Chapter XIII: Introduction: Salient Features (12)

The smaller land game comprises a tortoise or two, all the local snakes and lizards, and a good many insects, besides various birds, including hawks and owls, as well as the eaters of seeds and insects. The crow and vulture are also classed as edible, though they are rare in Seriland, probably because of the effective scavengering of the province by its human residents. It is a significant fact that the smaller rodents, especially the long-tail nocturnal squirrel, are excluded from the Seri menu by a rigidly observed tabu of undiscovered meaning. A general consequence of this tabu is readily observed on entering Seriland; there is a notable rarity of the serpents, the high-colored and swift efts, and the logy lizards and dull phrynosomas so abundant in neighboring deserts, as well as of song birds and their nests; and this dearth is coupled with a still more notable abundance of the rodents, which have increased and multiplied throughout Seriland so abundantly that their burrows honeycomb hundreds of square miles of territory. A special consequence of the tabu is found in the fact that the myriad squirrel tunnels have rendered much of the territory impassable for horses and nearly so for pedestrians, and have thereby served to repel invaders and enable the jealous tribesmen to protect their principality against the hated alien. Seriland and the Seri are remarkable for illustrations of the interdependence between a primitive folk and their environment; but none of the relations are more striking than that exemplified by the timid nocturnal rodent, which, protected by a faith, has not only risen to the leading place in the local fauna, but has rewarded its protectors by protecting their territory for centuries.

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXIX

SERI ARCHER AT ATTENTION]

In both the collective and the strategic chase, constant advantage is taken of weakness and incapacity, whether temporary or permanent, of the prospective quarry; so that diseased and wounded as well as sluggish and stupid animals are eliminated. The effect of this policy on the fauna is undoubtedly to extinguish the less capable species and to stimulate and improve the more capable; i. e., the presence of the human factor merely intensifies the bitter struggle for existence in which the subhuman things of this desert province are engaged. At the same time, the entrance of the human folk into the struggle characteristic of subhuman species serves to bar them from one of the most helpful ways to the advancement of their kind—i. e., the way leading through cotoleration with animals to perfected zooculture. The most avidly sought weaklings in the Seri chase are the helpless young, and the heavily gravid dams which are pursued and rent to fragments with a horrid fury doubtless reflecting the practical certainty of capture and the exceptionally succulent tidbits afforded by the fetal flesh; naturally the cruel custom reacts on habitual thought in such wise that the very sight of pregnancy or travail or newborn helplessness awakens slumbering blood-thirst and impels to ferocious slaughter. To such custom and deep-planted mental habit may be ascribed some of the most shocking barbarities in the history of Seri rapine, tragedies too terrible for repetition save in bated breath of survivors, yet explaining the utter horror in which the Seri marauder is held on his own frontier. At the same time the hunting custom and the mental habit explain the blindness of the Seri to the rudiments of zooculture, and clarify their intolerance of all animal associates, save the sly coyote that habitually hides its travail and suckling in the wilderness, and perhaps the deified pelican.[280]

[280] A single incident expressing the Seri sentiment toward travailing animals must be noted: a few minutes after the group shown in plate XI was photographed, a starveling cur—a female apparently of nearly pure coyote blood and within a week of term—slunk toward the broken olla-kettle in the left center of the picture, in which a rank horse-foot was simmering; the woman bending over the kettle suddenly straightened and shot out her foot with such force and directness that the cur was lifted entirely over the corner of the nearest jacal, and the poor beast fell stunned and moaning, a prematurely born pup protruding from her two-thirds of its length. The sound of the stroke and fall attracted attention throughout the group; the women smiled and grunted approval of the well-aimed kick, and a dozen children gathered to continue the assault. Partially recovering, the cur struggled to its feet and started for the chapparal, followed by the jeering throng; at first the chase seemed sportive only, but suddenly one of the smaller boys (the third from the left in the group shown in plate XVI) took on a new aspect—his figure stiffened, his jaws set, his eyes shot purple and green, and he plunged into the lead, and just before the harried beast reached cover he seized the protruding embryo, jerked it away, and ran off in triumph. Three minutes afterward he was seen in the shelter of a jacal greedily gorging his spoil in successive bites, just as the Caucasian boy devours a peeled banana. Meanwhile, two or three mates who had struck his trail stood around begging bites and sucking at chance blood spatters on earth, skin, or tattered rags; and as the victor came forth later, licking his chops, he was met by half jocular but admiring plaudits for his prowess from the dozen matrons lounging about the neighboring jacales. Parallel instances, both observed and gathered at second hand, might be added in numbers; but this may suffice as the sole specific basis for the generalization which places the Seri below the plane of possible zooculture—a generalization so broad as to demand some record of data which it would be more agreeable to ignore.

