A typical specimen of intermediate size, used commonly as an ahst, but susceptible of employment as a hupf, is illustrated (natural size) in plates XXXV and XXXVI.296 It is a hard, tough, hornblende-granite or greenstone, with a few structure-lines brought out by weathering and wave-wearing. Its weight is 4 pounds 10 ounces (2.10 kilograms); its form and surface are entirely natural, save for slight battering shown on the two principal faces and still less conspicuous bruises along one edge (as imperfectly shown toward the left of plate XXXV). The specimen was found in a jacal (illustrated in plate VI) on Rada Ballena, within a few hours after abandonment, in the position in which it was hastily left by the last users; it was smeared with blood and fat (which still remain, as is shown in plate XXXV) and bits of flesh, and bore bloody finger prints of two sizes—those of a man and those of a woman or large child; beside it lay the hupf depicted in plate XLII. In its last use the unwieldly cobble served as an ahst, but the markings on the edge record use also as a hand implement.

A functionally similar implement is illustrated in plate XXXVII (on reduced scale; maximum length 8¼ inches=21.0 cm.). It is of tough but slightly vesicular and pulverulent volcanic tuff, pinkish-buff in color, and weighs 4 pounds 1 ounce (1.84 kilograms). The form and surface are almost wholly natural, save for slight battering about the larger end and severer battering, with the dislodgment of a flake, about the thinner end; yet the faces are smeared with blood and grease and flecked with turtle debris, and bear a few marks of hupf blows, as is shown in the reproduction. This specimen was found at a temporary camp of a small party on Punta Miguel, where it had been used in breaking up a turtle—the camp having been abandoned so precipitately that a considerable part of the quarry, with this hupf, the ahst illustrated in plate LIV, the turtle-harpoon shown in figure 20, the half-made fire, and the fire-sticks used in kindling it, were left behind. The specimen is a good example of the cobbles carried into portions of the territory lacking the material (the camp at which it was found was on the great sandspit forming the eastern barrier of Boca Infierno, several miles from the nearest pebbly shore); it is of less specific gravity than the average rocks of the region, and looks still lighter by reason of its color and texture. Similar cobbles abound along the eastern coast of Tiburon, being derived from the immense volcanic masses of Sierra Kunkaak.

About the more permanent rancherias and on many abandoned sites lie ahsts usually too heavy for convenient transportation. In the habitable jacales such stones form regular household appurtenances, without which the menage is deemed incomplete; though the implement is commonly kicked about at random, often buried in debris (perhaps to be completely lost, and brought to light only by geologic changes, as demonstrated by the shell-heap of Punta Antigualla), and pressed into service only in case of need. An exceptionally well-worn specimen of the kind is illustrated in plate XXXVIII (scale one-half linear; maximum width measured on base, 9¼ inches=23.5 cm.). The material is a hard, ferruginous, almost jaspery quartzite, somewhat obscurely laminated. It weighs 10 pounds 11 ounces (4.85 kilograms). It is a natural slab, evidently from a talus rather than the shore, its native locus being probably the western slope of Sierra Seri. The edges and apex are formed by natural fractures; the most-used face (that shown in the plate) is a natural structure plane; the obverse side is partly a similar plane, partly irregular; while the base is an irregular fracture, evidently due to accident after the specimen had been long in use, though the fracture occurred years or decades ago, as indicated by the weathering of the surfaces. The entire face of the slab is worn and more or less polished by use as a metate, the wear culminating toward the center of the base (evidently the center of the original slab), where the hollowing reaches some three-sixteenths of an inch (5 mm.); yet even in the depths of the incipient basin the polished surface is broken by irregular pitting of a sort indicating occasional use as an anvil. The edges are quite unworn, but the smoother portion of the obverse is worn and polished like the face, though to a less degree. The specimen was found at a recently occupied jacal, midway between Punta Antigualla and Punta Ygnacio; it lay in the position of use, though half concealed by a cholla thrown over it, with the hupf shown in plate LVI; it was soaked with fat and smeared with the debris and intestinal contents of a turtle, as partly shown in the illustration.

