Chapter VIII: Introduction: Salient Features (7)

During this period of mutual toleration the Seri were so deeply influenced by the white contact that, for probably the only time in their history, they voluntarily allowed an alien free entry into their territory; and Don Pascual explored the coast of Bahia Kino, projected a port, and even visited Isla Tiburon twice or thrice. In one of these visits he was ferried over Boca Infierno on a balsa, but, finding himself unable to keep pace with the swift-footed Seri on their hilly pathways, he returned for his saddle mule; halfway across, the poor animal swimming behind the balsa suddenly plunged and struggled, and, on landing, hobbled out on three legs—the fourth having being snapped by a shark. Warned by this incident, Don Pascual abandoned a half-formed plan of stocking the island, and afterward brought up a small vessel from Guaymas in which he carried across a dozen caballeros (including Don Ygnacio Lozania, who had visited the island with the Andrade expedition); and this party examined the southeastern quarter of the island, watering two or three times at Tinaja Anita, and pushing as far westward as Arroyo Carrizal. On this trip he studied the Seri house-building, and was the first to note the large use of turtle-shells and sponges in the process.[217]

[217] Typical Seri jacales, as described by Don Pascual in 1894, were observed on Tiburon by the 1895 expedition, as shown by the photographs reproduced in plates VII, VIII, and IX.

About the middle fifties it became apparent that the Seri were dividing into a parasitical portion clustered about the rancho (as their forbears gathered about Populo and Pueblo Seri long before), and a more independent faction clinging to their rugged ranges and gale-swept fishing grounds; and it became evident, too, that the thievery of the dependent faction would soon ruin the rancho if not checked, or at least greatly diminished. Accordingly the passive policy was modified by introducing a more active police service. At first the penalties for theft and misdemeanors were light, and the system promised well—especially as even a slight punishment was equivalent to banishment, the criminal fleeing to Tiburon on his escape or immediately after the crime; yet the experience of a year or two proved that the escaped parasites seldom resumed the hard customs of their tribal life, but generally returned to the borderland and there preyed on the wandering stock from the rancho. Finally, driven to extremity, and supported by the state and federal authorities (themselves confessedly unable successfully to cope with the condition), Don Pascual reluctantly adopted a severer régime. Sending out as messengers several Seri still remaining at the rancho, he convened the leading chiefs and clanmothers of the tribe in a council, and announced that the stock-killing must cease, on pain of a Seri head for each head of stock thereafter slain. The Indians seemingly acquiesced, and separated; but within two days a group of Seri women “milled” a band of horses, caught and threw one in such wise as to break its neck, and immediately sucked its blood, gorged its intestines, and buried its quarters to “ripen”, after their former fashion. Thereupon a matron remaining near the rancho was sent to demand the delivery of the perpetrators; and, when she failed to return, the vaqueros were instructed to shoot the first Seri seen on the llano. Within two days more, the tribe were on the warpath for revenge—and the war raged for a decade.

During the early months of the Encinas war Don Pascual’s vaqueros sought merely to enforce the barbaric law of a head for a head; but, as they found themselves beset by ambush, assailed and wounded by night, despoiled of favorite animals, and kept constantly in that most nerve-trying state of eternal vigilance, their rancor rose to an intensity nearly equal to the savage passion for blood-vengeance; and thenceforth the Seri were hunted from the plain east of Desierto Encinas precisely as were the stealthy jaguar and sneaking coyote—and the ghastly details were better spared. There were few open battles; commonly the vaqueros rode in groups and guarded against ambuscades, and the Seri were picked off one by one; but once in the early sixties Don Pascual, at the head of some 30 vaqueros, fell into an ambush on the frontier, and several of his horses were killed and some of his men wounded, while 60 or 70 Seri warriors were left on the field. Don Pascual’s horse received a slight arrow wound, to which little attention was paid; next morning the gash was swollen and inflamed and the beast too stiff and logy for use; in the afternoon the glands under the jaw were swollen, and there was a purulent discharge from eyes and nostrils. On the second morning the animal was hardly able to move, its head was enormously swollen, there were fetid ulcers about the jaws and throat, and the swelling extended to the legs and abdomen. On the third morning there were suppurating ulcers on various parts of the body, while rags of putrefied flesh and stringy pus hung from the head and neck, and the animal was unapproachable because of the stench; during the day it dropped dead, and even the coyotes and buzzards shrank from the pestilential carcass. This and parallel incidents impressed Don Pascual with the dangers incident to Seri war; but fortunately the fact that he—the leader of the party, the first to fall into the ambush, and the target of most of the arrows—had escaped unscathed impressed still more deeply the surviving savages, and they soon sued for peace. Thenceforth he was revered as a shaman greater than those of the tribe, feared as an invulnerable fighter, and honored as a just lawgiver; and gradually the condition of mutual tolerance was restored, to rest on a firmer basis than before.

