The Seri Indians. (1898 N 17 / 1895-1896 (pages 1-344*))

The mortuary food is carefully selected for appropriate qualities (i. e., for “strength” in the notion of the mourners). It comprises portions of turtle-flippers, and, if practicable, a chunk of charred plastron—the food substance especially associated with long and hard journeys—with a few fresh mollusks, and, judging from a single good example as well as from analogy, one or two scatophagic shells. The remains of a funerary feast are illustrated in figures 41 and 42, the latter being the scatophagic receptacle utilized apparently in the absence of the customary Noah’s ark. It may be significant that this shell is perforated at the apex, evidently by long wave-wear before utilization, and that the accompanying olla bears marks of having been broken, then repaired, and afterward perforated, as illustrated in the photo-mechanical reproduction (figure 39); for these features perhaps express that idea of “killing” mortuary sacrifices, ostensibly to fit them to the condition of the deceased, though really (in subconscious practicality) to protect the sepulcher from predation.330

Soon after the death (immediately after the burial, so nearly as could be ascertained) there is an apparently ceremonial mourning, in which the matrons of the clan, and, at least to some extent, the warriors also, participate. The mourners wail loudly, throw earth and ashes or ordure on their heads, and beat and bruise (but apparently avoid scarifying) their breasts, faces, and arms. This is continued, culminating daily about the hour of interment, for several days—unless the rancheria is sooner abandoned, in which case the period of formal mourning is shortened.

In addition to the formal mourning of matrons there is a custom of nocturnal wailing after the death of warriors in battle, and, apparently, also, following the death of matrons or nubile maidens, which attracts the notice of frontier rancheros and vaqueros. According to their accounts the first note of lamentation may be sounded at any hour of the night by any of the group to which the deceased belonged; it is successively taken up by other members of the party until all voices are united in a resounding chorus of inarticulate moans, wails, shriller cries, and wild howls, likened by the auditors to the blood-bellowing of cattle; if other groups of the tribesmen are within hearing, they, too, take up the cry, so that the lamentation may extend to the entire tribe and echo throughout practically all Seriland at the same moment. The fierce howling and attendant excitement may rise so high in the group in which the wailing begins that all seem bereft of customary caution; and sometimes they suddenly seize ollas and weapons, and decamp incontinently, perhaps scattering widely and racing for miles before settling again for sleep or watchful guard.

The ideas of the folk concerning death and concerning the relations between the living and the dead are largely esoteric, and are, moreover, veiled by the nonequivalence of Seri expressions with the terms of alien languages.

At least an inchoate belief in a life beyond the grave was intimated by Mashém and his companions at Costa Rica, and their circumspection of speech and mien indicated a strong veneration for, or dread of, the manes; though the specific expressions were connected with deceased matrons, who alone seemed to be prominent in the minds of the clan-mates. So far as could be gathered the belief seems to be that the dead find their way back to the primordial underworld, whence Earth and Beings were brought up by Pelican and Turtle (or Shark) respectively, and are liable to return by night with mischievous intent.

The direct expressions of the Seri informants are fully corroborated by the association of things in interior Seriland. The burial of water and food, of the personal fetishes and votive objects, and of the highly prized face-paint belonging to the dead matron, attests anticipation of a post-mortuary journey; while the temporary abandonment of jacales and rancherias and the nocturnal fears and flights alike betoken dread of sepulchral visitants. The most suggestive of the associations, i. e., between the scatophagic stores and the sepulchers, awaits full explanation.

Serial Place of Seri Socialry

In the conventional seriation of social development four stages are clearly recognizable, viz.: (1) Savagery, in which the social organization is based on blood kinship reckoned in the female line; (2) barbarism, in which the basis of organization is actual or assumed consanguinity reckoned in the male line; (3) civilization, in which the laws are based on property-right, primarily territorial; and (4) enlightenment, in which the organization is constitutional and rests on the recognition of equal human rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now, in terms of this seriation of general culture-stages, the place of the Seri tribe is clear. Reckoning consanguinity wholly in the maternal line, as they do, they belong in the initial stage of savagery. Accordingly they pertain to the lower or more primitive of the two great stages represented by the American aborigines.