The largest ahst seen in Seriland is illustrated in plates XXXIX and XL, on a scale of one-third linear (its maximum length being 15⅜ inches=39.5 cm.); it is a dark, fine-grained silicious schist or quartzite, quite obscurely laminated; it weighs 33 pounds 8 ounces (15.20 kilograms). It is a natural slab, probably washed from a talus and slightly wave-worn; it might have come originally from either the southwestern flanks of Sierra Seri or the more southerly half of Sierra Kunkaak—certainly hundreds of similar slabs strew the eastern shore of Bahia Kunkaak, while the western shore, especially about Punta Narragansett, would yield thousands. Its artificial features (aside from miscellaneous battering) are limited to grinding of the two faces defined by structure planes. The principal face is abraded into an oblong or spoon-shape basin, about 8 inches (20 cm.) long, 5 inches (16 cm.) broad, and fully three-fourths of an inch (2 cm.) deep, the basin penetrating two or three laminæ of the slab in such wise as to produce the annular markings faintly shown in plate XXXIX; the obverse is slightly rubbed and ground and somewhat battered, like the face of the preceding specimen; and both sides are flecked with a fine but dark flour-like substance (doubtless derived from grinding mesquite beans, etc.) forced into the texture of the stone by the grinding process. The entire slab is greasy and blood-stained, while battered spots about the edges and angles of the principal face record considerable use as an anvil for breaking up quarry—indeed, shreds of turtle flesh and bits of intestinal debris still lodge in some of the interstices. The specimen was taken from the old rancheria at the base of Punta Tormenta, where it had apparently been in desultory use for generations.

A sort of connecting link between ahst and hupf is afforded by elongate beach pebbles, such as that illustrated in plate XLI, which lay beside the large ahst last described, and which bears a few inconspicuous marks of use in slight battering at both ends, with a few shreds of turtle flesh about the blunter extremity (at the right on the plate). The specimen is shown natural size; it is of pinkish-gray trachyte (?), and weighs 1 pound 12 ounces (0.79 kilograms). It is noteworthy chiefly as an illustration of the Seri mode of seizing and using hand-implements (a mode repeatedly observed at Costa Rica in 1894); the pebble comfortably fits the Caucasian hand, held hammerwise; it is intuitively grasped in this way, and when so seized and used with an outward swing forms an effective implement for bone-crushing, etc., the natural striking-point being near the free end; but the centripetally moving Seri invariably seizes the specimen in such manner that the free end is directed inward, while the thumb laps over the grasped end, when the strokes are directed downward and inward, the striking-point being the extreme tip of the free end. A similar specimen is illustrated in plate XLII. It is of tough and homogeneous hornblende-granite, somewhat shorter and broader than its homologue, but of exactly the same weight; it, too, is battered at the ends, but is otherwise quite natural in form. It was collected at Rada Ballena in conjunction with the ahst illustrated in plate XXXV; and like that specimen it is soaked with blood and fat, and bore shreds of flesh when found. Both these elongate cobbles are of interest as representatives of a somewhat aberrant type; for the favorite form of hupf is shorter and thicker, as shown by the prevailing shapes, both in use and lying about the jacales—indeed, the elongate form is seldom used on the coast and never carried into the interior.

