom that the effect of each contact was largely lost before the next supervened; and the unprecedentedly intimate contact of the Encinas régime, especially during the initial period of abnormal toleration, serves less to indicate relationship in characteristics and sympathies than to measure the breadth of the chasm between the Seri and the Mexican—a chasm not exceeded, and probably not equaled, elsewhere in America. About the middle fifties, probably every Seri above infancy and below decrepitude had seen Don Pascual and some other habitués of the rancho; they yielded to the seductions of indolent scavengering apparently more numerously than ever before; they substituted cast-off rags and barter-bought manta (plain cotton cloth) for the products of their own primitive weaving; they ate cooked food when it fell in their way; they half-heartedly adopted metal cutting implements, and sought or stole nails and hoop-iron for arrowpoints; some of them acquired a smattering of Spanish, and many of them solicited and sported Spanish names, just as they begged and flaunted tawdry handkerchiefs and beads; and they generally enjoyed mildly the ecclesiastical fiestas, and took kindly to the cross as a symbol of peace and plenty and perhaps of deeper import. Yet even during this halcyon term no Seri save Kolusio and the Altar outlaw ever learned to live in a house; none but these and Mashém wore hats habitually; and, despite the fact that they often witnessed and sometimes playfully or perforce participated in the processes, no Seri ever really encompassed the idea of house-building or even of making adobe. Though surrounded by horses when near the rancho, they never learned to ride nor to use the animals otherwise than for immediate slaughter and consumption; though in frequent sight of skilful ropers, they never fully grasped the idea of the riata, preferring to seize their prey with hands and teeth; though familiar with the agricultural operations of the rancho, they never turned a sod nor planted a seed on their own account; though in frequent sight of cooking, they seldom began and never finished the process with their own food; though acquainted with firearms, they continued to regard them as thaumaturgic devices, and chose the bow and arrow for actual use; though submitting to apparel on the frontier, they commonly cast away the incumbrances on returning to their lairs; and no Mexican or other Caucasian ever saw within their esoteric life—their names remained unrevealed, their hair remained sacred, their mourning for the dead was unheard save at a distance, and no alien, even unto today, has ever seen the birth of their babes, the christening of their children, the burial of their dead, or the ceremonies of their shrines. The Seri and the whites were, indeed, mutually tolerant; but, so far as concerns mutual sympathy, the toleration was almost precisely on a par with that between the ranchero and the vulture-flock that scavengers his corrals—and when depredation began the toleration was of a piece with that between householders and their unwillingly domiciled rodents. It is not too much to say that the interracial mistrust and hatred of the Western Hemisphere culminates on the borders of Seriland; though the antipathy is commonly regarded by the alien tribesmen and the Mexicans as other than racial, since the Seri are felt to be hardly human—a feeling fully shared by the Seri, who undoubtedly deem themselves more closely akin to their deified bestial tutelaries than to the hated humans haunting their borders.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. IX

HOUSE SKELETON, TIBURON ISLAND.]

[Illustration: INTERIOR HOUSE STRUCTURE, TIBURON ISLAND.]

* * * * *

Even during the Encinas régime the Seri came in occasional contact with aliens on other parts of the frontier: on Hacienda Serna, the somewhat remoter borderland outpost on the north, the relations between the landholders and the Seri were analogous to those on the Encinas plains, though less acute in the ratio of relative distance. Occasionally small parties of warriors journeyed to Guaymas[220] on balsas or on foot to barter pelican-skin robes for Caucasian commodities, chiefly aguardiente and manta; still more rarely similar pilgrimages were made to the outskirts of Hermosillo; a few marauding raids were made to the ranches lying near Cieneguilla and Caborca; and a number of ill-advised prospecting parties, coming by land or water, paid the penalty of foolhardiness. Writing about 1864, Historian Velasco recurred to the Seri to say:

[220] The accompanying plate XII is reproduced, from a photograph of a small group of Seri traders taken near Guaymas, probably during the eighties. It was kindly furnished by F. A. Ober, who purchased it in Guaymas.

This handful of bandits, assassins, thieves, brutes [inhumanos], infinitely vile and cowardly, on February 28 last, on the Guaymas road, at the place called Huerfano, assassinated 4 unhappy women, including a girl of 9 years, and 7 men who were conducting them in a cart toward that port.

He bitterly denounced the apparent apathy of the state and federal authorities, adding:

When it is read in history fifty years hence that a handful of murderous Ceris, certainly not more than 80 of the tribe able to bear arms, was able to domineer in the midst of their crimes with unexampled audacity on account of the debility of the government and the inhabitants, it will be regarded as a romance or a fable; for it seems impossible that in the nineteenth century such a condition of things could exist to degrade the reason, the morality, and the dignity of civilized man.

Yet a final note, apparently added in press, recorded that—

In consequence of the last incident of the Ceris, the prefect of Guaymas, Don Cayetano Navarro, took the field, returning with 12 women and 16 children prisoners; also 2 striplings and a vieillard. He slew 9 among those who had no leader. This was on Isla Tiburon. The Indians fled thence, and are supposed to be at Tepococ.[221]

[221] Boletin de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografia y Estadistica, tomo XI, 1862, pp. 124-125.

These may be considered as characteristic skirmishes attending the Encinas war. Other episodes followed, including the outbreaks of 1879, noted in part by M Pinart. Bacuachito suffered in various locally important events that will never be written: when Don Jesus Omada, a water-guide to the expedition of 1895, was asked about the Seri at Bacuachito, he answered with cumulative vehemence, “They killed my father. They killed my brother! They killed my brother’s wife!! They have killed half my friends!!!” As he spoke he was feverishly baring his breast; displaying a frightful scar over the clavicle, he exclaimed, “There struck a Seri arrow”; then he stripped his arm with a single sweep to reveal a ragged cicatrix extending nearly from shoulder to wrist, and added in a tone tremulous with pent bitterness, “The Seri have teeth!”

In the course of the half century from 1844 onward, the population of Sonora increased materially, and carried more than a proportionate increase in the development of agricultural and mineral resources; and, especially under the beneficent Diaz régime, the state passed from the condition of a remote frontier province into that of a well-governed commonwealth. Naturally this progress carried the Caucasian element, including that of blended blood, farther and farther away from the nonprogressive Seri; and thereby the horror and detestation awakened by the very utterance of the name of the lowly tribe were intensified beyond description or ready understanding. The traditions of arrow poisoning were kept alive, and, doubtless, growing; the recitals of carrion eating were repeated, and possibly—just possibly—magnified beyond the reality; the accounts of offense and defense by nails and teeth (such as that of Jesus Omada) passed from mouth to mouth until—incredible as it may seem—the more timid Sonorenses stood in greater dread of these natural weapons of the Seri than of their brutal clubs and swift-thrown missiles, or even of their poisoned arrows; while traditions of cannibalism came up and received such general credence that the current items of Seri outrages, both in local gossip and in the Mexican and American press, customarily recounted savage butcheries ending with gruesome feastings on the raw or slightly cooked flesh of the victims. The shuddering antipathy felt for the perpetrators of these inhumanities even a thousand miles away increased toward their frontier, as light toward its source; the dread was deepened by the failure of punitive expeditions sent out again and again only to be balked by waterless sand-wastes or wrecking tiderips; and in 1894 and 1895, at least, the horror of the Seri was a daily and nightly incubus on half the citizens of Hermosillo and the tributary pueblos and ranchos, and a thorn in the flesh of the state officials.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. X

TYPICAL SERI HOUSE ON THE FRONTIER]

* * * * *

The external history of the Seri since the spring of 1894 is fairly known, both through the direct researches and through press reports, and would seem to be typical. This era may be assumed to open with the arrival on Tiburon’s shores of the sloop _Examiner_, carrying two San Francisco newspaper writers, Robinson and Logan, with two assistants, Clark and Cowell. The to-have-been-expected happened duly, save that two of the party escaped, and on reaching Guaymas advertised the disaster through correspondence and the press. Several of the accounts indicated that the two victims were not only slain but eaten, and various plans were laid in California, Arizona, and Sonora for the recovery of the bones[222]—as if, forsooth, the omnivorous and strong-toothed Seri spared anything save scattered teeth and split sections of the longer shafts of skeletons the size of those of _Homo sapiens_. While in Guaymas the two survivors set up claims for indemnity, which initiated international correspondence and inquiry into the details of the affair. These details are indicated, in sufficient fulness for present purposes, in a formal communication incorporated in the international correspondence, viz.:

[222] A number of Californians and Arizonians, especially M. M. Rice, of Phoenix, intimated a strong desire to join the 1895 expedition of the Bureau of American Ethnology for the express purpose of personally ascertaining the fate and seeking the remains of Robinson, who was extensively known in southern California and southwestern Arizona.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY, _Washington, December 14, 1894._

SIR: Early in November I visited the Seri tribe of Indians, inhabiting Tiburon island in the Gulf of California and an area of several thousand square miles of the adjacent mainland in Sonora, Mexico. The visit was for the purpose of making collections under your authority as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; but I availed myself of the opportunity for obtaining additional information relating to the customs, habits, and history of the tribe. In addition to my own party I was accompanied by Señor Pascual Encinas, a prominent citizen of Hermosillo, and owner of several ranchos adjacent to, and one within, the territory claimed by the Seri Indians; also by Señor A. Alvemar-Leon of Hermosillo, a young Mexican gentleman educated in the United States. For Señor Encinas the Seri Indians have the highest regard, and his kindly motive in accompanying the party was to facilitate friendly intercourse with the Indians; Señor Alvemar-Leon acted as Spanish-English interpreter, and one of the tribe who speaks Spanish [Mashém] acted as the Seri interpreter.

One of the subjects of inquiry of the Indians related to the alleged killing of two Americans by the Seri Indians on Tiburon island during last spring at a date not definitely known either to the Indians or to myself. At first the Indians were indisposed to convey information on the subject, but after receiving presents from Señor Encinas and myself, and friendly assurances from the former, the interpreter for the tribe confessed the crime and detailed the circumstances, denying, however, that any of the Indians present at the place of conference (Rancho de San Francisco de Costa Rica, 17 leagues west-southwest of Hermosillo and near the coast) participated.

According to the first account given through the Indian interpreter, the Indians on the island saw a small vessel approach the shores of the island, and saw four men land therefrom in a small boat. The spokesman among the strangers made inquiry, chiefly by signs, as to whether game was abundant in the interior of the island, and was by signs answered in the affirmative by the chief of the tribe, who displayed a letter of authority from the state officials at Hermosillo. Then the strangers divided, two remaining on the shore by the small boat, while the spokesman and another, accompanied by several Indians, started toward the interior of the island. When they were some distance away—the account continues—some of the Indians remaining on shore indicated by signs a desire to borrow the rifle of one of the two men on the beach, and after some parley the rifle was turned over to them; then the Indians desired also to borrow the small boat in which the party of white men had landed, and after one of the two men remaining on the shore was put aboard the vessel, this, too, was placed in the hands of the Indians. Thereupon several of the Indians entered the small boat, carrying the white man’s rifle, and rowed around a headland a short distance away. Passing this point they landed and a part of them ran quickly into the interior in such direction as to intercept the course of the white men. There they lay in wait until the strangers appeared, when they shot the spokesman, killing him almost instantly. On this the second white man cried out for help, whereupon he too was shot and wounded, and then (according to the first account) ran away and concealed himself in the bushes and was seen no more. The Indians who had borrowed the boat then went back to the shore, and reentered the boat with the intention of returning and capturing the fine vessel of the strangers; but as they approached the vessel, being at the time quite near the shore, the man on board arose suddenly with a gun pointed toward them and shouted, whereupon they dropped the borrowed gun and, leaping from the boat, ran away among the mesquite bushes, all escaping unhurt. The white man on the beach then, as the account ran, leaped into the boat, and, recovering his gun, rowed to the vessel and got aboard, when the two men at once made sail and escaped down the bay.

The foregoing account was given to Señor Encinas alone by the Indians through their interpreter, and was afterward conveyed to me through Señor Alvemar-Leon. Both of us recognized the incongruity with the character of the Seri Indians of that part of the narrative relating to the wounding and escape of the second man, and Señores Encinas and Leon and myself sought to impress the improbability of the account on the interpreter. Subsequently the Indians, through their interpreter, conveyed to Señor Encinas a modification of the account (after adhering to the first version for twenty-four hours), which agreed in all essential respects with the first, excepting the supplementary statement that some of the Indians (but neither the party who accompanied the white men nor those who followed in the boat) ran after the wounded man, caught him, shot him again—whereupon he again cried out—and then killed him with stones. This modified account, also, Señor Encinas duly conveyed to me.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XI

OCCUPIED RANCHERIA ON THE FRONTIER]

Still later, in collecting linguistic material through the Seri interpreter with the assistance of Señor Alvemar-Leon, I recurred to the subject incidentally (or at least ostensibly so) on two or three occasions, partly with the view of verifying or disproving the current report that the men were eaten by the Indians; and since the first distrust on the part of the interpreter and the companions (by whom he was commonly surrounded) had worn off, the questions were answered freely and with apparent truth. In brief, the information gained in this way was a repetition in general terms of the statement of the killing of both men; but the responses indicated (1) that the Indians are not cannibals, (2) that they do not eat any portion or portions of the body of an enemy slain in war, (3) that they do not eat human flesh in a sacrificial way, and (4), specifically, that they did not eat the flesh of the two white men killed last spring. I am disposed to give credence to all of these statements.

Señor Encinas informed me that for a long time after the reputed killing of the two Americans on the island the Seri were exceptionally shy and were seldom seen on the mainland; that the first representatives of the tribe to appear were one or two old women who came to his rancho with much trepidation; that these representatives being not ill-treated, a man appeared, who was also well treated, and that still later other members of the tribe appeared, though it was only a few days before our visit that any considerable body of the Seri Indians showed themselves at their favorite mainland haunt on his rancho. It was his first communication with the Indians since the killing, and, both he and they agreed, the first confession of the crime outside of their own tribe.