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. VIII

SPONGE USED FOR HOUSE COVERING, TIBURON ISLAND]

Don Pascual estimates that during the dozen years of strife between his men and the Seri forces about half of the tribe were slain. The horror of the history of this period may be passed over; it may merely be noted as a casual fact that one of the two Mexicans accompanying the 1895 expedition was credited with 17 Seri heads. When he pointed out the site of his last exploit, a mile or two south of Rancho Libertad, and some incredulity was expressed, he immediately galloped to the spot and brought back a silent witness in the form of a bleached Seri skull.[218]

[218] The specimen described by Dr Hrdlička, postea, p. 141.

At the close of the war Don Pascual continued the industrial development of the plains lying east of the desert border of Seriland, received new concessions in recognition of his conquest, and developed the ranches of Santa Ana and Libertad; but the evangelical arm of his vigorous mission gradually withered. For a dozen years the Seri looked up to “El Patron” as a quasi ruler, whose approval was requisite for the ratification of chieftainship, and through him ran a slender thread of nominal fealty to the state and the republic; yet few parasites gathered about the rancho. Mashém had gone back to his clan; and when depredations were committed at Bacuachito or elsewhere and the criminals were caught, usually through Don Pascual’s instrumentality, they were sometimes haled to Hermosillo for trial, and Kolusio was kept there as the official interpreter of charges and evidence and findings. Sometime during the sixties a few Seri youths were coaxed to Pueblo Seri for education, but when they were instructed to cut their hair they slunk dejectedly to their temporary domicile, only to decamp during the ensuing night; again, in 1870, Kolusio was commissioned to bring in a few young people and a matron or two of the tribe, and succeeded in doing so just in time to encounter an epidemic of measles, from which some died, while the others shook the dust of the pueblo from their feet forever; and this last straw, added to his alien residence and his presence at the dreaded trials, broke down the tribal toleration of Kolusio and made him an outlaw forever.

In the later seventies Don Pascual’s energies began to wane, while the Seri population was waxing again; and, although the Encinas frontier was protected, raids began to recur toward Bacuachito, on the ranchos southwest of Caborca, and sometimes toward Guaymas; and the hostilities then engendered have never terminated. In the eighties Don Pascual suffered from cataract, gradually losing his sight, and his rule relaxed still further; Rancho Libertad was abandoned, and a condition of armed neutrality supervened at San Francisco de Costa Rica and Santa Ana; and this condition still persists, save as occasionally modified by a crude sort of diplomacy on the part of the Seri: when blood-feud is not burning (and it is usually extinguished by the killing of an alien on the coast or some remote part of the frontier), and when no stock have been slaughtered for some months, an aged woman may be seen skulking about the mesquite clumps in sight of the rancho; if her presence is tolerated for a day or two, she approaches to beg for water and food and to receive the cast-off rags hastily forced on her nakedness by the sensitive señoras; if she deem her welcome not too chill, she erects a jacal a few hundred yards away, and there she is usually found, a morning or two later, to be accompanied by a younger matron with a child or two; and if these are tolerated, the rancheria may grow to half a dozen jacales and half a hundred persons.[219] The band may remain a fortnight or even a month; but in case of serious illness of any of their number, or of threat or punishment for petty peccadillos, or of an unusual storm, or of a brilliant meteor, or of any exceptional occurrence about the rancho, the rancheria is commonly found empty next morning. If the attachés of the rancho are indisposed to tolerate the first envoy, yet feel kindly rather than rancorous, she is merely dogged and stoned away like a depredating domestic animal from another hacienda; if the rancor of past encounters remains, the mercy accorded her is precisely that shown the predatory coyote or other feral animal from the fastnesses of the sierras—and the tribe take warning and doubtless rejoice that their loss is no greater.

