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

Chapter XV: Introduction: Salient Features (14)

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

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXXIX

LONG-USED METATE (REDUCED), TOP]

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XL

LONG-USED METATE (REDUCED), BOTTOM]

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

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

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

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

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLI

NATURAL PEBBLE BEARING SLIGHT MARKS OF USE]

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLII

NATURAL PEBBLE USED AS BONE-CRUSHER]

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

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

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

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

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLIII

LITTLE-WORN PEBBLE USED FOR ALL DOMESTIC PURPOSES]

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLIV

NATURAL PEBBLE USED AS CRUSHER AND GRINDER]

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

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

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

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

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLV

NATURAL PEBBLE SLIGHTLY USED AS HAMMER AND ANVIL]

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

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

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

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

[297] The most specific reference is that of Hardy: “The men use bows and stone-pointed arrows; but whether they are poisoned, I do not know.” Travels, p. 290.

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

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

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLVI

NATURAL PEBBLE SLIGHTLY USED AS GRINDER]

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLVII

NATURAL PEBBLE SLIGHTLY USED AS DOMESTIC IMPLEMENT]

* * * * *

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLVIII

NATURAL PEBBLE SLIGHTLY WORN BY USE]

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLIX

NATURAL PEBBLE CONSIDERABLY WORN IN USE AS GRINDER]

II. On reviewing the almost insignificantly small group of chipped stone artifacts, it seems clear that while the material is local the design is so incongruous with custom and characteristic thought as to raise the presumption that stone-chipping is an alien and imperfectly assimilated craft. The conspicuous and significant feature of the chipped stone artifact is the shapement in accordance with preconceived design.

III. On reviewing the arbitrarily separated group of metallic artifacts it is found clear (1) that the material is foreign; (2) that it is avidly sought and sedulously saved and utilized; (3) that it is wrought only by the crude methods used for fashioning the most primitive of implements and tools; and (4) that it is used chiefly as a substitute for organic substances employed in symbolic imitation of the natural organs and functions of animals. The significant features of the use of iron artifacts are (_a_) the absence of either alien or specialized designs, and (_b_) the mimicry of bestial characters as conceived in primitive philosophy.

Classed by material and motive jointly, the three groups are diverse in important respects: The first is local in material, local in motive; the second is local in material, foreign in design; the third is foreign in material, local in motive.

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On recapitulating the several phases of Seri handicraft, the devices are found to fall into genetic classes of such sort as to illumine certain notable stages of primitive technic.

The initial class comprises teeth, beaks and mandibles, claws, hoofs, and horns, used in imitation or symbolic mimicry of either actual or imputed function of animals, chiefly those to which the organs pertain, together with vegetal spines and stalks or splints, used similarly under the zootheistic imputation of animal powers to plants; also carapaces and pelts, used as shields combining actual and symbolic protective functions. While this class of devices is well displayed by the Seri, it is by no means peculiar to them; clear vestiges of the devices have been noted among many Amerind tribes. Now the essential basis of the industrial motive has been recognized by all profounder students in zootheism, animism, or hylozoism—indeed, the industrial stage is but the reflex and expression of the zootheistic or hylozoic plane in the development of philosophy; while both the devices and the cultural stage which they represent have already been outlined by the late Frank Hamilton Cushing, on the basis of surviving vestiges and prehistoric relics, and characterized as “prelithic”.[298] Cushing’s designation for the initial stage of technic has the merit of euphony, and of suggesting the serial place of the stage in industrial development; but since it denotes a most important class of artifacts only by exclusion and negation it would seem desirable to supplement it by a positive term. The class of devices (considered in both material and functional aspects) and the cultural stage in general might appropriately be styled hylozoic, though it would seem preferable to emphasize the actual objective basis of the class and stage by a specific designation—and for this purpose the term _zoomimetic_ (from ζω̢̃ον, τὁ and μιμητικὁς), or its simplified equivalent, _zoomimic_, would seem acceptable.