Parallel to the chase of the larger land game is the hunting of horses and other imported stock; for the animals are regarded in no other light than that of easy quarry. The horses of the Seri frontier, like those of wild ranges generally, are strongly gregarious, and the herds are well regimented under recognized leaders, so that the chase of their kind is necessarily collective on the part of both hunters and game; and the favorite method is for a considerable group of either warriors or women to surround the entire herd, or a band cut out from it, “mill” them (i. e., set them running in a gradually contracting circle) and occasionally dash on an animal, promising by reason of exceptional fatness or gravidness. The warrior’s customary clutch is by the mane or foretop with one hand and the muzzle with the other, with his weight thrown largely on the neck, when a quick wrench throws the animal, and, if all goes well, breaks its neck;[281] while the huntress commonly aims to stun the animal with a blow from her hupf. In either case the disposition of the carcass is similar to that of other large quarry, save that thought is given to the danger of ensuing attack by vaqueros; so that it is customary to consume at once only the blood and pluck, and if time permits the paunch and intestines with their contents, and then to rend the remainder into quarters, which warriors or even women shoulder and rush toward their stronghold. Burros (which, next to the green turtle, afford the favorite Seri food) and horned cattle are commonly stalked and slain, or, at least, wounded with arrows, so that it is commonly the stragglers that are picked off; though sometimes several animals are either milled or rushed, and thrown by a strong wrench on the horns or stunned with a blow of war-club or hupf, as conditions may demand. Straggling swine and wandering dogs are occasionally ambushed or stalked and transfixed with arrows, torn hurriedly into fragments, or shouldered and carried off struggling, as exigency may require; while sheep and goats are practically barred from the entire Seri frontier because of their utter helplessness in the face of so hardy huntsmen.

[281] This warrior’s clutch, and the notion that it is discreditable if not criminal for the masculine adult to take recourse to weapons in hand-to-hand slaughter, are strongly suggestive of zoomimic motives and of studied mimicry of the larger carnivores, such as the jaguar—the “neck-twister” of the Maya.

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXX

SERI BOW, ARROW, AND QUIVER]

The quantity of stock consumed by the Seri varies greatly with the policy of rancheros and vaqueros. At different times during the last two and a half centuries it has been estimated that the chief portion of the subsistence of the tribe was derived from stolen stock, and it is probable that during the early period of the Encinas régime this estimate was fair; but under the Draconian rule of a Seri head for each head of slaughtered stock, the consumption is reduced to a few dozen head annually, including superannuated, crippled, and diseased animals unable to keep up with the herds, those bogged in Playa Noriega and other basins during freshets, the stallions and bulls slain in strife for leadership of their bands, and the festering or semimummied carcasses gladly turned over by idle rancheros on the chance visits of Seri bands to the frontier (such as the specimen in the photograph reproduced in figure 23).

No special devices have been developed in connection with the chase for stock, nor has material progress been made in acquiring Caucasian devices. There are, indeed, indications of a disposition to use knives in severing the tough integuments and tendons of horses and kine, although the tendency has not yet resulted (as elsewhere noted, ante, pp. 152*-154*) in the development of a knife-sense; and although boys on the frontier play at roping dogs, no effort to use the riata or any form of rope is made in the actual chase. As naively explained by Mashém amid approving grunts from his clan-mates, they have no time for ropes or knives when hungry.

* * * * *

A quantitatively unimportant yet by no means negligible fraction of the normal diet of Seriland is vegetal; and while the sources of vegetal food are many and diverse, the chief constituent is a single product characteristic of American deserts, viz., the tuna, or prickly pear.

All of the cacti of the region yield tunas in considerable quantity. The pitahaya is perhaps the most abundant producer, and its name is often given to the fruit; the huge saguaro affords an enormous annual yield, and the still more gigantic saguesa is even more prolific, especially in its immense forests along the eastern base of Sierra Seri; the cina adds materially to the aggregate product, while the nopal, or common prickly pear, contributes a quota acquiring importance from the facility with which it may be harvested. The fruits of all these cacti are sometimes classed as sweet tunas, in contradistinction from the sour tunas yielded in great abundance by the cholla and consumed with avidity by stock, though seldom eaten by men. The edible tunas average about the size of lemons, and resemble figs save that their skin is beset with prickles. The portion eaten is a luscious pulp, filled with minute seeds like those of the fig save that they are too hard for mastication or digestion, its flavor ranging from the sickly sweet of the overcultivated fig to a pleasant acidity. While occasional tunas may be found at any time during the year, the normal harvest occurs about midsummer, or shortly before the July-August humid season, and lasts for several weeks. During the height of the season the clans withdraw from the coast and give undivided attention to the collection and consumption of the fruits, gorging them in such quantities that, according to the testimony of the vaqueros, they are fattened beyond recognition. Commonly the tunas are eaten just as they are gathered, and the families and larger bands move about from pitahaya to pitahaya and from valley to valley in a slovenly chase of this natural harvest, until waning supply and cloying appetite drive them back to the severer chase of turtle and pelican. The fruit is not cooked, and never preserved save in the noisome way of nature, and is rarely transported in quantities or over distances of industrial importance; yet the product may have some connection with the basketry of the tribe. The devices for collecting the fruits, especially from the lofty saguaro and saguesa, are mere improvisations of harpoon shafts, paloblanco branches, or chance cane-stalks carried primarily for arrow-making or balsa construction. There is no such well-studied and semiceremonial apparatus for tuna gathering as, for example, the Papago device made from the ribs of the dead saguaro in accordance with traditional formula.

Perhaps second in importance among the vegetal constituents of Seri diet is the mesquite bean, which is gathered in random fashion whenever a well-loaded tree is found and other conditions favor. The woody beans and still woodier pods are roughly pulverized by pounding with the hupf on any convenient stone used as an ahst (metate or mortar), or, if suitable stones are not at hand, they are carried in baskets or improvised bags to the nearest shore or other place at which stones may be found. The half-ground grist is winnowed in the ordinary way of tossing in a basket; and the grinding and winnowing continue alternately until a fairly uniform bean meal is obtained. So far as was actually observed this is eaten raw, either dry in small pinches or, more commonly, stirred in water to form a thin atole; but expressions at Costa Rica indicated that the meal is sometimes stirred in boiling water or pot-liquor, and thus partially cooked, in times of rest and plenty.