[219] A typical single jacal and the entire rancheria gathered at Costa Rica in 1894 are shown from photographs in plates X and XI.

* * * * *

Any recital of the common history of the peculiarly savage Seri and the whites necessarily conveys an exaggerated notion of intimacy and mutual influence, since it emphasizes the few positive interrelations scattered along the decades of neglected nonrelation; and this is true of the Encinas régime as of earlier centuries. The great fact is that throughout their recorded history the Seri have touched civilization so slightly and so seldom that the effect of each contact was largely lost before the next supervened; and the unprecedentedly intimate contact of the Encinas régime, especially during the initial period of abnormal toleration, serves less to indicate relationship in characteristics and sympathies than to measure the breadth of the chasm between the Seri and the Mexican—a chasm not exceeded, and probably not equaled, elsewhere in America. About the middle fifties, probably every Seri above infancy and below decrepitude had seen Don Pascual and some other habitués of the rancho; they yielded to the seductions of indolent scavengering apparently more numerously than ever before; they substituted cast-off rags and barter-bought manta (plain cotton cloth) for the products of their own primitive weaving; they ate cooked food when it fell in their way; they half-heartedly adopted metal cutting implements, and sought or stole nails and hoop-iron for arrowpoints; some of them acquired a smattering of Spanish, and many of them solicited and sported Spanish names, just as they begged and flaunted tawdry handkerchiefs and beads; and they generally enjoyed mildly the ecclesiastical fiestas, and took kindly to the cross as a symbol of peace and plenty and perhaps of deeper import. Yet even during this halcyon term no Seri save Kolusio and the Altar outlaw ever learned to live in a house; none but these and Mashém wore hats habitually; and, despite the fact that they often witnessed and sometimes playfully or perforce participated in the processes, no Seri ever really encompassed the idea of house-building or even of making adobe. Though surrounded by horses when near the rancho, they never learned to ride nor to use the animals otherwise than for immediate slaughter and consumption; though in frequent sight of skilful ropers, they never fully grasped the idea of the riata, preferring to seize their prey with hands and teeth; though familiar with the agricultural operations of the rancho, they never turned a sod nor planted a seed on their own account; though in frequent sight of cooking, they seldom began and never finished the process with their own food; though acquainted with firearms, they continued to regard them as thaumaturgic devices, and chose the bow and arrow for actual use; though submitting to apparel on the frontier, they commonly cast away the incumbrances on returning to their lairs; and no Mexican or other Caucasian ever saw within their esoteric life—their names remained unrevealed, their hair remained sacred, their mourning for the dead was unheard save at a distance, and no alien, even unto today, has ever seen the birth of their babes, the christening of their children, the burial of their dead, or the ceremonies of their shrines. The Seri and the whites were, indeed, mutually tolerant; but, so far as concerns mutual sympathy, the toleration was almost precisely on a par with that between the ranchero and the vulture-flock that scavengers his corrals—and when depredation began the toleration was of a piece with that between householders and their unwillingly domiciled rodents. It is not too much to say that the interracial mistrust and hatred of the Western Hemisphere culminates on the borders of Seriland; though the antipathy is commonly regarded by the alien tribesmen and the Mexicans as other than racial, since the Seri are felt to be hardly human—a feeling fully shared by the Seri, who undoubtedly deem themselves more closely akin to their deified bestial tutelaries than to the hated humans haunting their borders.

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. IX

HOUSE SKELETON, TIBURON ISLAND.]