While in Sonora various conflicting accounts of the affair were given me. One, to which I was disposed to attach credence by reason of the character of my informant and his explanation of the circumstances under which the information was gained, was given me (just before the visit referred to above) by ex-Consul Forbes, of Guaymas. This account corresponds in all essential details with that conveyed to my party by the Indians, except that, according to Mr Forbes’ account, the survivors were altogether unarmed after the borrowing of the rifle by the Indians, and that when the man in the boat arose suddenly and shouted he pointed at the Indians not a gun but a stick, in the hope of deceiving them thereby, as he was fortunate enough to do.

It may be added that the Seri Indians are at the same time the most primitive and the most bloodthirsty and treacherous of the Indians of North America, so far as my knowledge extends; also that their character is well known throughout Sonora, and indeed generally throughout Mexico, Arizona, and the southern part of California. I was assured by the acting governor of Sonora and by the prefect of Hermosillo that it would be little short of suicide for even a Mexican official to visit these Indians or land on their island without an armed guard. Through conference with the Indians, also, I learned that any white man, Mexican, or Indian of another tribe coming in contact with them is killed without the slightest compunction, unless they are restrained by fear. Accordingly I am satisfied that the character of the Seri Indians is quite as bad as the unsavory reputation they have acquired throughout the Southwest.

It should be observed that while the Indians were unable to give the names of the men killed, their description of men and vessel agreed exactly with those of the newspaper correspondent Robinson and his companion, and with the sloop Examiner; and Mr Forbes’ information was obtained direct from the survivors of the expedition of which Mr Robinson had charge. There can thus be no doubt that it was Mr Robinson and his companion who were killed by these Indians, and whose killing was confessed by them, as set forth above.

With great respect, your obedient servant,

W J MCGEE, _Ethnologist in charge._

Honorable S. P. LANGLEY, _Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution._

On first learning of the incident, months before the diplomatic correspondence began, the state and federal authorities promptly adopted vigorous punitive measures. A vessel carrying a force of federal troops was dispatched from Guaymas and a body of state troops were sent from Hermosillo with instructions to meet on the coast and capture the criminals at any cost, even to the extermination of the tribe if resistance was offered. But like so many others, the expedition failed; the horses of the land party were stalled in the sands and burrow-riddled plains, the vessel was harassed by storms and tidal currents, and the landing boats were swamped by the surf, while the Indians merely fled at sight of the invaders toward inaccessible lairs or remote parts of their territory; and when the water was gone and men and animals were at point of famishing, the forces retired without so much as seeing a single Seri.

During the ensuing autumn the tribe, having quenched their blood-feud in alien blood, turned toward peace, and sent a matron of the Turtle clan, known as Juana Maria, to Costa Rica—i. e., Rancho de San Francisco de Costa Rica—where she was gradually followed by younger matrons and children, then by youths, and finally by warriors (after the fashion of Seri diplomacy) to the aggregate number of about sixty. Here they were found by the first expedition of the Bureau of American Ethnology, in November, 1894; and here, under the still strong influence of the venerable Don Pascual, supplemented by small gifts and persistent pressure, they gradually “gave their language”, submitted to extensive photographing, confessed specifically to the Robinson killing, and yielded up nearly the whole of their portable possessions in the way of domestic implements and utensils, face-painting material, pelican-skin robes, snake-skin necklaces, etc.

With the return of the Bureau party to Hermosillo the Indians became restive and soon withdrew beyond the desert. In the course of the ensuing winter a group returned to the neighborhood of Costa Rica, where, by aid of strategy, seven warriors (including some of those seen at the rancho in the preceding November) with the families of four, were arrested, taken to Hermosillo, tried, and, according to oral accounts, banished. Irritated by this action, and connecting with it the visit of Don Pascual and the strangers desiring their language and sacred things, the clans resumed the warpath, displaying special animosity toward the residents of Costa Rica. There were a few minor skirmishes; then, at the instance of the state officials, a number of Papago Indians, who are feared by the Seri beyond all other enemies, were domiciled at the rancho, where their mere presence proved a sufficient protection. Meantime, according to apparently trustworthy press accounts, two small exploring parties entered Seriland; the first consisted of seven prospectors, who kept well together until about to leave the territory, when one of their number fell behind—and his companions saw him no more, though they carefully retraced their trail beyond the point at which he had stopped; the other was a German naturalist-prospector with two mozos (servant-companions), purporting to hail from Chihuahua, who started across the delta-plain of Rio Bacuache and Desierto Encinas with saddle animals, and never reappeared.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XII

GROUP OF SERI INDIANS ON TRADING EXCURSION]

Then came the second expedition of the Bureau of American Ethnology, to which several Papago domiciled at Costa Rica were attached as guards. While the party were at the rancho the day before the first entrada into Seriland via Barranca Salina, a party of vaqueros from Rancho Santa Ana tended a herd of stock to the barranca for water; one of the animals strayed behind a dune, and the vaqueros, following its trail, came on a small band of Seri already devouring the entrails, and attacked them so vigorously that they escaped only by outrunning the horses, leaving behind all their unattached possessions, including a bow and quiver of arrows and an ancient and nonusable army rifle. This incident, albeit typical, was untimely, and doubtless aided in rendering the Indians too wild to permit communication with the aliens during the ensuing weeks spent in their territory.

After the withdrawal of this expedition the Seri resumed their range over the borderland plain, with the evident intention of avenging the insult of the invasion. There were a number of skirmishes, in which some of the Papago guards of the 1895 expedition were wounded and had horses killed under them, though they did customary execution on the worse-armed Seri; and extensively published press items indicate that, toward the end of January, 1896, a party of five gold prospectors landed on Tiburon, whence one escaped.

A well-attested episode ensued toward the end of 1896: Captain George Porter and Sailor John Johnson spent the later part of the summer in cruising the coasts of the Gulf, collecting shells, feathers, and other curios in the small sloop _World_. About the end of October they apparently anchored in Rada Ballena; and a day or two later Captain Martin Mendez, of Guaymas, in charge of the schooner _Otila_, being driven up the gulf and into Bahia Kunkaak by storms, came on a horde of Seri looting Porter’s vessel. The episode received publicity on Mendez’s return to Guaymas; United States Consular Agent Crocker instituted inquiries, and Governor Corral sent a force to Costa Rica, where, after some delay, a parley was held with a strong band of Seri under the chiefship of “a seven-foot warrior named El Mudo (The Mute), ... so called for his reticence of speech.”[223] The testimony obtained at the parley and from Captain Mendez indicates that Porter and Johnson landed, or at least approached the shore, probably in a small boat; that they were met by a shower of arrows, under which Johnson immediately fell, while Porter defended himself with a shotgun, slaying five of the Seri before he was himself transfixed; that the vessel was then looted, and that Mendez and his crew were prevented from landing and apparently driven off by the Seri force. In the course of the parley the state officials “demanded the surrender of the ringleaders in the massacre”, with the alternative of “regarding the whole tribe as guilty and punishing them accordingly”; but El Mudo, evidently holding the invasion of the island as the initial transgression and deeming the loss of the tribe under Porter’s marksmanship as more than commensurate with the Caucasian loss, peremptorily ended the conference and returned to the island. Vigorous efforts were made to pursue the tribesmen beyond their practically impassable frontier, with the usual product of ruined horses and famished riders. Then the episode died away in an armed neutrality strained somewhat beyond the normal. Meantime the Papago guards remained at Costa Rica. “They are continuously on the lookout for these Seris, and once or twice have killed a stray one or two.”[224]

[223] San Francisco Chronicle, October 16, 1898, p. 3. The details of the episode, including the correspondence of Consular Agent Crocker, were printed in the newspapers of San Diego (the place of residence of Porter and Johnson), as well as in those of San Francisco and other cities; and there was considerable correspondence concerning the matter with the State Department at Washington. Some reports recount that the bodies of Porter and Johnson were rent to fragments and devoured, but these details naturally lack confirmation. El Mudo’s portrait appears in plate XIX.

[224] The quotations are from the account of T. H. Silsbee, of San Diego, prepared on his return from a visit to Costa Rica.

Both before and after the Porter-Johnson episode schemes were devised by various parties, chiefly Californians, for obtaining concessions covering Tiburon and its resources, most of these schemes involving plans for the extermination of the Seri; and press accounts indicate that a concession covering the islands of the gulf above the latitude of 29° (i. e., including about half of Isla Tiburon) was granted to an American company of much distinction. It would appear from numerous news items that representatives of the company sought to land on Tiburon, where they were first cajoled with offerings of food, afterward found to be poisonous, and later driven off by an enlarged force of naked archers. A recent publication bearing some official sanction announces that “Mr W. J. Lyons, of Hermosillo, Sonora, has secured a concession for the exploration of the island and in November of this year will fit out an expedition for that purpose.”[225] The various movements are significant as indices of current opinion and official policy with respect to the tribe.

[225] El Estado de Sonora, Mexico. Sus Industrias, Comerciales, Mineras y Manufacturas. Obra Publicada bajo los Auspicios del Gobierno del Estado. Obra Ilustrada, Octubre de 1897. By J. R. Southworth, Nogales; p. 73.

* * * * *

On the whole, the later episodes are natural sequels of the eventful and striking earlier history of the Seri; and they can only be interpreted as pointing to early extinction of one of the most strongly marked and distinctive of aboriginal tribes.

TRIBAL FEATURES

DEFINITION AND NOMENCLATURE

According to Mashém and the clanmother known as Juana Maria, the proper name of the tribe known as Seri is _Kunkáak_ (the first vowel obscure and the succeeding consonant nasalized; perhaps _Kⁿ-káak_ or _Kᵐ-káak_ would better express the sound). According to Kolusio, as rendered by M Pinart, the Seri term for people or nation is _kom-kak_, while the Seri people are designated specifically as _Kmike_, this designation being practically equivalent phonetically (and doubtless semantically) to Sr Tenochio’s general term for women, _kamykij_. Mashém was unable or unwilling to give the precise signification of the tribal appellation used by him, merely indicating Juana Maria and one or two other elderwomen squatting near as examples or types; but comparison of the elements of the term with those used in other vocables affords a fairly clear inkling as to its meaning. The syllable _kun_ (or _kⁿ_, _kon_, _kom_, etc.) certainly connotes age and woman, and apparently connotes also life or living (_kun-kaīe_=old woman, McGee; _i-kom_=a wife, _ekam_=alive, Bartlett; _hikkam_=a wife, _kmam-kikamman_=a married woman, _Yak-kom_=Yaqui tribe, Pinart; _kon-kabre_=an old woman, Tenochio), the forms being distinct from the word for woman (_kmamm_, McGee; _ék-e-mam_, Bartlett; _kmam_, Pinart and Tenochio) and widely different from the term for man (_kŭ-tŭmm_, McGee; _ék-e-tam_, Bartlett; _ktam_, Pinart; _tam_, Tenochio) with its several combining variants; there are also indications in numerous vocables that it connotes person or personality. On the whole, the syllable appears to be an ill-formulated or uncrystallized expression, denoting at once and associatively (1) the state of living or being, (2) personality, (3) age or ancientness (or both), and (4) either femininity or maternity (much more probably the latter), this inchoate condition of the term being quite in accord with other characters of the Seri tongue, and frequently paralleled among other primitive languages. The syllable _kaak_ (or _kak_, and probably _kok_, _koj_, _kolch_, etc.) would seem to be a still more vague and colloidal term, despite the fact that it is used separately to designate the fire-drill. There are fairly decisive indications that it is composite, the initial portion denoting place and the final portion perhaps more vaguely connoting class or kind with an implication of excellence, both elements appearing in various vocables (too numerous to quote). On the whole, _kaak_ would appear to be a typical egocentric or ethnocentric term, designating and dignifying Person, Place, Time, and Mode, after the manner characteristic of primitive thought;[226] so that it may perhaps be translated “Our-Great-(or Strong-)Kind-Now-Here”. The combination of the two syllables affords a characteristically colloidal connotation of concepts, common enough in primitive use, but not expressible by any single term of modern language; in a descriptive way the complete term might be interpreted as “Our-Living-Ancient-Strongkind-Elderwomen-Now-Here,” while with the utmost elision the interpretation could hardly be reduced beyond “Our-Great-Motherfolk-Here” without fatal loss of original signification. It should be noted that the designation is made to cover the animals of Seriland (at least the zoic tutelaries of the tribe) and fire as well as the human folk.

[226] Cf. The Beginning of Mathematics, in the American Anthropologist, new series, vol. I, 1899, p. 651.

The proper tribe name is of no small interest as an index to primitive thought, and as an illustration of an early stage in linguistic development. It is significant, too, as an expression of the matronymic organization, and of the leading role played by the clanmothers in the simple legislative and judicative affairs of the tribe; and it is especially significant as an indication of the intimate association of fire and life in primitive thought.