A still more refined seriation may be effected through conspection of the several lines of activital development—the esthetic and industrial, and especially the sophic or fiducial, as well as the strictly social; for these lines are most intimately intertwined. Thus, in the Old World, the transition from maternal to patriarchal organization was accompanied, and evidently superinduced, by the development of zooculture into extensive herding; in different districts of the New World, a parallel transition attended the development of agriculture to a phase involving the protection of acequias and fields by armed men; while throughout primitive life, laws are formulated and enforced chiefly through appeals to the superphysical or mythologic. Now, review of the Seri esthetic indicates that the decorative concepts and activities are in large measure inchoate and are practically confined to a single manifestation, i. e., the delineation of totemic symbols primarily denoting zoic tutelaries and incidentally connoting the blood-carriers of clans consecrated to these beast-gods; so that the esthetic motives and devices of the tribe are essentially zoosematic. In like manner a considerable part of the technic of the tribe is zoomimic, as already shown, while even the most highly developed industrial activities occupy the biotic borderland of mechanical chance rather than the characteristic demotic realm of intellectual design. So, too, the faith of the folk is exclusively and overweeningly zootheistic, to the extent that every motion, every thought, every organized action, every law, every ceremony, is shaped with reference to mystical potencies vaguely conceived as a pantheon of maleficent beast-gods; and it is this dark and hopeless faith that gives character to the tribal esthetic and technic. Concordantly the faith finds reflection in the very elements of the social organization; the matron is the blood-carrier and the lawgiver not in and for herself but as the vicarious and visible exponent of an ever-immanent beast-god—the clan tutelary; her appeals to her brothers for administrative aid are precisely parallel to her intuitive passage from zoomimicry into the field of mechanical chance defined by protolithic implements; and the appeal, like the execution of the law either by herself or by her brothers, is controlled and regulated in absolute deference to the zoic pantheon. Thus, the inchoate tribal laws, expressed in habitual lines of action and modes of thought, are by no means conscious products of human wisdom, but are confidently imputed to a superhuman wisdom on the part of myth-magnified beasts of a mystical olden time; and, similarly, the power of executing these laws is by no means cognized as conscious human faculty, but is faithfully imputed to supernal potencies of mythical monsters. Essentially, therefore, the tribal law is putatively zoocratic; and the social organization may justly be classed as a putative zoocracy.

To prevent possible confusion, it may be desirable to note specifically that the Seri government is not matriarchal in any proper sense. As pointed out elsewhere, matriarchy is not (at least among the American aborigines) an antecedent of patriarchy, but a correlative of that form of government; and it would be especially erroneous and misleading to designate as matriarchal a tribe like the Seri, whose chiefs and subchiefs (i. e., appellate clan-administratives) are invariably masculine. Neither would it be just, despite the dominance of matrons in legislative and judicative matters, to regard the tribal government as a gyneocracy, such as have been noted in various parts of North America—e. g., in Sonora, according to a current tradition as to the origin of the name of the province, and among the Pomo Indians of California, according to Cronise as interpreted by Powers;331 for the actual control is exercised by the warrior brothers, while the ideal control is vested in that zoic pantheon of which the matrons are putative mouthpieces. Physically and practically the Seri government is an adelphiarchy, as already indicated; but in the minds of the tribesmen themselves it is an inchoate theocracy putatively headed by a pantheon of animate monsters, whose prelates are personified in the painted clanmothers.

Summarily, then, the Seri are zoosematic in esthetic, zoomimic in technic, zootheistic in faith, and putatively zoocratic in government, while even the Seri tongue is so largely mimetic or onomatopoetic in form as to accord with the industries and institutions; and in view of the intimate interrelations between the several lines of activity, it would seem preferable to determine the culture-status from the coincident testimony of all the lines, but feasible to measure it in terms of any one or more of these activital lines.