A typical hupf is illustrated in plate XLIII. The specimen is of fine-grained, dense, and massive quartzite, its homogeneity being interrupted only by a thin seam of infiltrated silica and by an obscure structure-plane brought out by weathering toward the thinner end. Its weight is 1 pound 14 ounces (0.85 kilogram). In general form and surface the specimen is an absolutely natural pebble, such as may be found in thousands along the shores of Seriland. Its artificial features are limited to slight battering about the edges, especially at the thinner end; partial polishing of the lateral edges by repeated handling (as imperfectly shown in the edge view); very perceptible polishing of both faces by use as a grinder; some fire-blackening on both sides; semisaturation with grease and blood; and the flecks of red face-paint shown in the reproduction. The specimen was obtained at Costa Rica after some days’ observation of its use. The chief observed functions of this implement were as follows: (1) Skinning the leg of a partially consumed horse; this was done by means of centripetal (i. e., downward and inward) blows, so directed that the thinner end fell obliquely on the tissue, bruising and tearing it with considerable rapidity. (2) Severing tough tendons already sawed nearly through by rubbing over the edge of an ahst, the hupf in this case being in the hands of a coadjutor and used in rather random strokes whenever the tissue seemed particularly refractory. (3) Knocking off the parboiled hoof of a horse to give access to the coffinbone. (4) Crushing and splintering bones to facilitate sucking of the marrow. (5) Grinding mesquite beans; the process being begun by vertical blows with the end of the implement on a heap of the pods resting on an ahst, continued by blows with the side, and finished by kneading and rubbing motions similar to those of grinding on a metate. (6) Pounding shelled corn mixed with slack lime, in a ludicrously futile attempt to imitate Mexican cookery. (7) Chopping trees; in this case the implement was grasped in the centripetal manner and used in pounding and bruising the wood at the point of greatest bending under the pull of a coadjutor. (8) Cleaving and breaking wood for fuel. (9) Dethorning okatilla stems, by sweeping centripetal strokes delivered adzwise from top toward butt of a bunch of stems lying on the ground. (10) Severing a stout hair cord; in this use it was grasped between the knees of a matron squatting on the ground, while the cord was held in both hands and sawed to and fro over the use-roughened thinner end. (11) Supporting a kettle (shown in plate X) as one of the fire-stones used in frontier mimicry of the Papago custom. (12) Triturating face-paint by pounding and kneading; in one case the specimen served as a hand implement, while in another case it took the place of the ahst, the ocher lump itself being struck and rubbed against it. (13) Beating a troop of dogs from a pile of bedding in a jacal; in this use the implement was held in the customary manner and used in swift centripetal blows, the matron relying on her own swiftness and reach and not at all on projection to come within reach of her moving targets; the blows usually landed well astern, and were so vicious and vigorous as to have killed the agile brutes had they chanced to fall squarely—indeed, one blow temporarily paralyzed a large cur, which escaped only by running on its fore feet and dragging its hind quarters. In most of these uses the specimen was employed in conjunction with an improvised ahst in the form of a stone carried from the rancho. Several of the processes, notably those of tissue-tearing and dog-beating, were executed with a vigor and swiftness quite distinct from the sluggish lounging of the ordinary daytide and, indeed, partaking of the fierce exaltation normal to the Seri chase. When not in use the implement usually lay just within the open end of the owner’s jacal, though it was often displaced and sometimes kicked about the patio for hours. It was one of perhaps a dozen similar implements brought across the desert from the coast by as many matrons. All were regarded as personal belongings pertaining to the custodians about as definitely as articles of apparel, though rather freely loaned, especially in the owner’s clan. The specimen was purchased from the possessor, who parted from it rather reluctantly, though with the tacit approval of her clanswomen, at a rate implying considerable appreciation of real or supposed value. Three or four other matrons declined to barter their hupfs, either arbitrarily or on the plea that they were a long way from the source of supply.

A common variety of hupf is illustrated in plate XLIV. It is of pinkish, slaty tuff of rather low specific gravity, somewhat vesicular and pulverulent, though moderately hard and tough. It weighs 17 ounces (0.48 kilogram). In form and surface it is essentially a wave-worn pebble, doubtless derived originally from the volcanic deposits of Sierra Kunkaak. Its artificial markings are limited to slight battering about the edges, especially at the thinner end (as shown in the edge view); slight rubbing, striation, and semipolishing of the smoother face (shown in the plate); a few grease spots and a stain showing use in crushing sappy vegetal matter, also on this face; and an inconspicuous fire-mark on the obverse. It was found in a recently abandoned jacal near Campo Navidad. It is one of the three tuff specimens among those collected, one of a dozen or two seen; perhaps 10 per cent of the implements observed in Seriland are of this material, and it is significant that this ratio is several times larger than the proportion of tuff pebbles to the entire paving of the beaches, so that the material seems to be a preferred one. The preference was indeed discovered at Costa Rica in 1894, where two or three of the more highly prized hupfs were of this material, and where vague intimations were obtained that it is especially favored for meal-making, doubtless by reason of the association of color and texture—associations that mean much to the primitive mind, perhaps in suggesting that the grinding is easier when done by a soft implement. An economic reason for the preference is easily found in the lower specific gravity, and hence the greater portability of a hupf of ordinary size, of this material; but there is nothing to indicate that this economic factor is weighed or even apperceived by the Seri.

A typical pebble bearing slight marks of use is illustrated in plate XLV. It is of fine-grained pinkish sandstone, probably tuffaceous, and is fairly hard and quite tough; it weighs 1 pound 9 ounces (0.71 kilogram). It is wholly natural in form and surface save for slight battering or pecking on the face illustrated, and for a few stains of grease and abundant marks of fire. It was found in a fire still burning (and abandoned within a half-hour, as indicated by other signs) two or three miles inland from Punta Granita on the Seri trail toward Aguaje Parilla, whither it had evidently been carried from the coast.