* * * * *

The designation “Seri”, with its several variants, is undoubtedly an alien appellation, and neither Mashém nor Kolusio could throw light on its origin or meaning, though they did not apparently regard it as opprobrious. Peñafiel describes it as an Opata term; and Pimentel’s Opata vocabulary[227] (extracted from the grammar and dictionary compiled by Padre Natal Lombardo) indicates its meaning satisfactorily, albeit without special reference to the tribe. The key term in this vocabulary is “_Sërerài_, velocidad de la persona que corre.” The accent over the first vowel serves to indicate prolongation, so that term and definition may be rendered, literally, _se-ererài_, speed of the person who runs. Analysis of the term shows that the essential factor or root is that introduced elsewhere in the same vocabulary as “_Ere_, llegar.” Now, “llegar” is a protean and undifferentiated Spanish verb neuter, without satisfactory English equivalent; it may be interpreted as arrive, reach, attain, fetch, endure, continue, accomplish, suffice, ascend, or mount to, while as a verb active and verb reflective its equivalents are approach, join, proceed a little distance, unite, etc.; it may be said to imply movement or process with a centripetal connotation—i. e., a connotation antithetic to that of the expressive irregular verb “ir” in its protean forms, including the ubiquitous and ever-present “vamos” (an American slang equivalent of the Castilian verb “llegar” in certain of its phases is the strong interjectory phrase, “get together”). The prefix <i>se</i> is merely an intensive, running not merely through the Opata, but throughout various tongues of the Piman stock. In his extensive vocabulary of the Pima and Papago Indians of Arizona (1871),[228] Captain F. E. Grossmann defines the term “_se_, very, ad. (prefix)”, and over a hundred and fifty of his terms illustrate the use of this adjectival or adverbial prefix as an undifferentiated yet vigorous intensive (e. g., _uf_, female or woman, _se-uf_, a lady—great or grand woman; _ō´k_, high or height, _se-ō´k_, highmost); and in the Pimentel vocabulary this signification is attested by several other terms (e. g., “_Sererai_, paso menudo y bueno”). Finally, the intercalated consonant _r_ is a common participial element in the Piman, while the suffix _ài_ is a habitual assertive termination, as shown by various terms in the Pimentel and other vocabularies. Dropping this termination, the expression becomes _se-erer_, or—without the nonessential participial element—_se-ere_, signifying (so far as can be ascertained from the construction of the language) “moving”, or “mover”, qualified by a vigorous intensive.[229] To one familiar with the strikingly light movement characteristic of the Seri—a movement far lighter than that of the professional sprinter or of the thoroughbred “collected” by a skilful equestrian, and recalling that of the antelope skimming the plain in recurrent impulses of unseen hoof-touches, or that of the alert coyote seemingly floating eerily about the slumbering camp—this appellation appears peculiarly fit; for it is the habit of the errant Seri to roam spryly and swiftly on soundless tiptoes, to come and go like fleeting shadows of passing cloudlets, and on detection to slip behind shrub or rock and into the distance so lightly as to make no audible sign or visible trail, yet so fleetly withal as to evade the hard-riding horseman. The Seri range over a region of runners: the Opata themselves are no mean racers, since, according to Velasco and Bartlett, “In twenty-four hours they have been known to run from 40 to 50 leagues”;[230] and, according to Lumholtz, their collinguals, the Tarahumari, or “Counting-Runners”, are named from their custom of racing,[231] and display almost incredible endurance:

[227] Vocabulario Manual de la Lengua Ópata, por Francisco Pimentel; Boletin de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografia y Estadistica, tomo X, 1863, pp. 287-313.

[228] In the archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology.

[229] The latter form (_se-ere_) corresponds precisely with the current Papago pronunciation of the term, though none of the various Papago informants consulted were able to interpret the expression; indeed, they simply relegated it to the category of “old names” which they deemed it needless to discuss. An archaic form of orthography, noted in the synonymy (pp. 128-130), is SSeri, which suggests the same sounding of the initial sibilant.

[230] From 105 to 130 miles; Bartlett, Personal Narrative, vol. I, p. 445.

[231] Memoirs of the International Congress of Anthropology, Chicago, 1894, p. 104. In a letter to Mr F. W. Hodge, under date of September 11, 1900, Dr Lumholtz says: “After renewed investigation I have come to another opinion regarding the meaning of the tribal name _Tarahumari_. This word is a Spanish corruption of the native name ‘Raramuri’. Though the meaning of this word is not clear, that much is certain that _rala_ or _tara_ means ‘foot’, and I therefore take it that we must be at least approximately correct when we say that the word signifies ‘foot-runner’.”

An Indian has been known to carry a letter from Guazapares to Chihuahua and back again in five days, the distance being nearly 800 miles. In some parts where the Tarahumaris serve the Mexicans they are used to run in the wild horses, driving them into the corral. It may take them two or three days to do it, sleeping at night and living on a little pinole. They bring in the horses thoroughly exhausted, while they themselves are still fresh. They will outrun any horses if you give them time enough. They will pursue deer in the snow or with dogs in the rain for days and days, until at last the animal is cornered and shot with arrows or falls an easy prey from sheer exhaustion, its hoofs dropping off.[232]

[232] American Anthropologist, vol. VIII, 1895, p. 92.

The Papago, of the same region and linguistic stock, have a racing game in which a ball of wood or stone caught on the foot is thrown, followed, and thrown again until the two or more rival racers have covered 20 to 40 miles in the course of a few hours; and their feats as couriers and trailers are quite up to those of the Opata. Yet among all these tribes, and among the Mexicans as well, the Seri are known as _the_ runners par excellence of the Sonoran province; and it is but natural that their astounding swiftness and lightness of foot should have brought them an appellation among contemporaries to whom these qualities peculiarly appeal.

Accordingly, both derivation and connotation give meaning to the name, and warrant the rendering (much weakened by linguistic infelicities) of “spry” or “spry-moving”, used in substantive sense and with an intensive implication.

* * * * *

The chronicles of the tribe, especially those written during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, indicate that the alien designation was applied loosely and with little appreciation of the tribal organization, just as was the case elsewhere throughout the continent. Gradually the chroniclers took cognizance of intertribal and intratribal relations, and introduced various distinctions in nomenclature expressing tribal or subtribal distinctions of greater or less importance. One of the earliest distinctions was that between the Seri and the Tepoka, and this distinction has been consistently maintained by nearly all later authorities, despite the commonly accepted fact (brought out most authoritatively by Hardy) that the tongues of the tribes are substantially alike. Another early distinction was that made between the Seri and the Guayma; it was based primarily on diversity of habitat and persistent enmity, though all the earlier authorities agreed, as well shown by Ramirez, that the tongues were essentially identical. The distinction has been maintained by most authorities and strongly emphasized by one (Pinart, as quoted by Bandelier), and since the Guayma are extinct, and hence beyond reach of direct inquiry, the early interpretation of tribal relation must be perpetuated.[233] Still another distinction was that made between the Upanguayma and the Guayma, and inferentially the Seri also; although the grounds for this distinction were not specifically stated, it seems to have grown out of diversity in habitat merely; but there were clear implications that the tribe or subtribe was affiliated linguistically with the Guayma, and hence with the Seri, and this assignment has been adopted by leading authorities, including Pimentel and Orozco. Among the earlier distinctions based on industrial factors was the setting apart of the Salineros, or Seri Salineros; yet this distinction, fortuitous and variable at the best, expressed no essential character and has not been maintained. A much later distinction was that between the Seri and Tiburones, emphasized by Mühleupfordt and exaggerated by Buschmann; but there seem to have been no better grounds for it than misapprehensions naturally attending a slowly crystallizing nomenclature. In any event it has not been maintained.

[233] In view of the clear indications, both a priori and a posteriori, that the latest Guayma survivors must have taken the language of the Piman (Yaqui) tribesmen with whom they found refuge, and in view of his failure thus far to present his data for public consideration, M Pinart’s inference that the Guayma belonged linguistically to the Piman stock can hardly be admitted to hold against the specific statements of the Jesuit missionaries and such accomplished inquirers as Ramirez and Pimentel.

At several stages the chroniclers coupled the Seri with other tribes, on various grounds: in the eighteenth century they were thus combined with the Pima, the Piato, and especially the Apache tribes. In the earlier half of the nineteenth century they were frequently coupled in similar fashion with the Pima and Apache tribes, and in the later half of the nineteenth century, and even in its last lustrum, they have been similarly combined with the Yaqui. The later combinations seem to explain the earlier: the Yaqui outbreaks withdraw portions of the arm-bearing population from the Seri frontier, and the marauders take advantage of the withdrawal so regularly that a Yaqui scare is invariably followed by a Seri scare, and hence the two warlike tribes are constantly associated in the minds of the Sonorenses as synchronous insurrectionists; and scrutiny of the earlier chronicles indicates that most of the so-called combinations of former times were of similar sort.

On putting the chronicles together, it seems clear that the term “Seri” was originally of lax application, but was gradually restricted to the tribe inhabiting Tiburon and ranging adjacent territory, including the collingual but inimical Guayma and Upanguayma, and also the collingual and cotolerant Tepoka; and that the various Piman tribes, as well as the Apache, were always distinct, and commonly if not invariably inimical.

* * * * *

The ethnic relations of the Seri people attracted early and repeated attention. Humboldt gave currency, albeit not unquestioningly, to a supposed Chinese or related Oriental affiliation; Hardy noted the similarity of the Seri tongue to that of the Patagonians; Lavandera classed the language as Arabic; Stone and Bancroft circulated a supposed identification of the speech with the Welsh; Ramirez, and more especially Pimentel, narrowed the field of affiliation to Mexico and defined the tongue as distinct; Orozco y Berra, and more especially Malte-Brun, slightly reextended the field and suggested affiliation with the Caribs; while Herzog, Gatschet, and Brinton reextended the field in another direction and saw, in a vocabulary obtained from a Seri scion but alien thinker, similarities between the Serian and Yuman tongues. The recent researches tend strongly to corroborate the evidence collected and the conclusions reached by Ramirez and Pimentel; for the somewhat extended comparisons between the Serian and neighboring languages (introduced and discussed in other paragraphs) indicate that the Seri tongue is distinct save for two or three Cochimi or other Yuman elements, which may be loan words such as might readily have been obtained through the largely inimical interchange of earlier centuries described by Padre Juan Maria de Sonora and other pioneer observers—certainly the slight and superficial similarities with other tongues of the region seem insufficient to meet the classific requirement of supposititious descent from “a common ancestral speech”.[234] Accordingly the group may be defined (at least provisionally) as a linguistic family or stock, and may be distinguished by the family name long ago applied by Pimentel and Orozco, with the termination prescribed in Powell’s fifth rule,[235] viz., _Serian_. Conformably, the classification of the group would become—

[234] Indian linguistic families, by J. W. Powell, in Seventh Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, 1885-86 (1891), p. 11.

[235] Ibid., p. 10.

Serian stock, comprising— Seri tribe, including Tiburones and (certain) Salineros; Tepoka tribe; Guayma tribe; Upanguayma tribe.

Naturally this classification is provisional in certain respects. It is little more than tentative in so far as the Tepoka are concerned, since no word of the Tepoka tongue has ever been recorded, so far as is known, and since the tribe is still extant and within reach of research; it must be held provisional also in respect to the separateness of the stock, which may be found in the future to be affiliated with neighboring stocks, though the effect of the more recent and more critical researches in eliminating supposed evidences of affiliation points in the opposite direction. The arrangement is in some measure provisional also with respect to the relations between the long-extinct Guayma and Upanguayma and the type tribe, especially since contrary suggestion has been offered in terms implying the existence of unpublished data; yet the presumption in favor of the critical work by Ramirez, Pimentel, and Orozco is so strong that practically this feature of the classification may be deemed final.

* * * * *

No attempt has been made to render the tribal synonymy exhaustive, though search of the records has incidentally brought out the more important synonyms, as follows:

_Seri Tribe_

CERES—1826; Hardy, Travels, p. 95. CERI—1875; Pimentel, Lenguas Indígenas, tomo II, p. 229. CERIS—1745; Villa-Señor, Theatro Americano, p. 391. CERIS TEPOCAS—1850; Velasco, Noticias Estadísticas, p. 132. HERI—1854; Buschmann, Die Spuren der aztekischen Sprache, p. 221. HERIS—1645; Ribas, Triumphos de Nuestra Santa Fee, p. 358. HERISES—1690 (?); Van der Aa, map. SADI—1896; San Francisco Chronicle, January 24. SE-ERE—Etymologic form. SERES—1844; Mühlenpfordt, Republik Mejico, Band I, p. 210. SERI—1754; [Ortega], Apostolicos Afanes, p. 244. SERIS—1694; Mange, Resumen de Noticias (Documentos para la Historia de Mexico, série 4, tomo I, p. 235). SERI SALINEROS—1842; Alegre, Historia de la Compañia de Jesus, tomo III, p. 117. SERIS SALINEROS—1694; Mange, Resumen de Noticias (Documentos, série 4, tomo I, p. 321). SERYS—1754; [Ortega], Apostolicos Afanes, p. 367. SORIS—1900; Deniker, The Races of Man, p. 533. SSERI—1883; Gatschet, Der Yuma Sprachstamm, p. 129. ZERIS—1731; Dominguez, Diario (MS.). KMIKE—1879; Pinart, MS. vocabulary. KOMKAK—1879; Pinart, MS. vocabulary. KUNKAAK—1896; McGee and Johnson, “Seriland”, Nat. Geog. Mag., vol. VII, p. 133. SALINEROS—1727; Rivera, Diario y Derrotero, I. 514-1519. TIBURON—1799; Cortez (Pacific Railroad Reports, vol. III, p. 122). TIBURONES—1792; Arricivita, Crónica Seráfica, segunda parte, p. 426. TIBUROW CERES—1826; Hardy, Travels, p. 299.

_Tepoka Tribe_

TEPECO—1847; Disturnell, Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Mejico, New York. TEPOCA—1748; Villa-Señor, Theatro Americano, p. 392. TEPOCA CERES—1826; Hardy, Travels, p. 299. TEPOCAS—1748; Villa-Señor, Theatro Americano, p. 391. TEPOCOC—1865; Velasco, Bol. Soc. Mex. Geog. y Estad., tomo XI, p. 125. TEPOKA—Phonetic form. TEPOPA—1875; Dewey, map. TEPOQUIS—1757; Venegas, Noticia, tomo II, p. 343. TOPOKIS—1702; Kino, map (in Stocklein, Der Neue Welt-Bott). TOPOQUIS—1701; Kino, map (in Bancroft, Works, vol. XVII, 1889, p. 360).