Other vegetal products used as food comprise a variety of seeds collected from sedges and grasses growing about the mud-flats of Laguna La Cruz and other portions of the province, as well as the seeds and nuts of the scant shrubbery of shores and mountains; while a local seaweed or kelp is eaten in small quantity, apparently as a condiment, and is sometimes carried on journeys even as far as Costa Rica, where specimens were obtained in 1894.

It is of interest to note that one of the most distinctive constituents of the Sonoran flora, and one intimately connected with human life in the great neighboring province of Papagueria, is of negligible rarity in Seriland; this is the visnaga (_Echinocactus_, probably of two or three species), the thorniest of the cacti and the only one containing consumable pulp and sap. This peculiar plant is of no small interest in itself as a striking example of the inverse relation between protective devices of chemical sort (culminating in acrid, offensive, or toxic juices) and the mechanical armaments so characteristic of desert plants;[282] it is of still deeper interest economically as the sole source of water over broad expanses of the desert, and one to which hundreds of pioneers and travelers have been indebted for their lives; and it is of interest, too, as a factor of Papago faith, in which the visnaga ranks among the richer guerdons of the rain gods. Throughout most of Papagueria this cactus is fairly abundant; usually there are several specimens to the square mile of suitable soil (it is not found in playas or on the ruggeder sierras), so that it is always within reach of the sagacious traveler; but it diminishes in abundance toward the borders of Seriland, and not more than a dozen examples were found in the portions of that province traversed by the 1895 expedition. Its rare occurrence, chiefly in the form of wounded and dwarfed specimens, seems to indicate that its original range comprised all Seriland; while its dearth suggests destruction nearly to the verge of extinction by improvident generations better armed with their hupfs and harpoons and shell-cups than the subhuman beasts against whom the plant is so well protected.

[282] Cf. The Beginning of Agriculture; The American Anthropologist, vol. VIII Oct., 1895, pp. 350-375.

* * * * *

Aside from the universally used hupf and ahst (which may be regarded as differentiated implements or tools), the only special device used in connection with vegetal food is the basket, or, rather, basketry tray (illustrated in figure 24). This ware is of the widespread coil type so characteristic of southwestern tribes. The coil is a wisp of stems and splints of a fibrous yet spongy shrub, apparently torote; and the woof consists of paloblanco (?) splints deftly intertwined by aid of an awl. The construction is fairly neat and remarkably uniform; the coiled wisps vary somewhat in size, both intentionally and inadvertently, ranging from an average of three-eighths of an inch toward the bottoms of the larger specimens to half that diameter in the smaller specimens and toward the margins of the larger. The initial coil starts in an indefinite knot, rather than a button, at the center; and the spiral is continuous throughout, the final coil being quite deftly worked out to a single splint smoothly stitched to the next lower spiral with the woof splints. The ware is practically water-tight, remarkably strong and resilient, and quite durable in the dry climate of Seriland. Ordinarily the basket is abandoned when the bottom decays or breaks, but an ancient specimen obtained on Isla Tiburon was roughly rebottomed with a patch of sealskin attached by means of sinew. The baskets are notably uniform in shape, though the size varies from 8 or 9 inches to fully 17 inches in diameter.

FIG. 24—Seri basket.

The most striking feature of the Seri basketry, as of the pottery, is extreme lightness in proportion to capacity, a quality due to the spongy character of the torote coil and to the thinness of the splints used in the woof. The inside dimensions, weight, and dry-measure capacity (filled to the level of the brim with rice) of two typical specimens approaching extremes in size are indicated in the accompanying table. As noted elsewhere, the ware is absolutely without decorative devices in weave, paint, or form; it is baldly utilitarian, a model of economy in material and in the balance between structure and function, approaching in this respect the thin-walled canteen-olla, the graceful balsa, and the light but effective harpoon. The structural correspondence of the ware to a widespread type and its limited use among the tribe suggest an accultural origin for the Seri basketry; but the delicate adjustment of means to ends in the manufacture and the strictly local character of the material quite as strongly suggest an indigenous development.

--------+---------------+-----------------+-------------+-------------------+
Museum | Diameter | Depth | Weight | Capacity |
No. | | | | |
--------+---------------+-----------------+-------------+-------------------+
| | | | |
174528 |38 cm. (15 in.)|9.5 cm. (3¾ in.) |482g. (17oz.)| 6.25 l. (6.6 qt.) |
174528a |23 cm. (9 in.) |5.0cm. (2 in.) |142 g. (5oz.)| 1 l. (1.06 qt.)|
--------+---------------+-----------------+-------------+-------------------+

