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,
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 vocabulary227 (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 se 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:
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
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.
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—
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:
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.
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).
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).
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.