_Guayma Tribe_

BAYMAS—1754; [Ortega], Apostolicos Afanes, p. 377. GAYAMA—1826 (?); Pike (Balbi), (in Pimentel, Lenguas Indígenas, tomo II, p. 234). GUAIMA—1861; Buckingham Smith, Heve Grammar, p. 7. GUAIMAS—1702; Kino, map (in Stocklein, Der Neue Welt-Bott). GUAYAMAS—1757; Venegas, Noticias, tomo II, p. 79. GUAYMA—1701; Juan Maria de Sonora, Report (Documentos para la Historia de Mexico, série 4, tomo V, p. 154). GUAYMAS—1700; Juan Maria de Sonora, Report (Documentos para la Historia de Mexico, série 4, tomo V, p. 126). GUAYMI—1882; Bancroft Works, vol. III, (Native Races, vol. III), p. 704. GUAYMIS—1844; Mühlenpfordt, Republik Mejico, Band I, p. 210. GUEIMAS—1748; Villa-Señor, Theatro Americano, p. 401. GUEYMAS—1748; Villa-Señor, Theatro Americano, p. 402. GUIAMAS—1763; [Nentwig?], Rudo Ensayo, p. 229. GUIMIES (?)—1701; Kino, map (Bancroft, Works, vol. XVII, 1889, p. 360).

_Upanguayma Tribe_

HOUPIN GUAYMAS—1829; Hardy, map. JUMPANGUAYMAS—1860; Velasco, Bol. Soc. Mex. Geog. y Estad., tomo VIII, p. 292. JUPANGUEIMAS—1748; Villa-Señor, Theatro Americano, p. 401. OPAN GUAIMAS—1763; [Nentwig?], Rudo Ensayo, p. 229. UPANGUAIMA—1864; Orozco y Berra, Geografía de las Lenguas, p. 42. UPANGUAIMAS—1878; Malte-Brun, Congrès International des Américanistes, tome II, p. 38. UPANGUAYMA—Synthetic form. UPANGUAYMAS—1882; Bancroft, Works (Native Races, vol. I, p. 605). UPAN-GUAYMAS—1890; Bandelier, Investigations in the Southwest, p. 75.

Possibly the name _Cocomagues_ (1864, Orozco y Berra, Geografía de las Lenguas, p. 42), or _Cocomaques_ (1727, Rivera, Diario y Derrotero, I. 1514-1519) should be introduced among the synonyms of the Seri, but in the absence of definite information it may perhaps better be left unassigned.[236]

[236] These names seem rather to be Yuman; cf. _Coco_pa, _Coco_nino, _Coco_maricopa, _Ko_hun, etc.

Of the four tribes assigned to the stock, the Upanguayma have been extinct probably for more than a century; the Guayma may survive in a few representatives probably of mixed blood and adopted language; the Tepoka have never received systematic investigation, but appear to survive in limited numbers on the eastern coast of Gulf of California about the embouchure of the Rio Ignacio sand-wash; while the Seri alone continue to form a prominent factor in Sonoran thought.

EXTERNAL RELATIONS

The most conspicuous characteristic of the Seri tribe as a whole is isolation. The geographic position and physical features of their habitat favor, and indeed measurably compel, isolation: their little principality is protected on one side by stormy seas and on the other by still more forbidding deserts; their home is too hard and poor to tempt conquest, and their possessions too meager to invite spoliation; hence, under customary conditions, they never see neighbors save in chance encounters on their frontier or in their own predatory forays—and in either case the encounters are commonly inimical. The natural isolation of the habitat is reflected in modes of life and habits of thought; and during the ages the physical isolation has come to be reflected in a bitter and implacable hereditary enmity toward aliens—an enmity apparently forming the strongest motive in their life and thought, and indeed grown into a persistent instinct. Thus the Seri stand alone in every respect; they are isolated in habitat and still more intensely isolated in habits of thought and life from all contemporaries; they far out-Ishmael the Ishmael of old on Araby’s deserts.

The isolation of the Seri in thought and feeling is well illustrated by the relations with their nearest neighbors (activitally as well as geographically), the Papago Indians. The Papago are much esteemed in Sonora as fearless fighters, always ready to join or even to lead a forlorn hope; yet when the expedition of 1895 was projected it was found no easy matter to induce the picked Papago guards quartered at Costa Rica to enter Seriland. They were ready, indeed mildly eager, for fray, provided it were on the frontier; but they held back in dread from actual invasion of the territory of the hereditary enemy. Like representatives of the faith-dominated culture-grades generally, they spoke weightily of inherent rights descended from the ancient time, even back unto the creation; they repeatedly declared the right of the Seri to protect their territory because it was _theirs_; yet their converse but served to show the depth and persistence of their abhorrence of the Seri and of everything pertaining to them. And when gales arose to delay the work, when the frail craft of the party was storm-buffeted and lost for days, when they were seized with the strange sickness of the sea, when the salt and sugar mysteriously disappeared (having been secretly sacrificed to diminish suffering from thirst), when all of the earth-powers and air-powers seemed to be arrayed against the expedition, they stoically held it to be but just punishment for a sacrilegious infraction of the ancient law—and their steady adherence to duty, despite tradition and physical difficulty and constant danger, revealed a real heroism. The strain was no slight one; it may have been felt more by the stay-at-homes than by the men in action; certainly a sister of one of the party (Anton Castillo) and spouse of a supporter at the supply station broke under the strain, and died of her terrors—and the return of the party was, to the Papago women and oldsters at least, as the rising of the dead. The dread inspired by the personal presence of the alien is stronger still; when the Seri rancheria at Costa Rica was visited in 1894 it was found needful to keep the Papago interpreter and others of the tribe at a distance, since the mere sight of the inimical tribesmen threw even the women and children into watchful irritation, like that of range-bred horses at scent of bear or timber-wolf, or that of oft-harried cats and swine at sight of passing dog—they instinctively huddled into circles facing outward, and ceased to think connectedly under the stress of nervous tension. The irritation was so far mutual that it was days before the usually placid interpreter, José Lewis, recovered his normal spirits; while the 1895 interpreter, Hugh Morris, was actually rendered ill by the mere entrance into Seriland at Pozo Escalante. And the antipathy between Seri and Yaqui is nearly as great as that between the common-boundary neighbors.

The instinctive antagonism, or race antipathy, between the Seri and the widely distinct Caucasian is less trenchant and intense than the local antipathy; yet even between Seri and Caucasian there would seem to be hardly a germ of sympathy. In the days of his prime, the Tiburon islanders flocked around Don Pascual, first as a provider of easy provender and later as a superpotent shaman whose wrath bore destruction; yet their allegiance was never more than that of the cowed and beaten brute to a hated trainer, and his coming never brought a smile to their stolid features—indeed, his passage among their jacales was met with the same stolid yet sinister indifference accorded the solitary visitor to a menagerie of caged carnivores. And no sooner did his vision become impaired than their fear-born veneration evaporated, and their native antipathy reappeared in original virulence. The 1894 party was fortunate in successfully treating a sick wife of sub-chief Mashém, and subsequently spent days in the rancheria, distributing gifts to old and young in a manner unprecedented in their experience and making liberal exchanges for such small possessions as they wished to spare; yet, with a single possible exception, they succeeded in bringing no more human expression to any Seri face or eye than curiosity, avidity for food, studied indifference, and shrouded or snarling disgust. Among themselves they were fairly cheerful, and the families were unobtrusively affectionate; yet the cheerfulness was always chilled and often banished by the approach of an alien. The Sonorenses generally hold the Seri in indescribably deep dread as uncanny and savage monsters lying beyond the human pale; while the reciprocal feeling on the part of the Seri toward Caucasians, and still more toward Indian aliens, seems akin to that of the average man toward the rattlesnake, which he flees or slays without pause for thought—it seems nothing less than intuitive and involuntary loathing. The Seri antipathy is at once deepened into an obsession and crystallized into a cult; the highest virtue in their calendar is the shedding of alien blood; and their normal impulse on meeting an alien is to kill unless deterred by fear, to flee if the way is clear, and to fawn treacherously for better opportunity if neither natural course lies open.

Concordantly with their primary characteristic, the Seri have avoided ethnic and demotic union beyond the narrow limits of their own kindred; and even of these they seem to have cast out parts, annihilating the Guayma and Upanguayma, displacing and nearly destroying the Tepoka, and outlawing individuals and (apparently) small groups. The earlier chronicles indicate that the Jesuit missionaries, and after them the Franciscan friars and the secular officials, sought to scatter the tribe by both cajolery and coercion, and endeavored to divide families by restraint of women and children and by banishment of wives; there are loose traditions, too, of the capture and enslavement of Indian and Caucasian women in Seriland; yet the great fact remains that not a single mixed-blood Seri is known to exist, and that no more than two of the blood (Kolusio and perhaps one other) now live voluntarily beyond the territorial and consanguineal confines of the tribe. The romantic story of a white slave and ancestress of a Seri clan, sometimes diffused through pernicious reportorial activity, is without shadow of proof or probability; the tradition of the captivity of a Papago belle was corroborated, albeit indefinitely, by Mashém’s naive admission that an alien women was once kept as a slave to a childless death due to her inaptitude for long wanderings; and there is not a single known fact indicating even so much as miscibility of the Seri blood with that of other varieties of the genus _Homo_. Naturally the presumption of miscibility holds in the absence of direct evidence; yet the presumption is at least partially countervailed by conspicuous biotic characters, such as color, stature, etc., so distinctive as almost to seem specific: the Seri are distinctively dark-skinned, their extreme color-range (so far as known) being less than their nearest approach to any neighboring tribe; they are nearly as distinctive in stature, the difference between their tallest and shortest normal adults being apparently less than that between their shortest and the tallest of the neighboring Papago—though they are not so far from the more variable and often tall Yaqui; and they appear to be no less distinctive in such physiologic processes as those connected with their extraordinary food habits. Still more distinctive are the demotic characters connected with their habits of life and modes of thought; and when the sum of biotic and demotic characters is taken, the Seri are found to be set apart from all neighboring Sonoran tribes by differences much more striking than the individual range among themselves.[237]

[237] It seems probable that the Seri were nearer to tribes of southern Baja California than to those of Sonora at the time of the earliest explorations, yet that the distinction was sufficiently strong to warrant the extension of the proposition to these tribes also.

It is especially noteworthy that the Seri have held aloof from that communality of the deserts which has brought so many tribes into union with each other and with their animal and vegetal neighbors through common strife against the common enemies of sun and sand—the communality expressed in the distribution of vital colonies over arid plains, in the toleration and domestication of animals, in the development of agriculture, and eventually in the shaping of a comprehensive solidarity, with the intelligence of the highest organism as the controlling factor.[238] Dwelling on a singularly prolific shore, the Seri never learned the hard lesson of desert solidarity, but looked on the land merely as a place of lodgment or concealment, or as a source of luxuries such as cactus tunas, mesquite beans, and tasty game; they never formed the first idea of planting or cultivating, and their only notion of harvesting and storing against time of need was the intolerably filthy one of nature’s simplest teaching; they apparently never grasped the concept of cooperation with animals, and came to tolerate the parasitical coyote only in that its persistence was greater than their own, and in so far as it was stealthy enough to hide its travail and the suckling of its young against their ravening maws; and they apparently never rose to real recognition of their own kind in alien forms, but set their hands against agricultural and zoocultural humans as peculiarly potent and hence especially obnoxious animals. Naturally their racial intolerance was seed of battle and blood-feud; and they would doubtless have melted away under the general antagonism but for the natural barriers and unlimited food of their restricted domain.

[238] The Beginning of Agriculture, American Anthropologist, vol. VIII, 1895, p. 350. The Beginning of Zooculture, ibid., vol. X, 1897, p. 215.

At present, as for the later and best-known decades of their history, the Seri are absolutely without extratribal affiliations, or even sympathy. When the chronicles of three centuries are scanned in the light of recent knowledge, it seems practically certain that they have been equally isolated since the dawn of Caucasian history in Mexico; and both recent data and the chronicles combine with the principles of demotic development to indicate that the Seri have stood alone from the beginning of their tribal career, and have never foregathered with the neighboring tribes of distinct blood, distinct arts and industries, distinct organization, distinct language, and distinct thought and feeling.

The present isolation of the Seri throws light on their early history and reveals the extent of the misapprehension of the pioneer missionaries, who half deluded themselves and wholly deluded distant readers into the notion that the Seri were really proselyted and actually collected in the mission-adjuncts of military posts established to protect settlers against forays of the tribe; for, as illumined by later and fuller knowledge of the tribal characteristics, the chronicles are seen to indicate merely that a few captives, malingerers, cripples, spies, and tribal outcasts were harbored at the missions until death and occasional escapes brought the colonies to a natural end, with no real assimilation of blood or culture on either side. So, too, the persistent tribal antipathy reveals the error of confounding the independent or even inimically related outbreaks of the Seri and of the Pima or Apache with the concerted action of confederated tribes. Doubtless the ever-watchful spies from Tiburon habitually gave notice of the disturbance due to outbreaks of contemporary tribes, just as they do today when the local soldiery are withdrawn for duty on the Yaqui frontier; naturally the civil and military authorities were thereby led to provide for protection against the Seri and Piato, against the Seri and Pima, or against the Seri and Apache at each period of disturbance, just as they provided against the Seri between periods; and it would appear that this association in thought and speech led to the unconscious magnification, in the minds of the chroniclers, of a supposed alliance.

In brief, the tribal relations of the Seri seem always to have been antipathetic, especially toward the aboriginal tribes of alien blood, in somewhat less measure toward Caucasians, and in least—yet still considerable—degree toward their own collinguals and (presumptive) consanguineals.

POPULATION

So far as could be ascertained by inquiries of and through Mashém in 1894, the Seri tribe then comprised about 60 or 70 warriors, with between three and four times as many women and children—i. e., the population was apparently between 250 and 350. The group of about 60 (including 17 warriors) seen at Costa Rica was evidently growing rapidly, to judge from the proportion of youths of both sexes, infants in arms, and pregnant women; and there are other indications that the tribe is prolific and well-fitted to survive unless cut off in consequence of the hereditary antipathy toward alien blood and culture.