Now, on comparing the characteristics of the Seri with those of other known tribes of North America, many resemblances and a few differences are found; and practically all of the more conspicuous differences extend in the same direction—i. e., they combine to indicate an exceptionally primitive, or lowly, or zoic, plane for the simple savages of Seriland. Thus, few tribes are so poor in esthetic as the Seri, and in none other are the esthetic devices so clearly and so exclusively zoic; few if any other known tribes so clearly exemplify zoomimic culture; none other so well represents protolithic culture, and no other known tribe is so completely devoid of mechanical devices reflecting higher culture; in general socialry no other known tribe better, or indeed so well, exemplifies zoocracy, while in such special features as those of ethnogamic mating, ceremonial scatophagy, and mortuary magnification of the blood-carriers, the folk mark the most primitive known phase of cultural advancement; and although language and faith yield less definite measure, their testimony is coincident with that of the other lines of activity. Accordingly the Seri must be assigned to the initial place in the scale of cultural development represented by the American aborigines, and hence to the lowest recognized phase of savagery.

Two or three corollaries of this placement are noteworthy: (1) In most of the researches concerning human development conducted by the anthropologists of the world, attention has been given chiefly or wholly to the somatic or biotic characters of Homo sapiens; but while various physical features of the Seri suggest bestial affinities (as has been pointed out in an earlier chapter), it is especially significant that the nearest and clearest indications of bestial relationship are found in the psychical features of the lowly folk—for zoic faith in its multifarious manifestations is but a reflection of burgeoning yet still bestial mind.

(2) While human independence of environment culminates in socialry, the interdependence of activital lines so well revealed in lowest savagery demonstrates that institutions and all government necessarily reflect environment; and, at the same time, that the progressive emancipation from environment signalized in the higher culture-grades measures the conquest of Nature through industrial activity—for both the productive work and the attendant exercise cumulatively elevate sapient Man above mindless Nature.

(3) An adjunct of progress in every stage of development, as indicated with especial clearness in the earliest stages, is the annulment or curtailment of both physical and formal law, and the substitution of cumulatively growing volition: the development of the esthetic passes from the intuitive toward the ratiocinative, that of the industrial from the instinctive toward the inventive, and that of the social from the merely reflective to the vigorously constructive; with every pulse of progress the subservience to blind chance and imaginative figment diminishes; and with each increment of sound confidence the ability to surmount physical obstruction and to dispense with primitive formality is cumulatively augmented.

Language

The bases for definite knowledge of the Seri tongue are the five vocabularies described on other pages (13, 95, 97, 102, and 107).

The earliest of these vocabularies, comprising eleven terms, was collected in Hermosillo in 1850 by Señor Lavandera, presumably from the tribal outlaw Kolusio, and transmitted to Señor Ramirez for discussion. This pioneer vocabulary is superseded by those of later date.

The second Seri word-collection was made by Commissioner Bartlett at Hermosillo in 1852; it was obtained from Kolusio, and comprises some two hundred words.

The third vocabulary was obtained at Hermosillo during or about 1860, doubtless from Kolusio, by Señor Tenochio; it comprises about one hundred terms; it was discussed and published by Señor Pimentel, and served as a basis for the first scientific classification of the tribe and their collinguals.

The fourth Seri vocabulary was that obtained by M Pinart at Hermosillo in 1879, almost certainly from Kolusio; it comprises over six hundred words, with a few short phrases.

The latest word-collection is the Bureau (or McGee) vocabulary, obtained on the Seri frontier in 1894 through Mashém, subchief of the tribe; it comprises some three hundred vocables with a few short phrases, accompanied by explanatory notes.

The several collections are entirely independent: Lavandera’s record was made in Spanish, at the request of Ramirez; Bartlett was not aware of the earlier record, and wrote in English; Tenochio knew nothing of Bartlett’s work, was probably not aware of Lavandera’s, and wrote in Spanish; Pinart, though French in blood and mother-tongue, was fully conversant with Spanish, in which his record was made, and apparently knew nothing of the earlier vocabularies; while the Bureau recorder had not seen any of the earlier records and had shadowy knowledge of the existence of two of them only at the time of making his own.