It is impossible to portray justly the food habits of the Seri without some reference to a systematic scatophagy, which seems to possess fiducial as well as economic features. In its simplest aspect this custom is connected with the tuna harvests; the fruits are eaten in enormous quantity, and are imperfectly digested, the hard-coated seeds especially passing through the system unchanged; the feces containing these seeds are preserved with some care, and after the harvest is passed the hoard (desiccated, of course, in the dry climate) is ground between hupf and ahst, and winnowed in baskets precisely as are the mesquite beans; and the product is then eaten either dry or in the form of atole like the mesquite meal. In superficial view this food factor is the precise homologue of the “second harvest” of the California Indians as described by Clavigero, Baegert,[283] and others; but it gains importance, among the Seri at least, as the sole method of storing or preserving food-supplies, and hence as the germ of industrial economy out of which a feeble thrift-sense may be regarded as emerging. And the rise of thrift in Seriland, like esthetic and industrial beginnings generally, is shaped by faith and attendant ceremony; for the doubly consumed food is credited with intensified powers and virtues, and held to be specially potent in the relief of hunger and in giving endurance for the hard warpath or prolonged chase; it is—and makes—very strong (“mucho fuerte”), in the laconic and confident explanation of Mashém. Incongruous as the custom is to higher culture, it finds natural suggestion in the everyday habits of the tribe, who are wonted not only to the eating of animal entrails in raw and uncleaned condition, but especially to the relief of the sharpest pangs of hunger by means of the soft structures and their semiassimilated contents—an association of much influence in primitive thought. Concordantly with the custom and the faith grown out of it, the excreta in general take a prominent place in the Seri mind; the use of urine in ablution, etc., is little understood and may be passed over; but all bony feces—and it may be noted that the “sign” of the Seri more resembles that of wolves or snake-eating swine than that of men—following gorges of large quarry are customarily located and kept in mind for recourse in time of ensuing shortage, when the mass is ground on the ahst and reconsumed; and even the ordinary discharge is preserved during the seasons of less reliable food-supply.

[283] An Account of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Californian Peninsula, as given by Jacob Baegert, a German Jesuit missionary.... Translated and arranged for the Smithsonian Institution by Charles Rau; Ann. Rep. Smithsonian Inst. for 1863, pp. 352-369. Baegert’s account of foods (pp. 363-367) is so apposite as to be worthy of quotation nearly entire:

“Notwithstanding the barrenness of the country, a Californian hardly ever dies of hunger, except, perhaps, now and then an individual that falls sick in the wilderness and at a great distance from the mission, for those who are in good health trouble themselves very little about such patients, even if these should happen to be their husbands, wives, or other relations; and a little child that has lost its mother or both parents is also occasionally in danger of starving to death, because in some instances no one will take charge of it, the father being sometimes inhuman enough to abandon his offspring to its fate.

“The food of the Californians, as will be seen, is certainly of a mean quality, yet it keeps them in a healthy condition, and they become strong and grow old in spite of their poor diet. The only period of the year during which the Californians can satisfy their appetite without restraint is the season of the pitahayas, which ripen in the middle of June and abound for more than eight weeks. The gathering of this fruit may be considered as the harvest of the native inhabitants. They can eat as much of it as they please, and with some this food agrees so well that they become corpulent during that period; and for this reason I was sometimes unable to recognize at first sight individuals, otherwise perfectly familiar to me, who visited me after having fed for three or four weeks on these pitahayas. They do not, however, preserve them, and when the season is over they are put again on short rations. Among the roots eaten by the Californians may be mentioned the yuka, which constitutes an important article of food in many parts of America, as, for instance, in the island of Cuba, but is not very abundant in California. In some provinces it is made into a kind of bread or cake, while the Californians, who would find this process too tedious, simply roast the yukas in a fire like potatoes. Another root eaten by the natives is that of the aloë plant, of which there are many kinds in this country. Those species of this vegetable, however, which afford nourishment—for not all of them are edible—do not grow as plentifully as the Californians might wish, and very seldom in the neighborhood of water; the preparations, moreover, which are necessary to render this plant eatable, require much time and labor.... I saw the natives also frequently eat the roots of the common reed, just as they were taken out of the water. Certain seeds, some of them not larger than those of the mustard, and different sorts in pods that grow on shrubs and little trees, and of which there are, according to Father Piccolo, more than sixteen kinds, are likewise diligently sought; yet they furnish only a small quantity of grain, and all that a person can collect with much toil during a whole year may scarcely amount to 12 bushels.

“It can be said that the Californians eat, without exception, all animals they can obtain. Besides the different kinds of larger indigenous quadrupeds and birds, they live nowadays on dogs and cats; horses, asses, and mules; _item_, on owls, mice, and rats; lizards and snakes; bats, grasshoppers, and crickets; a kind of green caterpillar without hair, about a finger long, and an abominable white worm of the length and thickness of the thumb, which they find occasionally in old rotten wood, and consider as a particular delicacy. The chase of game, such as deer and rabbits, furnishes only a small portion of a Californian’s provisions. Supposing that for 100 families 300 deer are killed in the course of a year, which is a very favorable estimate, they would supply each family only with three meals in three hundred and sixty-five days, and thus relieve but in a very small degree the hunger and the poverty of these people. The hunting for snakes, lizards, mice, and field-rats, which they practice with great diligence, is by far more profitable and supplies them with a much greater quantity of articles for consumption. Snakes, especially, are a favorite sort of small game, and thousands of them find annually their way into the stomachs of the Californians.

“In catching fish, particularly in the Pacific, which is much richer in that respect than the Gulf of California, the natives use neither nets nor hooks, but a kind of lance—that is, a long, slender, pointed piece of hard wood—which they handle very dexterously in spearing and killing their prey. Sea-turtles are caught in the same manner.