The population estimates of the past are naturally vague. In 1645 Ribas spoke of the tribe as “a great people”; and a century later Villa-Señor expressed himself in somewhat similar terms, and described their range in such manner as to indicate a population running into thousands. A few years after Villa-Señor (in 1750), Parilla claimed to have annihilated the entire tribe, with the exception of 28 captives; but according to Velasco’s estimates, the people numbered fully 2,000 some thirty years later, when the tribe was, however, once more nominally annihilated. In 1824 Troncoso estimated the Seri at over 1,000, and two years later Retio reckoned the population of Isla Tiburon alone at 1,000 or 1,500, while Hardy thought the entire tribe might number 3,000 or 4,000 at the utmost. About 1841 De Mofras put the aggregate population at 1,500; and at the time of the vigorous invasion by Andrade and Espence (1844), when a considerable number of the tribe were captured and a few slain, the total population was estimated at about 550—though it is probable that a good many tribesmen were left out of the reckoning. According to the chroniclers, a number of the Seri were slain after, as well as before, this invasion; and in 1846 Velasco estimated the tribe at less than 500, including 60 or 80 warriors. This estimate was in harmony with that made by Señor Encinas, who reckoned the tribe at 500 or 600 at the beginning of his war, in which half the tribe lost their lives. The figures of Velasco and Encinas correspond fairly with the reckoning by Mashém in 1894, due allowance being made for natural increase and for the losses through occasional skirmishes; and Mashém’s count is shown not to be excessive by the considerable number of jacales and rancherias and well-trodden pathways found throughout Seriland in 1895.

On the whole it seems probable that the Seri population extended well into the thousands at the time of the Caucasian invasion; it seems probable, also, that the body was then too large for stability under its feeble institutional bonds, and hence threw off by fission the Guayma and Upanguayma fractions, and the Angeles, Populo, and Pueblo Seri fragments. Furthermore, it seems probable that the prolific group fairly held its own against these normal losses and repeated decimations by battle up to the Migueletes-Cimarrones war of 1780, despite the vaunted annihilation in 1750; but that thenceforward the death-rate due to increasingly frequent encounters with incoming settlers exceeded the birth-rate, gradually reducing the tribe from some 2,000 to the 250 or 300 surviving the Encinas conflict. Finally, it seems probable that the tribe has again held its own and perhaps increased slowly under the renewed isolation of the last decade or two.

SOMATIC CHARACTERS

Several physical characteristics of the Seri Indians are so conspicuous as to attract attention even at first sight. Perhaps the most striking is the noble stature and erect yet easy carriage; next in prominence is the dark skin-tint; a third is the breadth and depth of chest; another is the slenderness of limbs and disproportionately large size of extremities, especially the feet; still another is length and luxuriance of hair; and an impressive character is a peculiar movement in walking and running.

The mean stature of the adult Seri may be estimated at about 6 feet (1.825 meters) for the males, and 5 feet 8 inches (1.727 meters) or 5 feet 9 inches (1.73 meters) for the females, these estimates resting on visual comparisons between Caucasians of known stature and about forty adult Seri of both sexes at Costa Rica in 1894. In several of the accompanying photomechanical reproductions (e. g. plates XIII, XVI, XIX, XXIII, and XXVIII) a unit figure, introduced partly for the encouragement of the individuals and groups but chiefly to afford a basis for approximate measurement, gives opportunity for test of the estimate, the figure measuring 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 meters) to 5 feet 11½ inches (1.812 meters), and weighing about 215 pounds in the costume shown, including hat and boots.[239] These pictures and some thirty unpublished photographs, like the observations on the ground, indicate that practically all of the fully adult males and several of the females overtop the Caucasian unit. The only definite measurement known is that of the youthful and apparently immature female skeleton examined by Dr Hrdlička, of which the dimensions indicate a stature (estimated by the method of Manouvrier) of about 5 feet 3¾ inches (1.62 meters),[240] or 3½ inches above the female normal of 5 feet ¼ inch (1.53 meters) given by Topinard; but this considerable stature is, probably on account of the youth of the subject, much below the mean indicated by the ocular and photographic comparisons (it corresponds fairly with that of the Seri maiden represented in plate XXV, whose age was estimated at 18 years). Naturally this striking stature, especially that of the warriors, has been much exaggerated by casual observers; the typical warrior, El Mudo, depicted in plate XIX, is indeed commonly reckoned as a 7-footer, though his actual stature (diminished somewhat in the pictures by fearsome shrinking from the ordeal of photographing) can hardly exceed 6 feet 3 inches (1.90 meters); while for centuries the folk have been reputed a tribe of giants.

[239] The average net height and weight of the unit figure (that of the author) are about 5 feet 8⅝ inches and 200 pounds, respectively.

[240] Or about 1.6176 meters estimated by the method of Rollet (cf. The Races of Man, J. Deniker, London, 1900, p. 33).

[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XIII

GROUP OF SERI INDIANS ON THE FRONTIER]

The estimation of Seri stature is difficilitated by the impossibility of defining maturity; and the effort to determine whether particular individuals were adult brought out clear indications of slowness in reaching complete maturity, i. e., of the continuation of somatic growth throughout an exceptionally long term in proportion to other stages in the life of the individual. Thus, with scarcely an exception, the polyparous matrons were taller than the mean of 5 feet 9 inches, while the apparently adult maidens (with one exception) and the younger wives were below this mean; and in like manner the stature of the warriors varied approximately with appearance of age, all of the younger men falling below the mean, and all of the older (except Mashém) rising above it. The difficulty of estimation is further increased by the absence of age records and the impracticability of ascertaining and standardizing the habitually guarded expressions for relative age implied in the kinship terminology; so that the age determinations were roughly relative merely, and there was no means of fixing the absolute age of maturity, of puberty, of marriage, or of the assumption of manhood and womanhood howsoever defined.

Under the conditions, the determination of stature-range in the Seri rancheria at Costa Rica in 1894 was not only difficult but uncertain; yet in general terms it may be said that the women having two or more children—about twenty in number—were notably uniform in stature, ranging from about 5 feet 7½ inches (in the case of an aged and shrunken elderwoman) to 5 feet 11 inches; that the younger women were more variable; and that the warriors (seventeen in number), of whom only a part were apparently heads of families, were more variable still, though the variation, apart from that apparently correlated with age, was less than is customarily found among the exceptionally uniform Papago, and decidedly less than that seen among the Yaqui or the local Mexicans.

The Seri skin-tint is of the usual Amerindian bronze, save that it is exceptionally dark, with a decided tone of black. Essayed representations of the characteristic color appear in plates XVIII and XXIV; but the essays are little more satisfactory than the innumerable attempts at depicting the skin-color of the American aborigines that have gone before. Experienced observers of the native tribes may form an impression of the Seri color from the explanation that they are as much darker than the neighboring Papago as the Papago are darker than the average tribesmen about the Great lakes; the Papago themselves being as much darker than the southern plains or Pueblo folk as these are darker than those of the Lake region. The range in color seems to be slight; the variation among the 60 individuals of both sexes and all ages seen at Costa Rica was hardly perceptible, being less than that usually observed in a single family of any neighboring tribe; while the color distinction alone sufficed to distinguish the Seri from any other people at a glance.

* * * * *

Foremost among the general somatic distinctions between the Caucasian and the American native is the peripheral development of the former, displayed in better-muscled limbs, more expressive features, etc.—i. e., the Caucasian body expresses a readily perceptible but difficultly describable peripheralization, in contradistinction from the centralization displayed by the aboriginal body. Save in a single particular (the large feet and hands), the Seri exemplify this distinction in remarkable degree: their chests are strikingly broad, deep, and long, recalling the thoroughbred racer or greyhound; their waists are shortened by the chest development, yet are rather slender; their hips are broad and deep, with a clean-cut yet massive gluteal development; and, in comparison with the robust yet compact bodies, the tapering arms and legs seem incongruously slender.[241] This physical characteristic, like that of color, is insusceptible of quantitative expression, at least without much more refined observations than have been made; but its value may be indicated roughly by the statement that the Seri differs from the average aboriginal American in degree of somatic concentration as much as the average aborigine differs from the average Caucasian—though it is noteworthy that the departure in this direction from the aboriginal mean is in some measure regional (i. e., the Seri differ less in this respect from the Papago and other swift-footed natives than from the average tribesmen of the continent). The Seri robustness of body and slenderness of limb are brought out by the absence (in appearance at least) of adipose; the skin is strikingly firm and hard and evidently thick, yet the play of muscle and tendon beneath indicate a dearth of connective tissue and convey that impression of physical vigor which their familiars so miss in the photographs; and in no case, save perhaps in the young babe, could the slightest trace of obesity be discerned. Thus the Seri, male and female, young and old, may be described as notably deep-chested and clean-limbed quick-steppers, or as human thoroughbreds.

[241] The photo-mechanical reproductions do but meager justice to the splendid chest development of the Seri, young and old; for they were not only at semisomnolent rest during the hotter hours at which photography was most feasible, but invariably quailed before the mysterious apparatus and crouched shrinkingly in such wise as to contract their chests and lose their habitually erect and expansive carriage.

The somatic symmetry of the average Seri, marred somewhat by the slenderness of limb, is still more marred by the large extremities. The hand is broad and long, the fingers are relatively long as those of the Caucasian, the nails are peculiarly thick and strong, and the skin is so thick and calloused as to give a clumsy look to the entire organ; the feet are still larger and thicker-skinned, appearing disproportionately long and broad for even the heroic stature of the tallest warriors. The integument covering the feet, ankles, and lower legs is incredibly firm and hard, more resembling that of horse or camel than the ordinary human type; its astounding protective efficiency being attested by the readiness with which the Seri run through cactus thickets so thorny as to stop horses and dogs, or over conglomerated spall-beds so sharp that even the light coyote leaves their trail. In the absence of measurements it may merely be noted that the hands and feet of the Seri are materially larger, not only absolutely but relatively to their stature, than those of neighboring tribesmen or even of Mexican and American workmen. And, on the whole, it may be said that in their proportions, as in their stature and color, the Seri are strikingly uniform, their range being less than that commonly observed in contemporary tribes, and the differences between them and their neighbors much exceeding the range among themselves.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XIV

SERI FAMILY GROUP]

Somatically distinctive as is the Seri at rest, he (or she) is much more so in motion—though the characteristics so readily caught by the eye are not easily analyzed and described. Perhaps the most conspicuous element in their walk is a peculiarly quick knee movement, bringing the foot upward and forward at the end of the stride; this merges into an equally quick thrust of the foot forward and downward, with toe well advanced, toward the beginning of the next stride; and these motions combine to produce a singular erectness and steadiness of carriage, the body moving in a nearly direct line with a minimum of lateral swaying or vertical oscillation, while the legs neither drag nor swing, but spurn the ground in successive strokes. Thus the walk seems notably easy and graceful, while the walker carries an air of alertness and reserve power, as if able to stop short at any point of a pace or to bolt forward or backward or sidewise with equal facility; he simulates the “collected” animal whose feet tap the ground lightly and swiftly while his body appears to yield freely to voluntary impulse. In this deer-like or antelope-like movement all the Seri are much alike, and all are decidedly removed from their neighbors, even the light-footed Papago. The component motions are most conspicuous in leisurely walking, though the resultant movement is more striking in rapid walk or the incredibly swift run of youths and adults. The general movement is akin to that shaped by the habit of carrying burdens balanced on the head, as the Seri women actually carry their water ollas for astonishing distances; but the carriage is shared—indeed, best displayed—by the warriors and growing boys, who are not known to carry water in this way.

Among the conspicuous but nondistinctive somatic characters of the Seri is luxuriant straight hair, habitually worn long and loose. Commonly the hair is jet-black for most of the length, growing tawny toward the tips; sometimes it is black throughout, while again the tawny tinge, or perhaps a bleached appearance, extends well toward the scalp. Age-grayness seems not to be characteristic; the most aged matrons known have no more than a few inconspicuous and scattered gray hairs, though the pelage of some is slightly bleached or faded. None of the warriors at Costa Rica showed the slightest grayness except Mashém (aged about 50 years), who had a few gray strands about the temples; but it maybe significant that the hair of the tribal outlaw Kolusio, who has lived with white men for full three score years, is iron-gray. Kolusio’s pelage is trimmed in Caucasian fashion; that of Mashém is cut off mid-length in a manner exciting comment, if not derision, on the part of his fellows and others, and resulting in his (Spanish) sobriquet, Pelado (literally, Peeled, or idiomatically, Shorn); but with few exceptions the hair is kept long as it can be made to grow, and receives careful attention, to this end. Naturally the length is somewhat variable; in many cases it depends to or slightly below the waist, while in other cases it merely sweeps the shoulders; and in general it appears to increase in both length and luxuriance not only throughout adolescence, but up to late maturity, for the best pelages are presented by moderately aged persons, while none of the youths are so luxuriantly tressed as their elders. Not the slightest trace of baldness appears. The infantile pelage is short, brownish in color, soft or even silky, and inclined to curl toward the tips. It is not until the age of several months that the hair begins to acquire the adult character, and at least some children retain traces of the infantile pilary character up to 5 or even 10 years; and none of the children display such jet-black shock-heads as are frequently found among other tribes, whose adult pelage may nevertheless be much less luxuriant than that of the Seri. On the whole, it may be said that the Seri hair is luxuriant and vigorous beyond the aboriginal average, and that it, like various other somatic features, indicates a relatively late maturation in the life-history of the individual.