Naturally the several vocabularies overlap to a considerable extent, and thus afford means of verification. Those of Bartlett, Tenochio, and Pinart, all obtained from the same informant, are notably consistent, despite the diversity in language on the part of the recorders; and their correspondence with the Bureau vocabulary is hardly less close (except for the comparative absence of terms for alien concepts in the latter record) than their agreement among each other. Accordingly, the linguistic collections, although far less full than would be desirable, are fairly satisfactory so far as vocables are concerned; but unhappily the few short phrases in the Pinart and Bureau collections are quite too meager to elucidate the grammatic structure of the language.

The aggregate number of vocables in the several records is some seven hundred. Of these over 97 per cent are apparently distinctive, presenting no resemblance whatever to any other known tongue. The remaining eighteen or twenty terms reveal resemblances to Aryan, Piman, Cochimi, or other alien languages; but of these the majority express Caucasian concepts, familiar enough to the outlaw informant, Kolusio, though generally unfamiliar to Mashém and to other actual inhabitants of Seriland.

A critical census brings out six vocables presenting phonetic correspondences with those of one or more Yuman dialects, viz., the terms for tongue, tooth, eye, head, blood, and wood or tree. Now, examination of these terms indicates that the first two probably, and the third and fourth possibly, are associative demonstratives rather of mechanical than of vocalic character—e. g., the terms for tooth and tongue are merely directive sounds accompanying the exhibition of the organs, so that while the terms may not be onomatopoetic in ordinary sense, they are instinctively mimetic or directive, in such wise as to indicate that they may well have arisen spontaneously and independently among different primitive peoples; also that they might easily pass from tribe to tribe as an adjunct of gesture-speech. The term for blood is still more decidedly mimetic of the sound of the vital fluid gashing from a severed artery, or of normal pulsation, so that it, too, must be classed as a term of spontaneous development. The Seri term for wood or tree has an apparent analogue, with somewhat different meaning, in the Cochimi alone; but since the knifeless Seri made practically no use of wood in their aboriginal condition, and since the early Jesuit records show that they sometimes transnavigated the gulf and came in contact with the wood-using Cochimi, it seems fair to assume that material and word were borrowed together. A similar suggestion arises in connection with the term for dog; although the Seri have lived from time immemorial in that initial stage of cotoleration with the coyote in which the adult animals are permitted to scavenger the rancherias, they were without domestic dogs until these animals were introduced into northwestern Mexico by the Spaniards, when they apparently absorbed the animal and its name at once from their eastern neighbors of the Piman stock—presumably the Opata, or possibly the Papago, with both of whom the Seri converts and spies were in frequent contact during the Jesuits’ régime at Opodepe, Populo, and Pitic.

In weighing the linguistic relations, it is to be remembered that the Seri are distinctive in practically every somatic and demotic character, that they are bitterly antipathetic to aliens, and that their race-sense is perhaps the strongest known. It is also to be remembered that they are zoosematic in esthetic, largely zoomimic in their primitive industries, putatively zoocratic in government, and overweeningly zootheistic in belief; that nearly all observers and recorders of their characteristics have been impressed by both the distinctiveness and the primitiveness of their speech; that this speech abounds in associative demonstratives and instinctive onomatopes to exceptional degree; that they class themselves as much more nearly akin to their bestial associates than to any alien tribe or people; and hence that their speech is necessarily zooglossic in considerable, if not unequaled, measure. It is to be remembered, too, that the law of activital coincidences finds fullest exemplification in lowest culture, as has been already shown, and as the zooglossic character of the Seri speech would imply; so that a considerable proportion of fortuitous resemblances might be anticipated. Finally, it is to be remembered that despite the extreme provinciality connected with their unparalleled race-sense, the folk have been in known contact with Caucasian and Amerind aliens for nearly four centuries, and have been steadily, albeit with exceeding slowness, absorbing alien activities and activital products.

In the light of the history and condition of the Seri, a summary of their vocabulary is of much interest. It is as follows:

On weighing this tabulation, in which no allowance is made for coincidences, it becomes evident that the Seri tongue is essentially discrete. The tabulation, accordingly, justifies and establishes the classifications of Pimentel and Orozco y Berra, under which the Seri, with their collinguals, are erected into a distinct linguistic stock.