A fairly common material for both hupfs and ahsts is highly vesicular basalt grading into pumice stone, the material corresponding fairly with a favorite metate material among the Mexicans. The rock was not certainly traced to its source, but seems to come from the northern part of Sierra Kunkaak. A typical hupf of this material is shown in plate XLVI; it weighs 1 pound 13 ounces (0.82 kilogram). It is wholly natural in every respect save for slight grinding and subpolishing, with some filling of interstices, on both faces. From the slight wear of this specimen, together with the absence of battering, and from similar features presented by others of the class, it maybe inferred that implements of this material are habitually used only for grinding—for which purpose they are admirably adapted. The specimen emphasizes the importance of the hupf in Seri thought, for it was one of a small series of mortuary sacrifices from a tomb at Pozo Escalante (ante, p. 290).

Throughout the surveys of Seriland, constant search was made for cutting implements of stone; and the nearest approach to success was exemplified by the specimen illustrated in plate XLVII. It is of bluish-gray volcanic rock (not specifically identified) of close texture and decided toughness and hardness; it weighs 10 ounces (0.28 kilogram). In greater part its form and surface are natural, but a projecting portion brought out by weathering on one side is split off, presumably by intention, and the fractured surface thus produced is partly smoothed by rubbing, probably in use, though possibly by design. The edges are more or less battered, especially at the ends, and several rude flakes have been knocked off, evidently at random and presumably in ordinary use as an ahst. The smoother face is wholly natural. The specimen was picked up in a jacal at Rada Ballena, but bore no marks of recent use.

A tuff implement of suggestively ax-like form is shown in plate XLVIII; it is firmer and less pulverulent but more vesicular than most implements of its class; it weighs but 7 ounces (0.20 kilogram). The specimen was picked up in a ruinous jacal, which had evidently been occupied temporarily within a fortnight, on the summit of the great shell-mound forming Punta Antigualla. The somewhat indefinite texture and color render it difficult to distinguish between natural and artificial features; but careful examination indicates that it is wholly natural in form and in nine-tenths of the surface, and that the ax-like shape expresses nothing more than accidents of structure and wave-work. This interpretation is practically established by the slight battering along the edges and about the smaller end, as illustrated in the edge view; for this wear of use, which has produced a distinctive surface, is practically absent from the notches which give the ax-like effect. Besides the battering, the only artificial marks are ancient fire-stains on one of the faces. On the whole it is clear that the artificial appearance catching the eye at first glance is purely fortuitous, and that the specimen is but a natural pebble very slightly modified by ordinary use.

A suggestive specimen is illustrated in plate XLIX; it is of purplish-gray granitoid rock, of decided toughness and considerable hardness, and weighs 12½ ounces (0.35 kilogram). The surface and general form indicate that it is a natural pebble entirely without marks of artificial use; but the regular curvature of the principal face (the shape is that of a segment of a cylinder rounded toward the ends) suggests artificial shaping, while it was found far in the interior, near Barranca Salina, whither it must have been carried from the coast. It may possibly be a fragment of a pestle subsequently wave-worn; but all the probabilities are that it is wholly natural, and that its suggestive features are fortuitous.

The constant search for chipped or flaked tools which was extended over nearly all Seriland seldom met the slightest reward; but the specimen shown in plate L was deemed of some interest in connection with the search. It is of hard and tough greenstone, showing obscure and irregular structure lines, though nearly homogeneous in texture; it weighs 10 ounces (0.28 kilogram). It is primarily a natural pebble with form and surface reflecting structure and texture in connection with wave-action. Its artificial features are limited to the usual slight battering of the smaller end, still less conspicuous battering or grinding of the margin about the larger end, slight but suggestive chipping of the thinner edge, inconspicuous hand-wear and polish on the principal face, and a few obscure scratches or striæ on the same face, as illustrated in the plate. The position and character of the flake-fractures, which are fairly shown in the edge view, indicate that they were made while the pebble was in use as a bruising or cutting tool, a use at once suggested to the Caucasian mind by the form of the pebble; yet it is noteworthy that its thin edge displays less battering than either end of the object and no more than the opposite and thicker edge, while it is still more significant that the specimen was apparently discarded immediately on the modification of form by the spalling—a modification greatly increasing its efficiency, as all habitual users of chipped stone tools would realize. The specimen is one of a large number of examples showing that whenever a hupf is broken in use it is regarded as ruined, and is immediately thrown away. This particular specimen is archaic; it was found in the cliff-face of the great shell-heap at Punta Antigualla, embedded in a tiny stratum of ashes and charcoal (some of which still adheres, as shown in the black flecking at the outer end of the striæ), associated with scorched clam-shells, typical Seri potsherds, etc., some 40 feet beneath the surface.