Both sexes are beardless. The female faces seen were entirely free of strong pilary growth; one or two of the warrior faces showed scattering hairs, and Mashém sported a feeble and downy but jet-black mustache with an exceptional number of scattered hairs about the chin; while Kolusio shaved regularly, and might, apparently, have grown moderately stiff but straggling mustaches and beard. Axillary hair seems to be wanting; pubic hair is said to be scanty; otherwise the bodies are practically hairless (more nearly so than those of average Caucasians).

The teeth are solid, close-set, and even, and impress the observer as large; they close with the upper incisors projecting slightly beyond the lower denture in the usual manner.

* * * * *

The skeletal characteristics of the Seri are known only from a single specimen obtained in the course of the 1895 expedition in such manner as to establish the identification beyond shadow of question. This skeleton was submitted to Dr Aleš Hrdlička for measurement and discussion.[242]

[242] A separate cranium was obtained by the 1895 expedition, having been sought and picked up by a Mexican member of the party in verification of his account of the killing of one of the Seri; but, in view of the possibility of erroneous identification, this skull was not submitted in connection with the complete skeleton. Subsequently this specimen also was put in Dr Hrdlička’s hands (at his request), and was kindly examined, with, the results recorded in the following letter:

MARCH 29, 1900.

Professor W J MCGEE,

_Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, D. C._

DEAR SIR: The skull which you submitted to me for examination shows the following:

The skull is that of a male between 40 and 50 years of age. The facial parts and a portion of the left temporal bone are wanting; otherwise the specimen shows nothing pathologic. There are signs that the skull belonged to a very muscular individual. The occipital depressions, ridges, and protuberance are very marked, and the temporal ridges approach to within 1.7 cm. on the left and 2.3 cm. on the right of the sagittal suture. The whole skull is rather heavy and massive; thickness of parietal bones 4-8 mm.

The shape of the skull is unusual. The frontal region is rather broad (frontal diameter, minimum, 9.7; frontal diameter, maximum, 12.1 cm.), but quite flat and sloping. Frontal ridges wanting (broken away).

The sagittal region is elevated into a crest which begins 4cm. posteriorly from the bregma, is most marked at the vertex, and proceeds in two tapering diverging crura to the lambdoid suture. The whole vertex region is considerably elevated and forms a blunt cone, which is particularly noticeable when the skull is viewed from the side.

The temporo-parietal regions are moderately convex and expanded anteriorly, but become flattened and gradually narrow toward the parietal bosses. The parietal bones measure each 11 cm. along the coronal, but only 8.8 cm. along the lambdoid suture. The gradual tapering of the parietal regions from their middle backward continues on the occipital bone up to the inion, and gives the norma verticalis of the skull a peculiar appearance.

The occipital region, as a whole, does not protrude much, as in true dolichocephals, but it shows a prominent broad crest, formed by the two superior semicircular lines and the region between them. The extreme occipital protuberance is pronounced and shows signs of strong muscular attachments. A small distance above the foramen magnum, on each side of the median line, is a very marked depression, surmounted by a dull ridge.

Of the mastoids, the right has been broken off and the left is damaged, but they do not seem to have been of extraordinary size.

The base of the skull is fairly well preserved and shows the following characters: The basilar process and the petrous portions of the temporal bones are more massive than usual. The glenoid fossæ are broad and of fair depth. The styloids are quite diminutive (right 0.7, left 0.5 cm. long). The foramen magnum is hexagonal in outline; it is 4.4 cm. long, 3.4 cm. wide; its plane is inclined backwards in such a way that its antero-posterior diameter prolonged would touch about the lower borders of the nasal aperture.

The cranial cavity can be well inspected through the opening caused by injury. The internal surface of the frontal bone shows but very few traces of brain impressions. There are several large impressions on each parietal bone, and deep, though rather small, fossæ for the extremities of the occipital lobes on the occipital bone. The superior border of the dorsum sellæ shows in the middle a rounded notch about 3 mm. deep.

The serration of the sutures is throughout very simple.

_Measures_—The glabello-occipital length and maximum width of the skull can not be accurately determined on account of injuries to the bones. They amount, respectively, to about 18.8 and 14 cm., giving the cephalic index of about 74.4 (moderate dolichocephaly). The basion-bregma height is 14.1 cm.; basion-vertex, 14.8 cm.; basion-obelion, 13.0 cm.; basion-lambda, 12.2 cm. The two more anterior of these measures characterize the skull as a rather high one. The two more posterior measures show the rapid downward slope of the posterior half of the sagittal region. The maximum circumference of the skull (above the ridges) is 52 cm.

The bregma-lambda arc measures 13.3, the lambda-opisthion arc 12.2 cm. Diameter between the asterions=10.7 cm.

If the skull under examination is considered from a purely evolutionary standpoint, it must be pronounced to be in many points inferior to the average white and even to the majority of Indian crania. An anthropological identification of the specimen is difficult, for the reason that we are still very imperfectly acquainted with the craniology of the peoples of southwestern United States and northern Mexico. From what we know of the crania of the Pima, and the extinct Santa Barbara, Santa Catalina, etc., Californians, it is possible to say that the individual whose skull is here reported upon may have belonged to a people physically related to either of these groups. The skull is very distinct from that of an Apache. The female Seri cranium examined by me before does not show certain of the peculiarities of this specimen; nevertheless it is very possible that both crania belonged to individuals of the same tribe.

ALEŠ HRDLIČKA.

In making his examination, Dr Hrdlička compared the unquestionably authentic cranium of the entire skeleton with two skulls preserved in the American Museum of Natural History, viz., No. 99/84, designated as a skull of a Tiburon mound-builder, and No. 99/85, labeled as having been found in a shell mound at Tiburon, California; but, in view of the possible error in identification in these cases, the comparisons are omitted. Otherwise, Dr Hrdlička’s determinations are as recorded in the following report (and his drawings of the anterior and left lateral aspects of the cranium are reproduced in figure 6):

[Illustration: FIG. 6—Anterior and left lateral aspects of Seri cranium.]

REPORT ON AN EXAMINATION OF A SKELETON FROM SERILAND

[By Dr Aleš Hrdlička, Associate in Anthropology, Pathological Institute, New York]

_The Skeleton_

All the bones of the skeleton are present, except the sternum, the coccyx, a few of the teeth, and a few of the small bones of the extremities.

It is a skeleton of a young adult, between 20 and 24 years of age, female. The age of the subject is indicated mainly by the unattached epiphyses of the long and some of the short bones, those epiphyses, namely, which are the last to coossify. The femininity of the subject is indicated by the generally slightly marked ridges, etc., of muscular attachment, and by the decidedly feminine character of the pelvis (light, well-spread ilia, broad subpubic arch) and of the skull (lack of supraorbital ridges, thin dental arches, small mastoids, etc.).

There are no wounds or pathological conditions noticeable on the skeleton. Several peculiarities and anomalies are observable. They will be described with the parts they concern.

The measurements to follow are expressed in centimeters. The French anthropometric methods and nomenclature have been adopted.

_The Skull_

The skull is of fair size, and is symmetrical throughout, with the exception of a slight irregularity in the occipital region. All the sutures, with the exception of the basilar, open; nerve foramina all large; serrations rather simple; no intercalate bones of any kind.

_Norma frontalis_—Visage symmetrical. Forehead well arched, medium height. Supraorbital ridges almost absent; glabella convex. Nasion depression medium. Orbits obliquely quadrilateral; their axes (internal inferior corner—internal superior corner) meet at ophryon. Spheno-maxillary fissure, lachrymal canal, and nerve foramina all above average in size. Nasal bones well bridged, very slightly concave; nasal aperture regular; no “gouttières”; turbinated bones well formed; septum wanting; spine 0.65 long, bifid at the end. Zygomæ of medium size and strength. Superior maxilla of medium size, well formed. Dental arches regular; no prognathism. Bone of lower jaw moderately strong; does not protrude anteriorly; conformation normal.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XV

SERI MOTHER AND CHILD]

_Norma basalis_—Contour almost round. Whole base symmetrical, except as noted below; the middle structures appear shortened antero-posteriorly, slightly more on the left than on the right; basilo-vomeric angle rather acute (100°); foramina of the base all spacious; the petrobasilar suture is large (average diameter, 5 mm.) and is throughout pervious. Superior dental arch regular and of medium thickness. Dentition incomplete—right upper wisdom tooth not fully erupted; left lower wisdom tooth wanting entirely. Denture fine and regular; no teeth decayed. Both upper first incisors absent.[243] Teeth set regularly in socket and of medium size. Palatine arch symmetrical. Shape of palate normal. Posterior nasal foramina oblong. Styloids small, shell-like, flattened.

[243] Both these incisors were apparently lost at the same time, not from general lesion, and some years previous to the death of the individual, as the sockets appear exactly alike, bear no signs of violence, and are almost filled up with cancellous tissue (some religious or social rite?).

_Norma occipitalis_—The posterior part of the skull is somewhat flattened. The sides of the surface present a pentagonal outline with rounded corners, the apex corresponding to the sagittal suture, or obelion. There is a slight asymmetry, the right side being somewhat flattened. Exterior occipital protuberance not well marked.

_Norma verticalis_—Outline an irregular ovoid, wider posteriorly and more prominent on the left and posteriorly. Slight symmetrical depression of the parietals, beginning about 1 cm. and ending 5 or 6 cm. behind the coronal suture and extending laterally from the sagittal suture to the upper temporal ridge.

_Norma lateralis_—Outline ovoid, larger posteriorly. Pterions en H, of medium breadth. Temporal ridges not very distinct. Parietal bosses prominent.

cc.

Skull capacity, Broca’s method 1,545 Skull capacity, Flower’s method 1,490 Antero-posterior diameter, maximum 16.3 Lateral diameter, maximum 14.4 Cephalic index, 88.3=Brachycephalic.[244] Chin-bregma 21.2 Chin-ophryon 13.2 Alveolar point-ophryon 8.6 Bizygomatic breadth, maximum 13.0 Facial index 98.5 Superior facial index (Broca’s), 66.1=Mesoseme. Height of nose aperture 5.4 Breadth of nose aperture 2.65 Nasal index, 49.0=Mesorhine. Mean height of orbits 3.80 Mean breadth of orbits 3.95 Orbital index, 96.2=Megaseme. cc. Mean depth of orbits 4.6 Dacryon to dacryon 2.3 Frontal diameter, minimum 9.2 Frontal diameter, maximum (interstephanic) 11.4 Biauricular diameter[245] 12.3 Diameter through parietal bosses 14.3 Bimastoid diameter 10.55 Distance from superior alveolar arch to inferior occipital ridge 14.35 Distance between supramastoid eminences 13.9 Length of basilar process (notch of vomer to basion) 2.95 Basion-bregma height 13.45 Basion-obelion height ? (obelion indistinct.) Basion-ophryon 14.0 Basion-inion 8.1 Circumference, maximum 49.4 Nasion-ophryon arc 1.8 Nasion-bregma arc 12.3 Nasion-inion arc 30.0 Nasion-opisthion arc 35.5 Pterion-bregma arc 11.2 Arc external meatuses, over forehead 29.2 Arc external meatuses, over frontal bosses 30.4 Arc external meatuses, over bregma 34.0 Arc external meatuses, maximum 35.7 Arc external meatuses, over inion 23.6 Temporal ridges to sagittal suture (stephanions-bregma), (arc) mean 7.5 Lateral diameter of foramen magnum, maximum 2.75 Antero-posterior diameter of foramen magnum, maximum 3.60 Index of foramen magnum 76.4 Length of hard palate, maximum 4.6 Height of hard palate at first molars 1.55 Breadth of hard palate at first bicuspids 2.9 Breadth of hard palate at first molars 3.55 Breadth of hard palate at third molars 4.1 Height of posterior nares 3.1 Breadth of posterior nares 2.55 Index of posterior nares 82.2 Angle of mandibles 114° Length of mandibular rami 9.55 Bigoniac diameter of mandibles 9.85

[244] If allowance is made for the effects of flattening of the occipital on the long diameter, and hence on the index, of a skull, it becomes apparent that the true index of this skull is probably of a low brachycephalic, or, at most, of mesocephalic order. It is very doubtful if the deformity is intentional; its moderate extent and the total lack of signs of counter-compression would indicate with more probability that the deformity might have been produced by the individual lying, when an infant, by compulsion or habit, on something hard, probably a board.

[245] The “biauricular” signifies the distance between points of the skull immediately above the commencement of the superior zygomatic border on the temporal.

_The Vertebral Column_

_Cervical vertebræ_—Number complete; characters normal. All cervical spinous processes bifid; vertebra prominens well defined. All epiphyses absent.

cc. Transverse diameter of third cervical vertebra (between posterior tubercles of the pedicles), maximum 5.05 Antero-posterior diameter of third cervical vertebra (body-spinous process), maximum 4.20 Greatest lateral diameter of foramen, same vertebra 2.15 Greatest antero-posterior diameter of foramen, same vertebra 1.45 Height of body in center, same vertebra .90

[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XVI

GROUP OF SERI BOYS]

_Dorsal vertebræ_—Number complete; characters absolutely normal. Resemblance to lumbar processes begins with tenth dorsal vertebra; a number of the epiphyses of the various processes either imperfectly united or detached; body epiphyses absent.

cc. Antero-posterior diameter of body of sixth dorsal vertebra, maximum 2.55 Lateral diameter of body of sixth dorsal vertebra, maximum 2.90 Height of body in center 1.67 Separation of transverse processes 5.63 Edge of upper articular processes-tip of spinous processes 5.50 Breadth of foramen, maximum 1.60 Length of foramen, maximum 1.50

_Lumbar vertebræ_—Number complete; characters absolutely normal. Only disk epiphyses detached.

cc. Antero-posterior diameter of body, maximum 3.12 Antero-posterior diameter of whole vertebræ, maximum 7.10 Lateral diameter of body, maximum 4.55 Lateral diameter of transverse processes, maximum 7.10 Height of articular processes, maximum 4.33 Height of body in center, maximum 2.20 Antero-posterior diameter of canal, maximum 1.50 Lateral diameter of canal, maximum 2.10

_The Sacrum_

Aspect normal with the following exception: There are distinct intervertebral disks between the different segments (5 segments); there are deep lateral incisures in places where the lateral processes unite, and the fourth and fifth segments are entirely separated (in one piece) from the upper three (four small spots of coossification along the posterior border of the articulation are visible). The articular processes of the first and second sacral segments are similar in form to the lumbar, and form open articulations. There is a large foramen situated below the spinous processes of the first and third segment, and a smaller beneath the second. Coccyx absent. Curvature medium.

cc. Breadth of the sacrum, maximum 10.5 Height of the sacrum, maximum 11.2 Index of the sacrum 93.7

_The Thoracic Cage_

Aspect of ribs normal. Strength medium. Sternum absent.