[298] The Development of Form and Function in Implements; an unpublished paper presented before the British Association for the Advancement of Science at the Toronκωto meeting in 1897. A brief abstract, revised by the author of the paper, was printed in the American Anthropologist, vol. X, 1897, pp. 325-326; and in the absence of full authorial publication, the more strictly germane passages of the abstract are worthy of quotation: “Beginning with the semiarboreal [human] progenitor indicated jointly by projecting forward the lines of biotic development and projecting backward the lines of human development, Mr Cushing undertook to trace hypothetically, yet by constant reference to known facts, (1) the genesis of artificial devices, and (2) the concurrent differentiation of the human brain and body in the directions set forth by Sir William Turner; and he gave special force to his exposition by frequent reference to commonly neglected characteristics, physical and psychic, of young infants. He pointed out that the prototype of man, whether infantile or primitive, is a clumsy ambidexter, the differentiation of hand and brain remaining inchoate; that one of the earliest artificial processes is a sawing movement, in which, however, the object to be severed is moved over the cutting edge or surface, and that the infant or savage at first selects sharp objects (teeth, shells, etc.) as cutting implements, and only after long cultivation learns to make cutting implements of stone; this early stage in development he called _prelithic_. Passing, then, to the age of stone, he showed that this substance is first in the form of natural pebbles or other pieces for hammering, crushing, bruising, and as a missile. That in time the user learns that the stone is made more effective for severing tissues by fracturing it in such way as to give a sharp edge, the fracture being originally accidental and afterward designed; yet that for a long time it is the hammerstone that is fractured and not the object against which the blows are directed. In this stage of development (called _protolithic_, after McGee) stone implements come into more or less extended use in connection with implements of shell, tooth, etc.; yet the implements are obtained by choice among natural pieces and by undesigned improvement of these through use. The next stage is that of designed shaping through fracture by blows from a hammerstone, followed by intentional chipping. This may be regarded as the beginning of paleolithic art, and also marks the beginning of dexterity and the activital differentiation of the hands. Incidentally the author brought out the importance of that concept of mysticism which is found of so great potency among infantile and primitive minds, in such manner as to suggest the genesis, and the obscure reasons for the persistence of this phase of intellectuality; for the inchoate imagination is able to expand only in the direction of mystical explanation, so that fertility in primitive invention seems to be dependent on appeal to the mysterious powers of nature. At first the mystery pervades all things, but in time it is largely concentrated in animate things; then animate powers are imputed, _e. g._, to physical phenomena. So to the infant or race-child fire is a mystical animal or demon which, in prelithic or protolithic times, must have been at first tolerated, then fed with fuel and punished with water and eventually subjugated and tamed, much as the real animals were afterward brought into domestication.”

A transitional series of devices is represented by awls of wood or iron fashioned in imitation of mandibles or claws, by wooden foreshafts shaped in symbolic mimicry of teeth, and by other vicarious replacements of material in devices of zoomimic motive; but this series may be regarded as constituting a subclass, or as a connecting link between classes rather than a major class of devices. Yet the subclass is of great significance as a mile-mark of progress in nature-conquest, and as the germ of that industrial revolution consummated as tribesmen grew into reliance on their own acumen and strength and skill rather than on the capricious favor of beast-gods.

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NATURAL PEBBLE CONSIDERABLY WORN AS CUTTER AND GRINDER]

The next major class of devices comprises shells and cobbles and bowlders picked up at random to meet emergency needs, wielded in ways determined by emergency adjustment of means to ends, and sometimes retained and reused under the budding instinct of fitness, though never shaped by design. The devices of this class are best exemplified by the tool-shells and by the hupfs and ahsts of the Seri matrons, partly because of the practical absence of higher artifacts from their territory; yet the class is by no means confined to this notably primitive, folk: the greater part of the implements used by the California Indians and a large part of those used by every other known Amerind tribe in aboriginal condition consist of shore cobbles, river pebbles, talus bowlders, or other natural stones of form and size convenient for emergency use; and (despite the fact that such objects are often ignored by observers, for the prosaic reason that they represent no familiar or trenchant class), there is no lack of evidence that they are or have been in habitual use among all primitive peoples. Although zootheistic or sortilegic motives doubtless play an undetermined rôle in the selection of the objects, and although wonted zoomimic movements doubtless affect the initial processes, the essential distinction from zoomimic artifacts resides in the selection and use of natural objects through a mechanical chance tending to inspire volitional exercise rather than through a fiducial rule tending to paralyze volitional effort; while the class is no less trenchantly separable from those of higher grade by the absence of preconceived models or technical designs. The class of devices and the culture-stage which they represent have already been outlined and defined as _protolithic_.[299]

[299] American Anthropologist, vol. IX, 1896, pp. 317-318.