While the great majority of the hupfs are mere pebbles bearing slight trace of artificial wear, as illustrated by the foregoing examples, others bear traces of use so extended as to more or less completely artificialize the surface. A typical long-used hupf is depicted in plates LI and LII. It is a tough and hard quartzite, dark gray or brown in color, massive and homogeneous in texture; it weighs 2 pounds 4 ounces (1.02 kilograms). In general form it is a typical wave-worn pebble of its material, and might be duplicated in thousands along the shores of Bahia Kunkaak and El Infiernillo; but fully a third of its surface has been more or less modified by use. The flatter face (plate LI) is smeared with blood, grease, and charcoal, which have been ground into the stone by friction of the hand of the user in such manner as to form a kind of skin or veneer; portions of the face bear a subpolish, due probably to the hand-rubbing in use; near the center there is a rough pit about an eighth of an inch (3 mm.) deep, evidently produced by pecking or battering with metal, while three or four neighboring scratches penetrating the veneer appear to record ill-directed strokes of a rather sharp metal point. In the light of observed customs it may be inferred that this pitting was produced by use of the implement as an anvil or ahst in sharpening a harpoon-point and fitting it into its foreshaft. The thinner edge (shown in plate LI; that toward the right in the face view on the same plate) displays considerable battering of the kind characteristic of Seri hupfs in general; it is smoked and fire-stained, as shown, while the lower rounded corner is worn away by battering to a depth of probably one-fourth inch (5 mm.). The obverse face reveals more clearly the battering about both corners and edges, including the dislodgment of a flake toward the narrower end; but its most conspicuous feature is a broad subpolished facet (rounding slightly toward the thinner edge) produced by grinding on a flat-surface ahst. This face, too, exhibits fire-staining, while the surface beyond the facet—and to a slight extent the facet itself—is veneered like the other face. There are a few scratches on this side also, as well as a slight pitting due to contact with metal. The thicker edge (plate LII) displays considerable battering, especially a recent pitting near the middle evidently due to use as an anvil held between the knees for sharpening a harpoon point by rude hammering. The specimen was one of a score of implements lying about the interior of the principal jacal in the great rancheria at the base of Punta Tormenta (illustrated in plate VII).

A related specimen, though of somewhat aberrant form, is illustrated in plate LIII. It is of peculiarly tough and quite hard greenstone and weighs 2 pounds 1 ounce (0.93 kilogram). Somewhat less than half of the surface is that of a wave-worn pebble; the remainder is either battered out of all semblance to wave-work, or thumb-worn by long-continued use. The object well illustrates the choice of the most prominently projecting portion of the hand-implement as the point of percussion, and consequently the concentrated wear on such portions whereby the object is gradually reduced to better-rounded and more symmetric form. This specimen displays some minor flaking, apparently connected with the battering and regarded by the user as subordinate to the general wear. It was found at Punta Tormenta, concealed in the wall of a jacal, as if preserved for special use.

One of the best-known examples of a use-perfected hupf is illustrated in plate LIV. It is of coarse-grained but massive and homogeneous granite, similar to that forming Punta Blanca, Punta Granita, and, indeed, much of the eastern coast of Bahia Kunkaak. It weighs 1 pound 10 ounces (0.74 kilogram). In general form it is just such a pebble as is produced from this material by wave-wear, and might be duplicated along the shores in numbers. The artificial surfaces comprise (1) both ends, which are battered in the usual manner; (2) both lateral edges, of which one is slightly battered and worn, while the other is somewhat battered and also notched, evidently by a chance blow and the dislodgment of a flake; (3) both faces, which are flattened by grinding, while one of them (that shown in the plate) is slightly pitted, evidently by metal-working; so that the natural surface is restricted to small areas about the corners. The implement was found at the camp site on Punta Miguel, already noted (page 189), whence a group of five Seri were frightened by the approach of the 1895 expedition; it was covered with blood and shreds of turtle flesh, and is still saturated with grease. Moreover, it is quite confidently identified (not only by form and material, but especially by the fortuitous notch) as a hupf seen repeatedly at Costa Rica in 1894; it was the property of a matron of the Pelican clan (whose portrait appears in plate XXII), who was observed to use it for various industrial purposes, and who refused to part with it for any consideration.