Pending further research and the completion of the linguistic collections, it is deemed inexpedient to publish the Seri vocabulary in full, though the material has been compared, analyzed, and arranged systematically as was practicable by Mr J. N. B. Hewitt; and his comparative tables and discussions, which comprise all the terms suggesting affinity with Yuman and other aboriginal languages, are appended. His morphologic analyses and comparisons are especially noteworthy in that they demonstrate that the Seri language is essentially different in structural relations—or in its genius—from the Yuman tongues of neighboring territory.

COMPARATIVE LEXICOLOGY
[By J. N. B. Hewitt]

General Discussion

The members of a group of languages called Yuman are spoken in a region comprising a part of the peninsula of Lower California, the southern extreme of California, and the western portion of Arizona. In this group of languages ethnologists have hitherto included that spoken by the Seri Indians and their congeners. But the inclusion of this language rests apparently upon evidence drawn from data insufficient in extent and largely imperfect and doubtful in character. In the following pages this evidence is examined, and the conclusion is reached that it does not warrant the inclusion of the Seri tongue in the Yuman group. The same is true with regard to the Waïkuri (Guaicuri) language, which has been erroneously, it would seem, included in the Yuman stock; for, judging from present available data, it should remain independent until further research shall decide whether it constitutes a stock in itself or belongs to some other stock.

Moreover, it appears that the principle has been disregarded which requires that, in making lexic comparisons to determine the fact and degree of relationship between one language and another, those vocables having admittedly a common linguistic tradition be carefully and systematically studied before they are juxtaposed to those other terms whose kinship with them is still matter for ascertainment. So comparative lists have been prepared in accordance with this principle.

Now, one of the most important things revealed by the study of language is that the course of anthropic linguistic development has been from the use of polysematic demonstratives, or what are called pronominative elements by Professor McGee, toward the evolution and differentiation of parts of speech. These vocables, which occur in all languages, are of prime importance in linguistic research because they are chiefly vestigial in character. Presumptively embodying the indefinite thought-clusters of the anthropoid stage in glottic evolution, they project into the speech of the present (the anthropic stage) an outline or epitome of that earlier pronominative plane of thought and speech development. These pronominative elements represent a complex of ideas, comprising person, place, direction, number, time, mode, gender, sex, and case (or relation). In the Iroquoian tongue the pronominative prefix ra-, “he”, signifies “one person of the anthropic gender, male sex, singular number, nominative case, there, now”. Professor McGee in The “Beginnings of Mathematics,” speaking of the paramount egoistic basis of the thought of primitive men, well says: “They act and think in terms of a dominant personality, always reducible to the Ego, and an Ego drawn so large as to stand for person, place, time, mode of action, and perhaps for raison d’être—it is Self, Here, Now, Thus, and Because.”

Now, there are in nature actions, bodies, properties, and qualities requiring definite expression to give clearness and concision to speech, and this need gradually led to the development and use of conceptual expressions resulting in gradual restriction of the multiplication of, and diminution in the number of, pronominative elements. Speech became specific rather than monophrastic and indefinite, and sought to express individual concepts by terms of definite meaning rather than by phrases involving a plurality of concepts and indefiniteness. The monophrasm or pronominative element expressive of several individual ideas is resolved not by a division of the body of the element, but rather by the addition of elements denotive (though primarily connotive) of action, which had been previously wholly or in part symbolized by the pronominative element, or in part inferred from the situation.

Thus it may be seen that these pronominative elements, miscalled pronouns, are not substitutes for nouns, but that the converse statement is the truer one. These elements have been classed together as forming a part of speech in the same category with the noun and the verb; but it has been seen that the pronominative is not at all a part of speech, involving semantically within itself the distinct concepts of several so-called parts of speech. To make this plain, take from the highly differentiated English tongue the following sentences: “I will give you to her. What can it be? The elk is one of the most timid animals that walk.” In the first, I, you, and her respectively show the relation of the three persons indicated, not only to the act of giving but also to the act of speaking, a function that does not belong to nouns; without change of form they express what is called person, number, case, and sex. And it would be extremely difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to supply the nouns for which what in the second and that in the third are substitutes; for in the last, not even a noun and a conjunction will answer. Such in part are the concepts for which the pronominative elements stand and which give them such great vitality.