“I have now mentioned the different articles forming the ordinary food of the Californians; but, besides these, they reject nothing that their teeth can chew or their stomachs are capable of digesting, however tasteless or unclean and disgusting it may be. Thus they will eat the leaves of the Indian fig-tree, the tender shoots of certain shrubs, tanned or untanned leather, old straps of rawhide, with which a fence was tied together for years; _item,_ the bones of poultry, sheep, goats, and calves; putrid meat or fish swarming with worms, damaged wheat or Indian corn, and many other things of that sort which may serve to appease the hunger they are almost constantly suffering. Anything that is thrown to the hogs will be also accepted by a Californian, and he takes it without feeling offended, or thinking for a moment that he is treated below his dignity. For this reason no one took the trouble to clean the wheat or maize, which was cooked for them in a large kettle, of the black worms and little bugs, even if the numbers of these vermin had been equal to that of the grains. By a daily distribution of about 150 bushels of bran (which they are in the habit of eating without any preparation) I could have induced all my parishioners to remain permanently in the mission, excepting during the time when the pitahayas are gathered.

“I saw one day a blind man, 70 years of age, who was busily engaged in pounding between two stones an old shoe made of raw deerskin, and whenever he had detached a piece he transferred it promptly to his mouth and swallowed it; and yet this man had a daughter and grown grandchildren. As soon as any of the cattle are killed and the hide is spread out on the ground to dry, half a dozen boys or men will instantly rush upon it and commence to work with knives, flints, and their teeth, tearing and scratching off pieces, which they eat immediately, till the hide is full of holes or scattered in all directions. In the mission of St. Ignatius and in others further toward the north there are persons who will attach a piece of meat to a string and swallow it and pull it out again a dozen times in succession, for the sake of protracting the enjoyment of its taste.

I must here ask permission of the kind reader to mention something of an exceedingly disgusting and almost inhuman nature, the like of which probably never has been recorded of any people in the world, but which demonstrates better than anything else the whole extent of the poverty, uncleanness, and voracity of these wretched beings. In describing the pitahayas I have already stated that they contain a great many small seeds resembling grains of powder. For some reason unknown to me these seeds are not consumed in the stomach, but pass off in an undigested state, and in order to save them the natives collect during the season of the pitahayas that which is discharged from the human body, separate the seeds from it, and roast, grind, and eat them, making merry over their loathsome meals, which the Spaniards therefore call the second harvest of the Californians. [This statement is corroborated in all particulars by Clavigero in his Storia della California, Venice, 1789, vol. I, p. 117.] When I first heard that such a filthy habit existed among them I was disinclined to believe the report, but to my utter regret I became afterwards repeatedly a witness to the proceeding, which they are unwilling to abandon, like many other bad practices [probably because of the fiducial character of the custom—W J M.]. Yet I must say in their favor that they have always abstained from human flesh, contrary to the horrible usage of so many other American nations who can obtain their daily food much easier than these poor Californians.

“They have no other drink but the water, and heaven be praised that they are unacquainted with such strong beverages as are distilled in many American provinces from Indian corn, the aloë, and other plants, and which the Americans in those parts merely drink for the purpose of intoxicating themselves. When a Californian encounters during his wanderings a pond or pool, and feels a desire to quench his thirst, he lies flat on the ground and applies his mouth directly to the water. Sometimes the horns of cattle are used as drinking vessels.

“Having thus far given an account of the different articles used as aliment by the aborigines of the peninsula, I will now proceed to describe in what manner they prepare their victuals. They do not cook, boil, or roast like people in civilized countries, because they are neither acquainted with these methods nor possessed of vessels and utensils to employ for such purposes; and, besides, their patience would be taxed beyond endurance if they had to wait till a piece of meat is well cooked or thoroughly roasted. Their whole process simply consists in burning, singeing, or roasting in an open fire all such victuals as are not eaten in a raw state. Without any formalities, the piece of meat, the fish, bird, snake, field mouse, bat, or whatever it may be is thrown into the flames or on the glowing embers, and left there to smoke and to sweat for about a quarter of an hour; after which the article is withdrawn, in most cases only burned or charred on the outside, but still raw and bloody within. As soon as it has become sufficiently cool, they shake it a little in order to remove the adhering dust or sand, and eat it with great relish. Yet I must add here, that they do not previously take the trouble to skin the mice or disembowel the rats, nor deem it necessary to clean the half-emptied entrails and maws of larger animals, which they have to cut in pieces before they can roast them. Seeds, kernels, grasshoppers, green caterpillars, the white worms already mentioned, and similar things that would be lost, on account of their smallness, in the embers and flames of an open fire, are parched on hot coals, which they constantly throw up and shake in a turtle shell or a kind of frying pan woven out of a certain plant. What they have parched or roasted in this manner is ground to powder between two stones, and eaten in a dry state. Bones are treated in like manner.

“They eat everything unsalted, though they might obtain plenty of salt; but since they cannot dine every day on roast meat and constantly change their quarters, they would find it too cumbersome to carry always a supply of salt with them.

“The preparation of the aloë, also called _mescale_ or _maguey_ by the Spaniards, requires more time and labor. The roots, after being properly separated from the plants, are roasted for some hours in a strong fire, and then buried, twelve or twenty together, in the ground, and well covered with hot stones, hot ashes, and earth. In this state they have to remain for twelve or fourteen hours, and when dug out again they are of a fine yellow color, and perfectly tender, making a very palatable dish, which has served me frequently as food when I had nothing else to eat, or as dessert after dinner in lieu of fruit. But they act at first as a purgative on persons who are not accustomed to them, and leave the throat somewhat rough for a few hours afterwards.