A still more beautiful example of Seri stone art is depicted in plate LV. It is of the same homogeneous and coarse-grained granite as the last specimen, and closely approaches it in dimensions; it is slightly longer and broader, but somewhat thinner, and weighs 1 pound 11 ounces (0.77 kilogram); and, except for the absence of the accidental notch, its artificial features are still more closely similar. The ends are slightly battered, as illustrated in the end view at the right of the plate; the edges are similarly worn, but to a less extent; while both sides have been symmetrically faceted by use in grinding, the facets being straight in the longitudinal direction but slightly curved in the transverse direction, in the shape of the Mexican mano. The specimen displays well-marked color distinctions between the artificially worn and the natural surfaces, the former being gray and the latter weathered to yellowish or pinkish-brown; these colors show that something like two-thirds of the surface is artificial and the intervening third natural; and the natural portion corresponds in every respect, not only in form but in condition of surface, with the granite cobbles of Seriland’s stormy shores. Unfortunately the color distinctions, with the limits of faceting and other artificial modifications, are obscure in the photomechanical reproduction; they are indicated more clearly in the outline drawing oversheet. The specimen is partially saturated with fat, and bears an ocher stain attesting use in the preparation of face-paint. It was found carefully wrapped in a parcel with the shell paint-cup illustrated in plate XXVII, a curlew mandible, two or three hawk feathers, and a tuft of pelican down (the whole evidently forming the fetish or medicine-bag of a shamanistic elderwoman), in an out-of-the-way nook in the wall of an abandoned jacal at Punta Narragansett.

A somewhat asymmetric though otherwise typical hupf is illustrated in natural colors in plate LVI. It is of andesite, and may have come originally either from the extensive volcanics of southern Sierra Seri or central Sierra Kunkaak; it weighs 1 pound 15 ounces (0.88 kilogram). The general form is that of a wave-worn cobble, and fully one-third of the surface retains the natural character save for slight smoothing through hand friction in use. The chief artificial modification is the faceting of both sides in nearly plain and approximately parallel faces, the maximum thickness of material removed from each side, estimated from the curvature of the adjacent natural surface, being perhaps three-sixteenths of an inch (5 millimeters); in addition, both ends are battered in the usual fashion, while the thinner and more projecting edge is battered still more extensively, in a way at once subserving convenient use and tending to increase the symmetry of form. One of the facets is quite smooth; the other (that on the right in the plate) is slightly pitted, as if by use in metal-working. The specimen is somewhat greasy—the normal condition of the hupf—and bears conspicuous records of its latest uses; both faces (more especially the pitted one) are stained with sap from green vegetal substance (probably immature mesquite pods), while one face is brilliantly marked with ocher in such manner as to indicate that a lump of face-paint was partially pulverized by grinding on the slightly rough surface. It was found, together with the ahst illustrated in plate XXXVIII, in the rear of a recently occupied jacal midway between Punta Antigualla and Punta Ygnacio, cached beneath a thorny cholla cactus uprooted and dragged thither for the purpose. The trail and other signs indicated that the jacal had been occupied for a few days and up to within twenty-four hours by a family group of six or seven persons; that it was vacated suddenly at or about the time of arrival of the party of five whose trail was followed by the 1895 expedition from Punta Antigualla to Punta Miguel (where they were interrupted in the midst of a meal and frightened to Tiburon); and that the larger party fled toward the rocky fastnesses of southern Sierra Seri.