Along with these pronominative elements go the numerals, which were primarily the products of a process of cancellation of common factors from original expressions connoting the required number; and so when once the abbreviated expressions became usual there was no disposition to displace them, and increasing use making them more definite, rendered them more and more permanent. This in brief is the chief cause of the obstinate persistency of numerals in all known languages. An examination of the accompanying lists of number-names will greatly aid in understanding what is meant. The late Professor Whitney, when discussing these elements in the Aryan or Indo-European family, uses the following instructive language:

“When, however, we seek for words which are clearly and palpably identical in all or nearly all the branches of the family, we have to resort to certain special classes, as the numerals and the pronouns. The reason of this it is not difficult to point out. For a large portion of the objects, acts, and states, of the names for which our languages are composed, it is comparatively easy to find new designations. They offer numerous salient points for the names-giving faculty to seize upon; the characteristic qualities, the analogies with other things, which suggest and call forth synonymous or nearly synonymous titles, are many. * * * But for the numerals and the pronouns our languages have never shown any disposition to create a synonymy. It was, as we may truly say, no easy task for the linguistic faculty to arrive at a suitable sign for the ideas they convey; and when the sign was once found, it maintained itself thenceforth in use everywhere, without danger of replacement by any other of later coinage. Hence, all the Indo-European nations, however widely they may be separated and however discordant in manners and civilization, count with the same words and use the same personal pronouns in individual address—the same, with the exception, of course, of the changes which phonetic corruption has wrought upon their forms.”332

And it is on account of the great vitality and persistency of these two groups of vocables that the pronominative elements and the numerals have been given first place in the comparison between the Seri and the Yuman tongues to determine relationship or want of relationship between the two languages.

Comparative Lists of Serian and Yuman Pronouns

In the pronominal lists the eight pronominatives I, we, thou, ye, he, they, that, and this are compared. The comparison reveals no satisfactory evidence of relationship between the two tongues represented therein. In the list headed “Thou”, there is, it is true, a vague resemblance between some of the examples cited; but this is the extent of the agreement among the pronominative elements.

Along with these pronominal lists comparative tables of fifty conceptual terms have also been made. The vocables have been subjected to a discriminating analysis which fails to show any trustworthy evidence of genetic relationship between the Seri and the Yuman languages. These tables will be found at the end of the numeral lists.

The comparative pronominal lists follow:

Vocabulary Lists of Serian Numerals

The following comparative table of Serial numerals represents all the accessible number-names in existing records of Serian linguistic material. M Pinart records two lists of number-names from “one” to “ten”, and says of the first list, “Quando se cuenta seguido”, for counting consecutively.

It will be of interest to note the fact that the forms of the digit “eight”, in the vocabularies of Professor McGee and Mr Bartlett, with the latter’s “eighteen”, differ wholly from the elements representing “eight” in their terms for “eighty”. The term employed by them is recorded by M Pinart in his second list and also by Sr Pimentel. Another peculiarity to be noted in the vocabulary of Mr Bartlett is the fact that for the numbers “thirteen” and “eighteen” he writes the same form. The latter is evidently miswritten, as the two are composed of identical elements. The explanation of this seems to be that in the former there is a subaudition of the element “ten”, and in the latter of the element “fifteen”.

It is equally instructive to mark the fact that the terms denoting “two, three, four, five” retain or preserve their fuller forms in their multiples, as in “twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty”.

The lists follow:

Vocabulary Lists of Yuman Numerals

Comparative Lists of Serian and Yuman Numerals

ONE

In examining the Serian column, it is apparent that the several forms for the numeral “one” are homogeneous, their varying outlines being due to the language of the collector, and especially to the alphabet employed by him. An apparently aberrant form is the tashsho (C) and taso for tashsho (D). The stem of the digit is presumptively to`χ- or tokχ-; and tash- is related to tokχ- in the same manner as duchess is to duke in the English tongue.