“To light a fire the Californians make no use of steel and flint, but obtain it by the friction of two pieces of wood. One of them is cylindrical, and pointed on one end, which fits into a round cavity in the other, and by turning the cylindrical piece with great rapidity between their hands, like a twirling stick, they succeed in igniting the lower piece if they continue the process for a sufficient length of time.

“The Californians have no fixed time for any sort of business, and eat, consequently, whenever they have anything, or feel inclined to do so, which is nearly always the case. I never asked one of them whether he was hungry who failed to answer in the affirmative, even if his appearance indicated the contrary. A meal in the middle of the day is the least in use among them, because they all set out early in the morning for their foraging expeditions, and return only in the evening to the place from which they started, if they do not choose some other locality for their night quarters. The day being thus spent in running about and searching for food, they have no time left for preparing a dinner at noon. They start always empty-handed; for if perchance something remains from their evening repasts they certainly eat it during the night in waking moments or on the following morning before leaving. The Californians can endure hunger easier and much longer than other people; whereas they will eat enormously if a chance is given. I often tried to buy a piece of venison from them when the skin had but lately been stripped off the deer, but regularly received the answer that nothing was left; and I knew well enough that the hunter who killed the animal needed no assistance to finish it. Twenty-four pounds of meat in twenty-four hours is not deemed an extraordinary ration for a single person, and to see anything eatable before him is a temptation for a Californian which he cannot resist; and not to make away with it before night would be a victory he is very seldom capable of gaining over himself.”

Clavigero’s account of the food-habits of the California Indians is similar, though generally less explicit. According to him the seeds forming the “second harvest of pitahayas” are extracted carefully while fresh, and are afterward roasted, ground, and preserved in the form of meal against the ensuing winter. Of the reswallowing habit, he says:

“The savages living in the northern part of the peninsula have found the secret, unknown to mortals in general, to eat and re-eat the same meal repeatedly. They tie a string around a mouthful of meat dried and hardened in the sun. After chewing it for a while they swallow it, leaving the string hanging from the mouth. After two or three minutes, by means of the string they draw the meat up again to be rechewed, and this they repeat as many times as may be necessary until the morsel is consumed or so softened that the string will not hold it any longer. In extracting it from the throat they make such a noise that to one who has not before heard it it appears that they are choking themselves.

“When many individuals are gathered together to eat in this manner it is practiced with more ceremony. They seat themselves on the ground, forming a circle of eight or ten persons. One of them takes the mouthful and swallows it, and afterwards draws it up again and passes it to the next one, and this one to another, proceeding thus around the circle with much enjoyment until the morsel is consumed. This has astonished the Spaniards who have seen it, and indeed it would not be credible if it had not been unanimously testified to by all who have been in that country. Several Jesuits who did not believe this, notwithstanding that sincere and prominent persons confirmed it, having afterwards gone to California saw it with their own eyes. Among those Indians who have embraced Christianity this loathsome and dangerous method of eating has been abandoned in consequence of the continual reproofs of the missionaries.” (Historia de la Antigua ó Baja California, obra postuma del Padre Francisco Javier Clavijero; Mexico, 1852, p. 24.)

The records of Clavigero and Baegert indicate fair correspondence in the food habits of the California Indians and the Seri, though there are certain noteworthy differences, e. g., the tabu of the badger among the former and of the ground-squirrel among the latter; it would also appear that the Californians were the more largely vegetarian and the better advanced in culinary processes. The customs of the Seri throw light on the genesis of “re-eating”, for the process would appear to be but an extension of the repeated mouthing and swallowing of tendonous strings still attached to the bones of larger animals.

There is an obscure connection between this curious and repulsive food custom of the Seri and the mortuary customs of the tribe, which was not detected until the opportunity for personal inquiry had gone by. About the rancherias on Isla Tiburon, and especially about the extensive house-group at the base of Punta Tormenta, there are burial places marked by cairns of cobbles, or by heaps of thorny brambles where cobbles are not accessible; and most of these cairns and bramble-piles are supplemented by hoards of desiccated feces carefully stored in shells, usually of _Arca_ (a typical specimen is illustrated in figure 25). The hoards range from 50 to 500 shells in quantity, and there were fully a score of them at Punta Tormenta alone. About the newer rancherias, as at Rada Ballena, where there are no cemeteries, the hoards are simply piled about small clumps of shrubbery. The meaning of the association of the dietetic residua and death in the Seri mind is not wholly clear; yet the connection between the “strong food” for the warpath and the mystical food for the manes in the long journey to the hereafter is close enough to give some inkling of the meaning.[284]

[284] Cf. Scatologic Rites of all Nations, by Captain John G. Bourke, 1891, especially chapter LI, pp. 459-460. The Seri custom, resting, as it does, on an evident economic basis, tends to explain the scatophagy of the Hopi and other tribes described by Bourke.