A transitional series of devices allied to the Seri hupf on the one hand and to the chipped artifact on the other hand is frequently found among the aborigines of California and other native tribes; it is typified by a cobble or other natural piece of stone cleft (first by accident of use and later by design) in such wise as to afford an edged tool. This subclass of artifacts is religiously eschewed by the Seri; but it is of much interest as an illustration of the way in which artificialization proceeds, and of the exceeding slowness of primitive progress.

The third great class of devices defined by technologic development comprises stones chipped, flaked, battered, ground, or otherwise wrought in accordance with preconceived designs, together with cold-forged native metal, horn, bone, wood, and other substances wrought in accordance with preconceived models and direct motives. Among the Seri this class of devices is represented only by the rare arrowpoints of chipped stone, which seem to be accultural and largely fetishistic; but the class is abundantly represented by the artifacts of most of the Amerind tribes. The class and the cultural stage have already been outlined under the term _technolithic_.[300]

[300] Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1898, pp. 42-43. The long extant and well-known classification of stone artifacts as “paleolithic” and “neolithic” may not be overlooked. This classification was based originally on prehistoric relics of Europe, and it served excellent purpose in distinguishing finely finished stone implements from those of rudely chipped stone; but both classes of artifacts were shaped in accordance with preconceived design, and hence both belong to the technolithic class as herein defined. It may be added that the classification was made with little if any reference to primitive thought, was not based on observation among primitive peoples, and has not been found to apply usefully to the aborigines and aboriginal artifacts of America, where the representative tribe or prehistoric village site is characterized by implements of both “paleolithic” and “neolithic” types which intergrade in such manner as to prove contemporaneous manufacture and interchangeable use; while the preponderance of polished-stone implements is generally indicative of simpler rather than of more advanced culture.

A transitional series of devices intervenes between stone artifacts and artifacts of smelted metal; it is represented by malleable native metals (chiefly copper, silver, meteoric iron, and gold), originally wrought cold, after the manner of stone, though heating under the hammer in such wise as to prepare the way for forging, fusing, and founding. These devices and the processes with which they are correlated are not represented among the Seri; indeed, the crude use of iron by the tribe would seem to lie on a lower plane in industrial development than even the arrowpoint-chipping, in that the artifacts, though of foreign material, are wrought largely in accordance with zoomimic motives.

The fourth major class of devices, comprising the multifarious artifacts of smelted and alloyed metal, was barely represented in aboriginal America; only a few of the more advanced tribes had attained the threshold of metallurgy, and even among these the crude metal working remained hieratic or esthetic, and did not displace the prevalent stone craft.

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Briefly, the several stages in the development of tools and implements may be seriated as follows:

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NATURAL PEBBLE CONSIDERABLY USED AS HAMMER, GRINDER, AND ANVIL (TOP AND EDGE)]

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NATURAL PEBBLE CONSIDERABLY USED AS HAMMER, GRINDER, AND ANVIL (BOTTOM AND EDGE)]

It is to be realized that the successive stages represent characteristic phases of normal and continuous growth, and hence that their relations are intimate and complex. The fundamental factor of the growth is intellectual advancement, and hence in actual life each stage is at once the germ and the foundation for the next higher; each stage is characterized by a type or a cognate series of types, yet each commonly contains a few forms prophetic of the next stage and many forms vestigial of the earlier stages; so that the stages are to be likened unto successive generations of organisms, or (still more appropriately) to the successive phases of ovum, larva, pupa, and imago in the ontogeny of the insect rather than to the arbitrary classes of pigeonhole arrangements. The complex relations conceived to exist among the stages can be indicated more clearly by diagraphic representation than by typographic arrangement, and such a representation is introduced as figure 38. The successive curves in the diagram express the rhythmic character of progress and the cumulative value of its interrelated factors, as well as the dominance of successive types until gradually sapped and absorbed (though not immediately or completely annihilated) by higher types reflecting a strengthened mentality.