Length second right rib (arc) 21.8 Long diameter second right rib 12.5 Maximum height of the curve 7.2 Length ninth right rib (arc) 28.8 Long diameter ninth right rib 18.7 Maximum height of curve 8.45

_Bones of the Upper Limbs_

_Clavicles_—Form normal, slender; epiphyses united. Length, maximum, 13.5. Muscular attachments of slight prominence.

_Scapulæ_—Form normal, spine directed somewhat more upward than is usual; whole bone light and slender; acromial epiphyses absent.

Height (middle of glenoid fossa-tip of inferior angle) 12.0 Breadth (middle of glenoid point, maximum) 8.7

_Humeri_—Form normal; bone slender; head-epiphyses not united; left head perforated by large oval foramen from coronoid to olecranon fossa (8 mm. by 4½ mm.)

Length of left humerus (with epiphysis) 31.3 Length of right humerus (with epiphysis) 31.0

_Ulnæ and radii_—Form normal; bones slender; lower epiphyses ununited.

Length of left radius (head and end of styloid) 24.1 Length of left ulna (olecranon-styloid) 25.8

_Metacarpus, carpus, and phalanges_—Nothing special.

_Bones of the Pelvis and Lower Limbs_

All the bones of the pelvis and lower limbs of normal shape and medium size. Pelvis apparently that of a female (subpubic angle 100°). Bones well united, all traces of the union in acetabulum effaced. Epiphyses ununited except on the ischiatic protuberances, where bony union just begins. Above the fossa acetabuli (8 mm. postero-superiorly from the uppermost edge of the fossa) there is in both acetabula an irregularly triangular depression of about 2 water-drops capacity (accessory tendon?).

Anterior to posterior-superior spine 13.7 Point of pubis to posterior-superior spine 15.8 Point of pubis to anterior-superior spine 12.7 Point of pubis to point of ischium 10.8 Biiliac diameter of whole bony pelvis (between internal iliac borders), maximum 21.0 Height of coxal bones (tuberosity of ischium to iliac border in this case without its epiphyses), maximum 19.4 Antero-posterior diameter of superior strait 11.8 Lateral diameter of superior strait 11.4 Oblique diameter of superior strait 11.3

Height of subject (determined after Manouvrier’s method) about 1.620 m. (above the general average).

_Femurs_—Lower epiphyses ununited. Muscular attachments, including linea aspera, but little prominent.

Length of femurs (both condyles applied to base) 43.6 Inclination of neck to shaft 130°

_Tibiæ_—Both platycnemic. All the epiphyses ununited, especially the upper.

Antero-posterior diameter at center, maximum 2.5 Lateral diameter at center, maximum 1.62 Length (articular surface-tip of styloid) 35.6

Femoro-tibial index {length of tibia × 100}=82.0 {length of femora }

This index is 81 in the European, 83 in the negro, and 86 in the Bushman.[246]

[246] Quain, Anatomy, 1893: Osteology, p. 127.

_Fibulæ_—Length, 35.2. Epiphyses not yet united, particularly the upper.

_Tarsal, metatarsal, and phalangial bones_—Nothing special.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XVII

MASHEM, SERI INTERPRETER]

_Resumé of the Peculiarities of the Skeleton_

The nerve and blood-vessel foramina are generally large. This character and the platycnemic tibiæ indicate an ample musculature of the subject.

The height is above the general average for a woman, which, according to Topinard, is 1.53.

The petro-basilar fissures are large and visibly pervious. This condition is found occasionally; significance doubtful; it is more frequent in young subjects.

_Platycnemic tibiæ_—This is considered a simian character.[247] It was found first by Broca in 1868[248] on bones from Eyzies; it is associated with relative strength of the muscles of the leg; is very frequent among the characters found on bones from the epoch of polished stone in Europe.[249] J. Wyman found this character more accentuated than at Cro-Magnon or at Gibraltar on a third of the tibias from the mounds of the United States.[249]

[247] Hovelacque et Hervé, Précis d’Anthropologie, 1887, pp. 112, 2937.

[248] Bulletin de la Société d’Anthropologie, 1868.

[249] Hovelacque et Hervé, op. cit., p. 113.

_Perforated humerus_—Noticed first by Desmoulins, 1826, on the humeri of Guanches and Hottentots;[250] occurs with greatest frequency in the following peoples:[251]

[250] Histoire Naturelle des Races Humaines, 1826, p. 304.

[251] Hovelacque et Hervé, op. cit., p. 291.

Per cent. 156 neolithic humeri from around Paris 21.8 97 humeri of African negroes 21.7 122 humeri of Guanches 25.6 80 humeri from the mounds of United States (J. Wyman) 31.2 32 humeri of Polynesians 34.3 30 humeri of altaic and American races 36.2

Summarily, Dr Hrdlička’s special determinations conform with the external observations on the Seri body; they indicate an exceptionally large stature, together with a notably well-developed and well-proportioned osseous framework, of the native American type, yet significantly approaching the Caucasian in several respects. It is especially noteworthy that the cranium is well formed and capacious, the precise measurements corroborating the external observation that the Seri head is of good absolute size, though relatively smaller (in comparison with height and weight) than that of some neighboring tribes of less stature—e. g., the Papago. It may be noted, too, that the imperfect ankylosis of the epiphyses, and various other skeletal features, are in accord with the inferences from the living body as to the slowness of attaining maturity. It may be noted further that the extraordinary development of the muscular attachments, especially in the masculine cranium, is quite in harmony with the habits of the tribe.

* * * * *

The remaining somatic characteristics of the Seri are for the greater part of such sort as to be described by generalities and negatives. In general they correspond with those of typical American tribesmen and other peoples; and they do not exhibit striking peculiarities in proportion or structure. In the opposability of the thumb, the nonopposability of the hallux, and the independence of fingers and toes, the Seri hands and feet are developed quite up to, if not somewhat beyond, the Amerindian[252] average; the feet are set straight in walking, as befits the pedestrian habit; the arms are not elongated, and the thighs seem no longer in proportion to other elements of the stature than are those of the highest human types. In like manner the bodies are notably free from artificial deformation; the skulls are not flattened or otherwise distorted; there is no scarification, or even tattooing; neither ears nor lips are pierced for pendants or labrets; the teeth are not filed or drilled, though in some cases at least the first incisors of females are extracted; and while there are trustworthy records of the piercing of the nasal septum for the insertion of pendants, no examples were found at Costa Rica in 1894. The food habits and other customs of the tribe indicate, or at least suggest, more or less specialized and perhaps distinctive internal characters; but, without actual examination of the organs, these inferred characters demand little more than passing notice.

[252] The term _Amerind_ (with the self-explanatory mutations _Amerindian, Amerindize,_ etc.) has been established by the Anthropological Society of Washington as a convenient collective designation for the aboriginal American tribes (American Anthropologist, new series, 1, 1899, p. 582).

* * * * *

On reviewing the more prominent somatic characters of the Seri, it is found that the greater number are either functional or presumptively correlated with function, and that only a few—chiefly stature and color—are simply structural; accordingly a comparison of the peculiar somatic features and the peculiar individual habits of the tribe would seem to be instructive in more than ordinary degree.

The most striking trait of the Seri is the pedestrian habit. The warriors and women and children alike are habitual rovers; their jacales and even their largest rancherias are only temporary domiciles, evidently vacant oftener than occupied; the principal rancherias are separated by a hard day’s journey or more; and none of the known rancherias or jacales of more persistent use are nearer than 4 to 10 miles from the fresh water by which their occupants are supplied. Probably the most persistently occupied rancherias of the last half century have been those located from time to time near Costa Rica, yet even these were seldom occupied by the same group for more than a fortnight or possibly a month, and were often vacated within a day or two after erection. Still more temporary camps intervene between jacales, and their sites may be seen in numbers in the neighborhood of the better-beaten paths, or along the shores, or even over the trackless spall-strewn plains; they may be merely trampled spots, sparsely strewn with oyster shells and large bones gnawed at the ends, usually in the lea of a shrub or rock; in places of small shrubbery or exceptionally abundant grass there may be two or three or perhaps half a dozen “forms” (suggesting the temporary resting places of rabbits), in which robust bodies nestled and shrugged themselves into the warm earth and under the meager vegetation. Rarely there are ashes and cinders hard by, to mark the site of a tiny fire, and more frequently battered and stained or greasy bowlders record their own use as meat-blocks or metates, though it is manifest that most of the camps were fireless and many foodless. It is particularly noteworthy that even the more temporary resting-places are seldom if ever less than a mile or two from the nearest fresh water. In short, the Seri are not a domiciliary folk, but rather homeless wanderers, customarily roving from place to place, frequently if not commonly sleeping where overtaken by exhaustion or storm, ordinarily slumbering through a part of the day and watching by night, habitually avoiding fresh waters save in hurried and stealthy visits, and apparently gathering in their flimsy huts only on special occasions.

In conformity with their rovingness the Seri are notable burden-bearers. They habitually carry their entire stock of personal belongings (arms, implements, utensils, and bedding), as well as their stock of food and—weightiest burden of all—the water requisite for prolonged sustenance amid scorching deserts, in all their wanderings, the water being borne chiefly by women, in ollas, either balanced on the head singly or slung in pairs on rude yokes like those of Chinese coolies. And they have never grasped the idea of imposing their burdens on their bestial associates; their coyote-curs are not harnessed or even led; when they surround and capture horses, burros, and kine they make no use of ropes, never think of mounting even when pursued by vaqueros, but immediately break the necks or club out the brains of the beasts, perchance to tear the writhing body into quarters and flee for their lives with the reeking flesh still quivering on their sturdy heads and brawny shoulders—and scores of vaqueros agree in the affirmation (wholly incredible as it would be if supported by fewer witnesses) that even when so burdened the Seri skim the sand wastes of Desierto Encinas more rapidly than avenging horsemen can follow.

* * * * *

The hardly conceivable fleetness of the Seri is conformable with their habitual rovingness and their ability as burden-bearers; and this faculty is established by cumulative evidence so voluminous and consistent as to outweigh the presumption arising from the standards attained among other peoples. A few minutes after they were photographed, the group of boys shown in plate XVI, with several others of about the same size, provided themselves with a stock of their favorite human-hair cords, “rounded up” a dozen mongrel coyote-dogs haunting the rancheria at Costa Rica, and herded the unwilling animals toward a shrubbery-free space a quarter of a mile away, in order to rope them in imitation of the work of the Mexican cowboys earlier in the morning. From time to time as they went a frightened cur sneaked or broke through the cordon of boys, and made for distant shrub-tufts at top speed; yet in every case a boy darted from the ring, headed off the animal within one or two hundred yards, and lashed it back to its place. On arriving at their miniature rodeo the boys widened their ring, and at a signal scattered and frightened the dogs; then, when the fleeing animals had a fair start, each selected his victim and followed it, yelling and swinging his light lasso, until, after much doubling and dodging and many unsuccessful casts, he caught and dragged the howling beast back to the open; and it was only after half a dozen repetitions that enough dogs had escaped to spoil the sport. As the boys lounged chattering back toward the rancheria their course lay between two clumps of the usual desert shrubbery, so placed that when the first was obliquely left and 40 or 50 feet distant from them, the other was obliquely right and 100 feet away. At this point a bevy of small birds (perhaps blackbirds—at any rate corresponding to blackbirds in size and flight) fluttered suddenly out of the nearer clump toward the more distant one, when, too instantaneously for the untrained eye to catch exchange of signal or beginning of movement, the boys lunged forward in a common effort to seize the birds; and though none were entirely successful, one exultantly displayed a tuft of feathers clutched by his fingers as the bird darted into and through the thorny harbor. When the distances were paced it was found that, although the birds had the advantage of the start, the boys covered at least 90 per cent of their distance in the same time; while the spontaneity of the impulse demonstrated habitual chase of flying game under fit conditions.