Of the foregoing hupfs several are aberrant, and serve merely to illustrate the prevailing directions of departure from the optimum form and size of implements. Six of the specimens may be deemed typical; they are as follows:

From these specimens a type of Seri hand implement may easily be formulated: it is a wave-worn pebble or cobble of (1) granite, quartzite, or other tough and hard rock, (2) tuff, or other light and pulverulent rock, or (3) vesicular lava; it is of flattened ovoid form, or of biscuit shape; it weighs a trifle under 2 pounds (about 0.85 kilogram); originally the form and surface are wholly natural, but through the chance of use it is modified (a) by a battering of the ends and more projecting edges, and (b) by grinding and consequent truncation of the sides; though initially a natural pebble, chosen nearly at random from the beach, it eventually becomes personal property, acquires fetishistic import, and is buried with the owner at her death.

The ahsts and the heavier cobbles used alternatively as ahsts and hupfs are too fortuitous for reduction to type; while the protean pebbles utilized in emergency, and commonly discarded after a single use, are too numerous and too various for convenient or useful grouping.

There is a distinctive type of Seri stone artifacts represented by a single category of objects, viz., chipped arrowpoints. Several of the literary descriptions of the folk—particularly those based on secondhand information, and far-traveled rumor—credit the Seri with habitual use of stone-tipped arrows,297 and it is the current fashion among both Mexican and Indian residents of Sonora to ascribe to the Seri any shapely arrowpoint picked up from plain or valley; yet the observations among the tribesmen and in their haunts disclose but slight basis for classing the Seri with the aboriginal arrow-makers of America.

Among the 60 Seri (including 17 or 18 warriors) at Costa Rica in 1894, three bows and four quivers of arrows were observed, besides a number of stray arrows, chiefly in the hands of striplings. The arrows seen numbered some 60 or 70, including perhaps 20 “poisoned” specimens; nearly half of them were tipped with hoop-iron, as illustrated in plate XXX, while about as many more were fitted only with the customary foreshafts (usually sharpened and hardened by charring), and the small remainder had evidently lost iron tips in use; there was not a single stone-tipped arrow in the rancheria. Moreover, when the usually incisive and confident Mashém was asked for the Seri term for stone arrowpoint he was taken aback, and was unable to answer until after lengthy conference with other members of the tribe—his manner and that of his mates clearly indicating ignorance of such a term rather than the desire to conceal information so frequently manifested in connection with esoteric matters; and the term finally obtained (ahst-ahk, connoting stone and arrow) is the same as that used to denote the arrowpoint of hoop-iron. The most reasonable inference from the various facts is that whatsoever might have been the customs of their ancestors, the modern Seri are not accustomed to stone arrow-making.

The 1895 expedition was slightly more successful in the search for Seri arrows. About midway between the abandoned Rancho Libertad and Barranca Salina, an ancient Seri site was found to yield hundreds of typical potsherds, half a dozen shells such as those used for utensils, the fragments of a hupf evidently shattered by use as a fire-stone, and the small rudely chipped arrowpoint shown in figure 37a; and among the numerous relics found on a knoll overlooking Pozo Escalante (including two jacal frames, two or three graves, an ahst, several shells and discarded hupfs, a broken fictile figurine, etc.), was the still ruder arrowpoint represented in figure 37b (both figures are natural size). The specimens are nearly identical in material—a jet-black slaty rock with a few lighter flecks interspersed, weathering gray on long exposure (as is shown by the partly natural surface of the larger point); similar rock abounds in several easterly spurs of Sierra Seri. The smaller specimen was evidently finished and used; its features indicate fairly skilful chipping, though its general form is crude—in addition to the asymmetric shouldering, the entire point is curved laterally in such manner as to interfere with accurate archery. The larger specimen is still more strongly curved laterally, and the chipping is childishly crude; while the rough surface, clumsy tang, and unfinished air indicate that it was never used even to the extent of shafting. It is possible that the specimens may have been imported by aliens, but the probabilities are strong that they were manufactured by the Seri. No other arrowpoints and no chips or spalls suggesting stone arrow-making were found in all Seriland, though the entire party of twelve were on constant lookout for them for a month. The natural inference from these facts is that the ancestral Seri, like their descendants, were not habitual stone arrow-makers.