The Yuman column is more extensive than the Serian, representing as it does several well-marked dialects. It will be seen that the Diegueño terms for the digit “one” collected by Mr Bartlett (15) and Lieutenant Mowry (16) are evidently from a common stem, while that recorded by Dr Loew (14) is as clearly from a different one. But the Diegueño term (24) obtained by Bartlett near Los Angeles is apparently a modified form of the one obtained by Dr Loew. The two forms (25) obtained by Mr Henshaw at Mesa Grande confirm this view. While these forms apparently differ wholly from the remainder of the Yuman list, yet it seems safe to connect them with the Cochimi digit (I) collected by Dr Gabb. On the other hand, the Cochimi of Bartlett (II) introduces another term which appears to be kin to the Laymon (III, IV). The remainder of this list presents modified forms of a single vocable, which appears to have been a demonstrative. Compare these with Mohave asě´ntěnte, “an other”, and sěnta, “the other one”; also with the Yavapai sĭ´temi, “an other”, and with děspě-bĭka, “other, the other one”.

TWO

The Serian examples of the digit “two” are of such phonetic character as to warrant the inference that they are derivatives from a single phrasm of demonstrative origin, the differences in their orthography being due chiefly to the language and training of the collectors and to the difference in the alphabets employed. There is evidently phonetic and sematic relationship between the stem of this digit and the -kak in such demonstrative elements as ish-kak, “here (where I am), now, then”; ikχ´-kaka, “near”; imk-ahaka for imk-kaka, “there where he, she, is, they are”; akki-kak, “whither? to-where? whence?“; toχ´-kaka, “far, distant, far off”; and also with iki in akki-iki, “where?”. In these examples the affix akki- has an interrogative force. The meaning of -kak is that of contiguity or proximity to the Here, the Self.

Now, the fuller Yuman list presents several forms seemingly closely accordant, phonetically at least, with the Serian terms, but these being merely divergent representatives of the distinctively Yuman term which does not accord with the Serian form, are of no avail to prove relationship. The available material pertaining to this group supplies but scant data for ascertaining the derivation of the Yuman digit. But, in addition to the connection of the Laymon gowac, with kawam, “the other”, it may be that it is permissible to compare here owá (2), “that” in Tonto, the Mohave huvá-nya (6), “he, that”, the Hummockhave howa-nméeme (8), “he”, and howai (8), “that”, the Mohave huva-tce (9), “he”, the Kutchan habu-itzk (12), “he”, the Kiliwi hapa (23), “he”, and other terms, which suggest its origin. From the foregoing explanations, there appears to be no lexic relationship between the Serian and the Yuman digits denoting “two”.

THREE

The Serian forms of the name for the digit “three” are evidently derivatives from a single term. This vocable appears to be emahk, “one-half” (McGee), found also in the name for the middle finger as given by both Professor McGee and M Pinart, the former writing ŭnulte-mŭ´ka`p, and the latter inol´l´emakkap, “middle finger”. In the Iroquoian languages also, “three” is etymologically “the middle one”, i. e., the middle finger, a signification arising from the primitive method of using the fingers as counters in numeration. The middle finger is the third one counting from either side of the hand. The form kapχ´a (C) of M Pinart apparently retains almost unchanged its primitive phonetic outline.

The Yuman list of the dialectic forms of the digit “three” is full and is evidently composed of derivatives from a single source. This parent stem seems to be the attributive hami, “tall, long”, of the Mohave vocabulary. The form hamiak signifies “it is long, tall”, and is an appropriate name for the middle finger of the hand. The Kiliwee ẖamiak, “three”, still preserves unchanged the phonetic integrity of its component elements. These etymologies fail to develop any lexic relationship between the Serian and the Yuman terms.

FOUR

The Serian examples of the digit “four” are evidently mere variants of a common original, the derivation and signification of which the meager linguistic material at hand seems not to supply. In no manner do these forms accord with those of the Yuman list below, thus barring any inference of relationship.