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The place of the normal pacific industries of the Seri in this genetic classification of human technic is definite. The Seri craft combines the features of the zoomimic and protolithic stages more completely than that of any other known folk, and in such wise as to reveal the relations between these stages and that next higher in the series with unparalleled clearness; their craft also displays an aberrant (and hence presumptively accultural) feature pertaining to the technolithic stage; and in so far as their craftsmen use the material typical of the age of metal they degrade it to the transitional substage between dominant zoomimicry and designless stone-using.

Viewed in the general light of their pacific industries, the Seri are, accordingly, among the most primitive of known tribes; their technic is in harmony with their esthetic, and also with their somatic and tribal characteristics, in attesting a lowly plane of development; while their industries, like their other demotic features, are essentially autochthonous.

WARFARE

Something is known of Seri warfare through the history of the centuries since 1540, and especially through the bloody episodes of the Encinas régime and the occasional outbreaks of the last decade or two. The available data clearly indicate that the warfare of the tribe complements their pacific industries in every essential respect.

As befits their primitive character, warfare has played an important role in the history of the folk, forming, indeed, one of the chief factors in determining the course of tribal development. There is no means of estimating the losses suffered and occasioned in warfare with the neighboring tribes during either prehistoric or historic times; but the indications are that they were much greater than the losses connected with Caucasian contact. Neither is it practicable to estimate reliably the fatalities attending the interminable conflicts with the Spanish invaders and their descendants, though it is safe to say that the Seri losses in strife against Spaniards and Mexicans aggregate many hundred, and that the correlative loss on the part of their enemies reaches several score, if not some hundred, lives. Few if any other aboriginal tribes of America have had so sanguinary a history as the Seri, and none other has at once so long and so bloody a record.

According to the consistent accounts of several survivors of conflict with the Seri, their chief weapons are arrows, stones, and clubs—though several survivors manifest greater fear of the throttling hands and rending teeth of the savage warriors than of all their artificial weapons combined. A striking feature of the recitals, indeed, is the rarity of reference to weapons; the ambushes or surrounds or chance meetings, with their disastrous or happy consequences, are commonly described with considerable detail; the carbines or rifles, the machetes and knives, or the deftly thrown riatas employed by the rancheros or vaqueros are mentioned with full appreciation of their serviceability; but the ordinary expressions concerning the despised yet dreaded Seri are precisely those employed in recounting conflicts with carnivorous beasts. When Andrés Noriega’s kinswoman proudly related how he alone once overawed and routed an attacking party of 30 Seri warriors, she duly mentioned the carbine ready for use in his hands and the six-shooter and machete in his belt; but nothing was said of the Seri weapons. When a distinguished sportsman citizen of Caborca, the local authority on the Seri, sought to dissuade the 1895 expedition from visiting Tiburon, he was repetitively and cumulatively emphatic in his oracular forecast, “Ils vont vous tuer! _Ils vont vous tuer!!_ ILS VONT VOUS TUER!!!”—yet he made but passing reference to “poisoned” arrows, and none to other weapons, in the general implication that invaders of the tribal territory were torn limb from limb and strewn over the rocks and deserts of Seriland. When Jesus Omada, of Bacuachito, boasted his Seri scars, he indeed emphasized the arrow-mark on his breast, but only as a prelude and foil to the far ghastlier record of his teeth-torn arm. When Robinson and his companion were butchered on Tiburon in 1894, the bloody work was effected chiefly by means of a borrowed Winchester; and neither the account of the survivors nor that of the actors made mention of native weapons—save the stones with which the second victim was finished according to the local version. In short, most of the casual expressions and fuller recitals alike indicate that while the Seri are famous fighters their weapons—except the much-dreaded “poisoned” arrows—are incidents rather than essentials to savage assaults, and that their prowess rests primarily on bodily the strength and swiftness.

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The Seri Indians. (1898 N 17 / 1895-1896 (pages 1-344*))Chapter XV: Introduction: Salient Features (14)

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