* * * * *

In recapitulating the food supplies of the Seri it is not without interest to estimate roughly the relative quantities of the several constituents consumed; and the proportions maybe made the more readily comprehensible by expression in absolute terms. As a basis for the quantitative estimate, it may be assumed that the average Seri, living, as he does, a vigorous outdoor life, consuming, as he does, a diet of less average nutrition than the selected and cooked foods of higher culture, and attaining, as he does, an exceptional stature and strength, eats something more than the average ration; so that his ration of solid food may be lumped at 2.75 pounds (about 1,250 grams) daily, or 1,000 pounds (about 455 kilograms) yearly. The aggregate diet of the tribe may be estimated also by assuming the population to comprise 300 full eaters, besides, say, 50 nurslings negligible in the computation; so that the annual consumption of the tribe may be reckoned at 300,000 pounds (136,000 kilograms), or 150 tons, of solid food. Accordingly the several constituents may be estimated, as shown in the accompanying table, in percentages of the total, in pounds aggregate and apiece for the eaters, and (so far as practicable) in units both aggregate and apiece; the weights of units being roughly averaged at 100 pounds (45 kilograms) for turtles, 12½ pounds (5.6 kilograms) for large land game, 450 pounds (about 200 kilograms) for stock, and 2 ounces (56.7 grams) for tunas.

_Estimated annual dietary of the Seri tribe_

Constituents Per Quantity Units
cent
Aggregate Apiece Aggregate Apiece

_Pounds_ _Pounds_
Turtles 25 75,000 250 750 2½
Pelicans 5 15,000 50 1,200 4
Other water-fowl
and eggs 8 24,000 80
Fish 15 45,000 150
Shellfish (except
turtles) 10 30,000 100
Large land game 7 21,000 70 200 ⅔
Other land game 8 24,000 80
Stock 6 18,000 60 40 2/15
Tunas 9 27,000 90 216,000 720
Other vegetals 5 15,000 50
Miscellaneous 2 6,000 20
Total 100 300,000 1,000

Of course the constituents vary with temporary conditions; during “The Time of the Big Fish”, practically all other sources of food were neglected until the providential supply was exhausted; during the decades of main subsistence on stolen stock it is probable that the consumption of other constituents, perhaps excepting the tunas, was proportionately reduced; and it is not improbable that during the warfare between Seri and Tepoka, described by Hardy, the consumption of turtles was materially diminished. Judging from the direct and indirect data and from general analogies, the least variable constituent is the cactus fruit, which probably fails but rarely and is so easily harvested as practically to supplant all other supplies during its season of a month or more. At the best, too, the quantitative estimates are nothing more than necessarily arbitrary approximations, based on incomplete inquiries and observations;[285] yet they are better than no estimates at all, and appear to form a fairly trustworthy basis for consideration of the Seri food habits.

[285] About 200 turtle-shells were noticed about the rancherias at Punta Tormenta and Rada Ballena alone in 1895, all being less than two years old, as judged from the degree of weathering.

On reviewing the constituents it would appear that the Seri must be regarded as essentially a maritime people, in that about two-thirds of their food is derived from the sea; also that they must be deemed essentially carnivorous, since fully five-sixths of their diet (84 per cent plus a share of the miscellaneous—chiefly scatophagous—category) is animal. The tabulation does not show the relative proportions of the several constituents cooked and eaten raw, but the best available data indicate that fully three-fourths of the ordinary dietary, both animal and vegetal, is ingested in raw condition, and that the greater part of the remaining fourth is imperfectly cooked.

* * * * *

In recapitulating the devices for food-getting, it is found that nearly all of the more distinctive artifacts and crafts are either directly or indirectly connected with that primary activity of living things, food-conquest. Foremost among the distinctive artifacts of the Seri, in its relation to daily life and in its technical perfection, is the canteen-olla; probably second in importance, and also in technical perfection, is the balsa—whose functions, however, extend beyond simple food-getting; next comes the crude and simple, yet economically perfected, turtle-harpoon, with its variants in the form of arrow (with a function in warfare as well as in food-getting) and fire-drill; while the light basket-tray, although capable of carrying ten to twenty-five times its own weight, is perhaps the least perfect technically of the artifacts directly connected with sustentation. And it should be noted that the prevailing tools—hupf, ahst, multifunctional shell, and awl of mandible or bone or tooth—have either an immediate or a secondary connection with food-getting.

NAVIGATION

At first sight Seriland seems an abnormal habitat for a primitive people, since its land area is cleft in twain by a stormy strait—a strait whose terrors to the few Caucasian navigators who have reached its swirling currents are indicated by their appellations, “El Canal Peligroso de San Miguel”[286] and “El Infiernillo”; for such a stretch of troubled water is commonly a more serious bar to travel than any moderate land expanse. This intuitive notion of the effectiveness of a water barrier, and the correlative feeling of the incongruity of a land barrier insuperable for centuries, is well illustrated by prevailing opinion throughout northwestern Mexico; for it is commonly supposed in Sonora and neighboring states that Seriland is conterminous with Isla Tiburon, i. e., that the mainland portion of the province (including Sierra Seri with its flanking footslopes) lies beyond the diabolic channel. Yet longer scrutiny shows that the superficial impression merely mirrors Caucasian thought and fails to touch the essential conditions, especially as they are reflected in the primitive minds of the local tribe; and careful study of the habits and history of the Seri shows that the dangerous strait has been a potent factor in preserving tribal existence and perpetuating tribal integrity. Naturally the factor operates through navigation; for it is by means of this art that the tribesmen are able to avoid or to repel the rare invaders of either mainland or insular portions of their province, the overland pioneers from the east being stopped by the strait and the maritime explorers from south and west being unable to maintain themselves long about the stormy shores and never outfitted for pushing far toward the mainland retreats and strongholds; while by means of their light and simple craft the Seri were able to retreat or to advance across the strait as readily as over the adjacent lands to which they were wonted by the experience of generations. In their minds, indeed, El Infiernillo is the nucleus of their province. So the Seri were among the lowliest learners of that lesson of highest statecraft, that lands are not divided but united by intervening sea; and their ill-formulated and provincial notions are of much significance in their bearing on autochthonous habits and habitats.