There is a final category of Seri artifacts which would be classed as distinctive by Caucasians on the basis of material, though they are combined with the stone artifacts by the tribesmen; it comprises arrowpoints of hoop-iron or other metal, harpoon-points of nails, spikes, or wire, awls of like materials, and other metallic adjuncts to ordinary implements. The use of iron is of course post-Columbian, and its ordinary sources are wreckage and stealage. The date of introduction is unknown, and probably goes back to the days of Cortés and Mendoza; certainly the value of metal was so well understood in 1709 that when Padre Salvatierra’s bilander was beached in Seriland the tribesmen at once began to break her up for the nails (ante, page 67); yet the metal is wrought cold and only with hupf and ahst like the local materials, and is habitually regarded and designated as a stone. By reason of the primitive methods of working, the metals are of course available only when in small pieces or slender shapes. There is a tradition among the vaqueros of the frontier that a quantity of hoop-iron designed for use in making casks was carried away from a rancheria in the vicinity of Bacuachito during a raid in the seventies, and that this stock has ever since served to supply the Seri with material for their arrowpoints; but it is probable that the chief supply is derived from the flotsam swept into the natural drift trap of Bahia Kunkaak by prevailing winds and tidal currents, and cast up on the long sandspit of Punta Tormenta after every storm. A surprising quantity and variety of wreckage was found on this point, and thence down the coast to Punta Narragansett, by the 1895 expedition: staves and heads of casks broken up after beaching, a telegraph pole crossbar which had evidently brought in a cargo of large wire, and a piece of door-frame with heavy strap-iron hinges attached with screws, were among the troves of the tribesmen within a few weeks; and it was noted that while even the hinge screws and the tacks attaching tags to the cask-heads had been extracted by breaking up the wood, the roughly forged hinges of 2 by ⅜-inch wrought iron had been abandoned after a tentative battering with cobbles, and lay among the refuse stones about the jacales.

A rough census of the stone implements of Seriland is not without interest, even though it be no more than an approximation. Some 20 or 25 habitable and recently inhabited jacales were visited, with about twice as many more in various stages of ruin, fully two-thirds of these being on the island; and at least an equal number of camps or other houseless sites were noted. About these 150 jacales and sites there were, say, 50 ahsts, ranging from nearly natural bowlders to the comparatively well-wrought specimen illustrated in plate XXXIX, and an equal number of cobbles used interchangeably as ahsts and hupfs; there were also 200 or 300 pebbles bearing traces of use as hupfs, of which about a third were worn so decidedly as to attest repeated if not regular use; while no flaked or spalled implements were observed save the two doubtful examples illustrated in plates XLVII and L, and only two chipped arrowpoints. It may be assumed that the sites visited and the artifacts observed comprise from a tenth to a fifth of those of all Seriland, in addition to, say, 75 finished hupfs habitually carried by Seri matrons in their wanderings; and it may be assumed also that 50 or 100 metallic harpoon-points and several hundred hoop-iron arrowpoints are habitually carried by the warriors and their spouses.

The most impressive fact brought out by this census is the practical absence of stone artifacts wrought by flaking or chipping in accordance with preconceived design; excepting the exceedingly rare arrowpoints there are none of these. And the assemblage of wrought stones demonstrates not merely that the Seri are practically without flaked or chipped implements, but that they eschew and discard stones edged by fracture whether naturally or through accident of use.

Summarily, the Seri artifacts of inorganic material fall into three groups, viz.: (I) The large and characteristic one comprising regularly-used hupfs and ahsts, with their little-used and discarded representatives; (II) the small and aberrant group represented by chipped arrowpoints, and (III) the considerable group comprising the cold-wrought metal points for arrows and harpoons and awls—though it is to be remembered that the Seri themselves combine the second and third of these groups.

I. On reviewing the artifacts of the larger group it becomes clear (1) that they immediately reflect environment, in that they are characteristic natural objects of the territory; (2) that they come into use as implements through chance demands met by hasty selection from the abundant material; (3) that the great majority of the objects so employed are discarded after a use or two; (4) that when the object proves especially serviceable, and other conditions favor, it is retained to meet later needs; (5) that the retained objects are gradually modified in form and surface by repeated use; (6) that if the modification diminishes the serviceability of the object in the notion of the user (e. g., by such fracture as to produce sharp edges), it is discarded; (7) that if the modification enhances the serviceability of the specimen in the mind of the user it is the more sedulously preserved; and (8) that through the instinctive desire for perservation, coupled with the thaumaturgic cast of primitive thinking, the object acquires at once an artificialized form and a fetishistic as well as a utilitarian function. The significant feature of the development is the total absence of foresight or design, save in so far as the concepts are fiducial rather than technical or directly industrial.