While obtaining the Seri vocabulary with Mashém’s aid, advantage was taken of every opportunity to secure collateral information concerning the actual use of the terms, and thereby of gaining insight into the tribal habits. Through his naive explanations, usually repeated and corroborated by the elderwoman of the Turtle clan (Juana Maria) and others of the tribe, it was learned that half-grown Seri boys are fond of hunting hares (jack-rabbits); that they usually go out for this purpose in threes or fours; that when a hare is started they scatter, one following it slowly while the others set off obliquely in such manner as to head it off and keep it in a zigzag or doubling course until it tires; and that they then close in and take the animal in their hands, frequently bringing it in alive to show that it was fairly caught—for it is deemed discreditable, if not actually wrong, to take game animals without giving them opportunity for escape or defense by exercise of their natural powers. Similarly, Mashém described the chase of the bura and other deer as ordinarily conducted by five persons (of whom one or two may be youths), who scatter at sight of the quarry, gradually surround it, bewilder it by confronting it at all points, and finally close in either to seize it with their hands, or perhaps to brain it with a stone or short club; the former being held the proper way and the latter a partial failure. This hunting custom, described as a commonplace by Mashém, is established by the vaqueros who had frequently witnessed it from a distance; and the same extra-tribal observers described still more striking feats of individual Seri hunters: Don Manuel, son of Señor Encinas, and Don Ygnacio Lozania were endeavoring to train to work a robust Seri (one of a band sojourning temporarily at Costa Rica) noted for his prowess in hunting. One hot afternoon he begged relief from his tasks, saying the spirit of catching a deer had hold on him; and he was excused on condition that the deer be brought entire to the rancho. Two hours later he was seen driving in a full-grown buck; on approaching the rancho the terrified animal turned this way and that, describing long arcs in wild efforts to avoid the human habitation; yet the hunter kept beyond it, heading it off at every turn and gradually working it nearer, until, at a sudden turn, he was able to rush on it; whereupon he caught it, threw it over his shoulders, and ran in to the rancho with the animal still struggling and kicking off its overheated hoofs.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XVIII

“JUANA MARIA,” SERI ELDERWOMAN]

Señor Encinas himself, with Don Andrés Noriega and several other attachés, vouch for the catching of a horse by a Seri hunter in still more expeditious fashion: one of the horses belonging to the rancho was exceptionally fat, and hence exceptionally tempting to the Seri band (and at the same time worthless to the vaqueros); the chief begged for it persistently until, wearied by his importunities, the ranchero offered the horse to the band on condition that a single one of them should catch it within a fixed distance (about 200 yards) from the gateway of the corral—and the offer was promptly accepted. With the view of making the test of fleetness fair, a vaquero was called in to frighten the horse and start him running around the interior of the corral, while a boy stood by to drop the bars at the proper moment, the Indian standing ready outside the gateway; when the animal had gained its best speed the bars were dropped and it bolted for the open plains—but before the 200-yard limit was reached the hunter had overtaken it, leaped on its withers, caught it by the jaw in one hand and the foretop in the other, and thereby thrown it in such manner as to break its neck. Knowing of these and other instances, L. K. Thompson, of Hermosillo, undertook arrangements for publicly exhibiting Seri runners as deer catchers at different expositions during the nineties; but his arrangements failed, chiefly because of the anticipated (and probably underestimated) difficulty of taming the Seri sufficiently for the purpose.

About 1893, Señor Encinas and several attendants left Costa Rica one morning for Hermosillo, leaving at the rancho, among others, a Seri matron with a sick child nearly a year old; in the evening (as they learned later) the child was worse, and the matron took the trail about dusk, in the hope of finding a cure in the white man’s touch or other medicine—and at dawn next morning she was at Molino del Encinas, 17 leagues (nearly 45 miles) away, with her helpless child and a peace offering in the form of a hare, which she had run down and caught in the course of the journey. And the matrons, with children astride their hips and water-filled ollas balanced on their heads, and all their goods and chattels piled on their backs, habitually traverse Desierto Encinas from the sea to Costa Rica (some 30 miles), or from Costa Rica to the sea, in a night.

Examples of Seri fleetness and endurance might be multiplied indefinitely, and many of still more striking character might be adduced; but these instances, all attested by several witnesses, all corroborated by independent facts, and all consistent with the observations of the 1894 expedition, seem fairly to represent one aspect of the pedestrian habit of the tribe.

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A trait of the Seri hardly less conspicuous than their pedestrian habit is habitual use of hands and teeth in lieu of the implements characteristic of even the lowly culture found among most primitive tribes. Perhaps the most nearly universal implement is the knife—at first of shell, tooth, bone, or wood, later of stone, and last of metal—and hardly a primitive tribe known from direct observation or from relics has been found independent of this most serviceable implement; yet the Seri may be described with reasonable accuracy as a knifeless folk. Awls and marlinspikes of bone and wood, shell cups, and protolithic mullers or hammers are found in numbers in their hands, on their rancheria sites, and in their ancient shell accumulations, while rudely chipped stone arrowpoints are sparsely scattered over their range; yet not a single knife of stone or other wrought substance has been found in their territory or in their possession, save for an occasional metal knife obtained by theft or barter. And the habit of dispensing with this primary implement is attested both by everyday customs and by the traditions and chronicles concerning the tribe. Thus, various observers (notably Hardy) have recorded the features and uses of balsas, harpoons, ollas, etc., yet no records of cutting implements have been found; similarly the chronicles contain records of barter between the Seri and the Sonorenses through which the savages acquired aguardiente, manta, garments, sugar, grain, etc., yet no record is known of the leading articles of exchange to practically all other tribes of the continent, viz., cutlery; and in like manner the local traditions recount the constant desire of the Seri for liquor and tobacco, saccharine and other food substances, clothing or material for making it, tin cups, lard-cans, and other metallic utensils, as well as nails for harpoons and hoop-iron for arrowpoints, in addition to firearms and ammunition; yet the recounters are significantly silent on the subject of knives.

Conformably, the 60 Seri gathered near Costa Rica in 1894 made it their business to pick up or beg all sorts of industrial products and materials, yet apparently did not possess so many as a dozen knives in the entire band; and while protolithic implements, ollas, shell cups, paint-stones, etc., were seen in constant use, none of the men, women, or children were observed to use knives for cutting meat or for any other customary purpose. Among the supplies laid on top of the jacal shown in plate X, to keep them out of the way of the dogs, was a hind leg of a horse, from femur to hoof (some three days dead and still ripening); most of the larger muscles were already gnawed away, leaving loose ends of fiber and strings of tendon clinging to the bone, the condition being such that the remaining flesh might easily have been cut and scraped away by means of a knife; yet whenever a warrior or woman or youth hungered he or she took down the heavy joint, squatted or sat on the ground with back to one side of the doorway, held the mass at the height of the mouth, and gnawed, sucked, and swallowed, frequently tearing the tissue by twisting and backward jerks of the head, and not only masticating, but swallowing the free ends of tendons still attached to the bone. This process was varied only by seizing with the hands and tearing off a strip of flesh or skin already loosened by the teeth; and it was continued until the bones were practically clean, when they were wrenched apart by the stronger men in order that the cartilaginous cushions and epiphyses might be gnawed away. The only approach to cooking or carving was a parboiling of the foot, after the leg was wrenched off at the hock, until the hoof was sufficiently softened to be knocked off with the protolithic hupf[253] shown in plate XLIII, when half a dozen matrons and well-grown maidens gathered about to gnaw the gelatinous tissue (already softened by incipient decay as well as by the parboiling) investing the coffin-bone. The entire procedure in this as in many other cases proclaimed the absence of knife-sense. The Caucasian huntsman does not have to think of his knife when game is to be bled or skinned or dissected; his habit-trained hand knows where to find the implement, how to seize it, and in most cases how to wield it advantageously; but the Seri hand possesses no such cunning, and uses the knife only clumsily and at second thought, if at all. The Seri huntsman, on the other hand, does not have to think of nails and teeth, for they are trained and coordinated by hereditary habit to spontaneously act in unison and with the utmost possible or needful vigor; while the Caucasian at least has completely lost the claw-and-teeth instinct of offense and defense.

[253] Defined postea, p. 188.

Conformably with their striking independence of knives, the Seri are conspicuously unskilful in all mechanical operations involving the use of tools. Their most elaborate manufacture is the balsa, made from reeds broken at the butts and with the leaves and tops removed by the hands or by fire, bound together with hand-made cords; next in elaborateness come the bow and arrow, normally made without cutting tools; then follows their fictile ware, which is made wholly by hand, without aid of the simple molds and paddles and other devices used by neighboring tribes; while their primitive fabrics were apparently of hand-extracted fibers, twisted and woven wholly by hand, with the aid of wood or bone in sewing and possibly in weaving. Practically the Seri possess but a single tool, and this is applied to a peculiarly wide variety of purposes—it is the originally natural cobble used for crushing bones and severing tendons, for grinding seeds and rubbing face-paint, for bruising woody tissue to aid in breaking okatilla poles for house-frames or mesquite roots for harpoons (both, afterward finished by firing), and on occasion for weapons; and this many-functioned tool is initially but a wave-worn pebble, is artificially shaped only by the wear of use, and is incontinently discarded when sharp edges are produced by use or fortuitous fracture. The hupf is supplemented chiefly by the simple perforator of mandible or bone or fire-hardened wood; and these two primitive implements, together with molluscan shells in natural condition, apparently serve as the primary tools for all the mechanical operations of the tribe.

The dearth of tools and the absence not only of knives but of knife-sense among the Seri illumine those traditions of Seri fighting made tangible by the teeth-torn arm of Jesus Omada; for they explain the alleged recourse of the Seri warriors to nature’s weapons, used in the centripetal fashion characteristic of nascent intelligence.

* * * * *

The Seri are distinguished by another trait hardly less striking than the pedestrian habit, and even more conspicuous than the tooth-and-nail habit with the correlative absence of tool-sense; the trait is not tangible enough for ready definition or description in terms (of course because so unusual as not to have bred words for its expression), but is akin to—or, more properly, an exceeding intensification of—race-pride in all its protean manifestations; it may be called _race-sense_. Like other primitive folk, the Seri are self-centered (or egocentric) in individual thought, i. e., they habitually think of the extraneous phenomena of their little universe with reference to self, as in the labyrinth of consanguineal relationship extending and ramifying from the speaker; furthermore, they typify primitive culture in their collective thinking, which is tribe-centered (or ethnocentric), i. e., they view extraneous things, especially those of animate nature, with reference to the tribe, like all those lowly folk who denote themselves by the most dignified terms in their vocabulary and designate aliens by opprobrious epithets; but the Seri outpass most, if not all, other tribes in dignifying themselves and derogating contemporary aliens. Concordantly with this habitual sentiment, they glory in their strength and swiftness, and are inordinately proud of their fine figures and excessively vain of their luxuriant locks—indeed, they seem to exalt their own bodies and their own kind well toward, if not beyond, the verge of inchoate deification. The obverse of the same sentiment appears in the hereditary hate and horror of aliens attested by their history, by their persistent blood-thirst, and by the rigorous marriage regulations adapted to the maintenance of tribal purity; for just as their highest virtue is the shedding of alien blood, so is their blackest crime the transmission of their own blood into alien channels. The potency of the sentiment is established by the unparalleled isolation of the tribe after centuries of contact with Caucasians, by their irreducible love of native soil, by their implacable animosity toward invaders, and by their rigorously maintained purity of blood; it is manifested in their commonplace conduct by a singular combination of hauteur and servility, forbidding association with aliens on terms of equality. The entire group at Costa Rica in 1894 were on good behavior, partly, no doubt, for profit, partly because they were at peace bought by bloodshed; yet they kept an impassable gulf between themselves and the Caucasians, and a still wider chasm against the Papago and Yaqui. They came to the tanque, usually in groups, rarely alone, always alert; especially when alone or in twos or threes, they moved slowly and stealthily in their peculiar collected and up-stepping gait, often stopping, always glancing furtively with roving eyes, and bearing a curious air of self-repression—as of the camp-prowling coyote who seems to hold down his instinctively bristling mane by voluntary effort. And the visitor to their rancheria sent a wave of influence before as his approach was noted; laughter ceased, languor disappeared, and a forced, yet sullen, amiability took their place, though the children and females edged away; if he appeared unexpectedly or came too close, the children and younger adults simply flitted like young partridges, while the elders stiffened rigidly, with bristling brows and everting lips and purpling eyes, perhaps accompanied by harsh gutturization—indeed the curiously canine snarl and growl, often evoked by the stranger unintentionally, betrayed the bitterness of Seri antipathy toward even the most tolerable aliens. Every human is panoplied in a personality, perhaps intangible but none the less real, which repels undue approach and fixes limits to familiarity on the part of strangers, friends, kinsmen, and mates, according to their respective degrees of mutually elective affinity; but the Seri are so close to each other and so far from all others that they are collectively panoplied against extra-tribal personalities even as are antipathetic animals against each other—and the Seri can no more control the involuntary snarl and growl at the approach of the alien than can the hunting-dog at sight or smell of the timber-wolf.

[Illustration: PL. XIX

THE HELIOTYPE PRINTING CO., BOSTON

TYPICAL SERI WARRIOR]

While the highly developed traits represented by pedestrian habit and hand-and-tooth habit and segregative habit expressing race-sense are conspicuous during exercise, each carries an equally well-marked obverse. Thus, while the Seri are known as runners par excellence in a region of runners, and were named by aboriginal neighbors from their spryness of movement, they have been no less notorious among the Caucasian settlers of two generations for unparalleled laziness—for a lethargic sloth beyond that of sluggish ox and somnolent swine, which was an irritating marvel to the patient padres of the eighteenth century, and is today a byword in the even-tempered Land of Mañana; concordantly the sinewy hands and muscular jaws are noticeably inert during the intervals between intense functionings, are practically free from the spontaneous or nervous movements of habitually busy persons, and contribute by their immobility to the air of indolence or languor which so impressed padres and rancheros; concordantly also, the manifestations of race hate, doubtless culminating among warriors on the warpath, are strongly contrasted with the abject docility of the Seri groups when at peace and in camp near Costa Rica and other ranchos—a docility far exceeding that of the Papago, whose personal dignity is an ever-present possession, or that of Yaqui, whose strong spirit so often breaks the curb of Caucasian control. So the observer of the Seri is impressed by the intensity of functioning along lines defined by their characteristic traits, and equally by the capriciousness of the functioning and the remarkably wide range between activity and inactivity which render them aggregations of extremes—the Seri are at once the swiftest and the laziest, the strongest and the most inert, the most warlike and the most docile of tribesmen; and their transitions from rôle to rôle are singularly capricious and sudden. At the same time the observer is impressed by the relatively long intervals between the periods of activity; true, the intense activity may cover hours, as in the chase of a deer, or days, as in a distant predatory raid, or perhaps even weeks, when the tribe is on the warpath; yet all the known facts indicate that far the greater portion of the time of warriors, women, and children is spent in idle lounging about rancherias and camps, in lolling and slumbering in the sun by day and in huddling under the scanty shelter of jacales or shrubbery by night—i. e., when