[286] Hardy, Travels, p. 291.

The water-craft of which the Seri make so good use is a balsa, made of three bundles of carrizal or cane lashed together alongside, measuring barely 4 feet abeam, 1½ feet in depth, and some 30 feet in length over all. A fine specimen (except for a slight injury at one end) is shown in plan and profile in plate XXXI. It was obtained near Boca Infierno in 1895, partly towed and partly paddled thence to Embarcadero Andrade, wagoned laboriously across Desierto Encinas and on to Hermosillo, conveyed in an iron-sheathed box on two gondolas of the narrow-gage Ferrocarril de Sonora to the international frontier, and finally freighted to the United States National Museum, where (in the Mall just outside the building) the photographs reproduced in the plate were taken.

The manufacture of the balsa has never been seen by Caucasian eyes, but the processes are safely inferred from the structure, whose testimony is corroborated in part by Mashém’s imperfect descriptions. The first step is the gathering of the carrizal from one of the patches growing about the three or four permanent fresh waters of Seriland, the canes being carefully selected for straightness, symmetry, and uniformity in size; these are then denuded of leaves and tassels, tied in bundles of convenient size (one seen on Tiburon contained 40 or 50 canes), and carried to the shore. In actual construction the canes are laid butt to butt, but overlapping 2 or 3 feet, the overlap being shifted this way and that with successive additions, so that the aggregate length of overlapping in the bundle reaches 10 or 12 feet—i. e., the full length of the body of the finished craft. The growing bundle is wrapped from time to time with lashings of mesquite root or maguey fiber, and kept in cylindrical form by constant rolling and by means of the lashing; though the cord used for the purpose is so slender as to do little more than serve the purposes of manufacture (only stray shreds of the interior cording could be found in an old and abandoned balsa on Punta Antigualla). As the bundle approaches the requisite size, the building process changes; the butts of the successively added stalks are thrust obliquely into the interstices extending beyond the butts of earlier-used canes, and the stems are slightly bent to bring them into parallelism with their fellows; and this interweaving process is continued with increasing care until, when the bundle is completed, there are no visible butts (all being pushed into the interior of the bundle), while the only visible tips are those projecting to form the tapering extremities. The finished bundle is then secured by a spiral winding of slender cord. Two other bundles are next made, the three being entirely similar, so far as is known; then the three are joined by a lashing of slender cord like that used for the separate bundles, which is twined alternately above and below the central bundle in such manner as to hold the three in an approximate plane save toward the extremities, where the lashing is much firmer and the tapering tips of the bundles are brought into a triangular position, i. e., the position of smallest compass. The cordage is of either mesquite root or maguey fiber, the former being the more common, so far as observed (doubtless by reason of the dearth of the latter plant); it is notably uniform in twist and size, though surprisingly slender for the purpose, barely three-sixteenths of an inch, or 5 mm., in diameter, and limited in quantity.[287] The only tools or implements used in the manufacture (and repair), so far as is known, are light wooden marlinspikes, two of which are illustrated in figure 26; these are used in working the cane-butts into the bundles. In collecting the canes the tassels are broken off and the leaves stripped by the unaided hands, while the stalks are broken off usually below the secondary roots in the downward taper, and the rootlets and loose ends are removed either with the hands or by fire.

[287] Only the finer cording shown in plate XXXI is original, the coarser ropes having been added to facilitate handling.

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXXI

SERI BALSA IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM]

The finished balsa is notably light and buoyant. The Boca Infierno specimen was estimated to weigh about 250 pounds (113 kilograms) when thoroughly dry, and little more than 300 pounds (126 kilograms) when completely wet; so that it could easily be picked up by three or four, or even by two, strong men and carried ashore to be hidden in the fog-shrubbery skirting the coast. The craft floated high with one man aboard, rode better with two, carried three without much difficulty even in a fairly heavy sea, and would safely bear four adults aggregating 600 pounds (272 kilograms) in moderate water. The most striking features of the craft afloat are its graceful movement and its perfect adaptation to variable seas and loads. The lines are symmetric and of great delicacy, as indicated even by the photographs out of its element; the reed-bundles are yielding, partly by resilience and partly in the way of set, so that the body of the craft curves to fit the weight and distribution of the load and to meet the impact of swells and breakers. In smooth water a lightly laden balsa may appear heavy and logy, but with a heavier load and stronger sea each tapering end rises strongly and then recurves slightly in a Hogarthian line graceful as the neck of a swan, while the whole craft skims the waves or glides sinuously over their crests in a lightsome way, recalling the easy movement of gull or petrel. A suggestion of its effect is shown in figure 27, a composite drawn largely from photographs; another suggestion is shown, in figure 28, reproduced in facsimile from a drawing by the artist of the U. S. S. _Narragansett_ in 1873,[288] the only known picture of the craft antecedent to the 1895 expedition.

[288] Publication No. 56, U. S. Hydrographic Office, Bureau of Navigation, 1880, plate XV, p. 136.