The Yuman list presents apparently only three different terms for the digit “four”. Without the means of obtaining even a partially accurate view of the historical development of such a form as the Mohave chaimpap´k (8), it is nevertheless instructive to compare it with the Cochimi ic̲h̲kyum-kooak (I), the literal meaning of which is “two repeated”. This apparently gives a clew to both the derivation and signification of the Mohave term. The initial chiam- is seemingly a modified form of the prefix ic̲h̲kyum-, signifying “repeated, again, iterated”. If this identification be correct, as it certainly seems to be, then the final -pap´k is the duplicated form of the numeral “two”, the variants of the stem of which are as follows: hub-, hob-, hav-, and hab-. This chaim- changes to cha-, che-, choom-, chu-, chuum-, styum-, tcim-, tchi-, ch’-, s’-, and tchung-, while pap’k appears as pop, pap, and papa. The next stem is that of the Tonto hôba (2), which is apparently cognate with the verb hobam, “to set, lie down”, like the sun and moon, referring to the fact that when the fingers are “all lying down” the count is “four”. The following six terms are apparently cognate with this Tonto form. The Cochimi (I) has already been mentioned. Its final kooak is the numeral “two”, and the prefix, as explained above, signifies “repeated, again, iterated”. The next two forms (II) and (III) are apparently composed of the iterative, or rather additive, prefix maga-, “added, over”, and a form of the Cochimi numeral “two”, goguò. The Kiliwi mnok signifies “lying together, closed”, as the fingers, thus approximating in sense the Tonto hôba, above.

FIVE

The several forms of the Serian numeral “five” appear to be derivatives from a common original. There seems to be no doubt that it is a compound expression, meaning “one full, complete (hand)”. The final -tūm, -t’hom, -tom, and -ton are evidently forms of tó`χun, tohom, tokχom, meaning “one”, while the initial kwáe-, huava-, (kova- in “fifty”), kooχ-, and kou- are apparently derived from the term kov’, occurring in ishshaχ´ kov’, “full, complete moon”.

In the Yuman list, however, there are several different stems employed to designate the digit “five”. The forms sarap, seráp, harabk, and hairrap’k are clearly variants of a single original. Its literal signification, however, is not so evident, but from the data at hand the inference is warranted that it signifies “entire, whole, complete”. In the Mohave of Dr Corbusier hi-sal koçar̃ápa signifies “the whole hand”, and “fingers”, koçar̃ápa being also written kothar̃ápa. Now, hi-sal means “his hand”, and koçar̃ápa or kothar̃ápa would soon lose its initial ko-, from the wear to which it is subjected. In hatábuk, hûtápa, and satabé a new stem is to be recognized; it signifies “to grasp”, or rather “grasps”, and is found in aauwa sataba, “fire-tongs”, in which, aauwa means “fire” and sataba “to hold, take hold”. The reference here is to the clasped hand as signifying the digit “five”, because in counting the fingers are bent down upon the palm of the hand, the result being a closed or clasped hand. Now, in selkh-akai and sol-chepam, a form of the usual säl, “hand”, occurs, and -akai and -chepam have presumptively a signification semantically equivalent to koçar̃apa and sataba in the preceding Yuman examples, but the meagerness of the material at hand prevents the setting forth of the data necessary to prove this conjecture; yet it may be stated that if the term “hand” is a constituent element of the name for the digit “five”, it is because of the fact that the fingers and the thumb thereof are in number “five”, so that “the entire hand, the whole hand, the complete hand”, may become the name for the digit “five”. Hence, when the word hand is an element of the name thereof, as it is in the present instance, it is presumptively certain that some word like “entire, complete, whole, clasped, bent down”, must form the other element of the compound. The Cochimi (II) muguacogüi is seemingly a combination of mugua for the cognate humuga, “three”, and cogüi for goguó, “two”. And the Cochimi (I) nyakivampai is a compound of gi-nyak, “hand” [mi-nyak, foot], and some element denoting the completion of the count of the digits of one hand, -i-vampai or vampai. The Cochimi (III) and (IV) are self-explanatory, naganna, signifying “hand”, while Laymon (IV) is not explainable from the accessible data. These analyses fail to show genetic relationship between the two lists, in so far as the digit “five” is concerned.

SIX