* * * * *

Even during the Encinas régime the Seri came in occasional contact with aliens on other parts of the frontier: on Hacienda Serna, the somewhat remoter borderland outpost on the north, the relations between the landholders and the Seri were analogous to those on the Encinas plains, though less acute in the ratio of relative distance. Occasionally small parties of warriors journeyed to Guaymas[220] on balsas or on foot to barter pelican-skin robes for Caucasian commodities, chiefly aguardiente and manta; still more rarely similar pilgrimages were made to the outskirts of Hermosillo; a few marauding raids were made to the ranches lying near Cieneguilla and Caborca; and a number of ill-advised prospecting parties, coming by land or water, paid the penalty of foolhardiness. Writing about 1864, Historian Velasco recurred to the Seri to say:

[220] The accompanying plate XII is reproduced, from a photograph of a small group of Seri traders taken near Guaymas, probably during the eighties. It was kindly furnished by F. A. Ober, who purchased it in Guaymas.

This handful of bandits, assassins, thieves, brutes
[inhumanos], infinitely vile and cowardly, on February 28 last,
on the Guaymas road, at the place called Huerfano, assassinated
4 unhappy women, including a girl of 9 years, and 7 men who
were conducting them in a cart toward that port.

He bitterly denounced the apparent apathy of the state and federal authorities, adding:

When it is read in history fifty years hence that a handful
of murderous Ceris, certainly not more than 80 of the tribe
able to bear arms, was able to domineer in the midst of their
crimes with unexampled audacity on account of the debility
of the government and the inhabitants, it will be regarded
as a romance or a fable; for it seems impossible that in the
nineteenth century such a condition of things could exist to
degrade the reason, the morality, and the dignity of civilized
man.

Yet a final note, apparently added in press, recorded that—

In consequence of the last incident of the Ceris, the prefect
of Guaymas, Don Cayetano Navarro, took the field, returning
with 12 women and 16 children prisoners; also 2 striplings and
a vieillard. He slew 9 among those who had no leader. This was
on Isla Tiburon. The Indians fled thence, and are supposed to
be at Tepococ.[221]

[221] Boletin de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografia y Estadistica, tomo XI, 1862, pp. 124-125.

These may be considered as characteristic skirmishes attending the Encinas war. Other episodes followed, including the outbreaks of 1879, noted in part by M Pinart. Bacuachito suffered in various locally important events that will never be written: when Don Jesus Omada, a water-guide to the expedition of 1895, was asked about the Seri at Bacuachito, he answered with cumulative vehemence, “They killed my father. They killed my brother! They killed my brother’s wife!! They have killed half my friends!!!” As he spoke he was feverishly baring his breast; displaying a frightful scar over the clavicle, he exclaimed, “There struck a Seri arrow”; then he stripped his arm with a single sweep to reveal a ragged cicatrix extending nearly from shoulder to wrist, and added in a tone tremulous with pent bitterness, “The Seri have teeth!”

In the course of the half century from 1844 onward, the population of Sonora increased materially, and carried more than a proportionate increase in the development of agricultural and mineral resources; and, especially under the beneficent Diaz régime, the state passed from the condition of a remote frontier province into that of a well-governed commonwealth. Naturally this progress carried the Caucasian element, including that of blended blood, farther and farther away from the nonprogressive Seri; and thereby the horror and detestation awakened by the very utterance of the name of the lowly tribe were intensified beyond description or ready understanding. The traditions of arrow poisoning were kept alive, and, doubtless, growing; the recitals of carrion eating were repeated, and possibly—just possibly—magnified beyond the reality; the accounts of offense and defense by nails and teeth (such as that of Jesus Omada) passed from mouth to mouth until—incredible as it may seem—the more timid Sonorenses stood in greater dread of these natural weapons of the Seri than of their brutal clubs and swift-thrown missiles, or even of their poisoned arrows; while traditions of cannibalism came up and received such general credence that the current items of Seri outrages, both in local gossip and in the Mexican and American press, customarily recounted savage butcheries ending with gruesome feastings on the raw or slightly cooked flesh of the victims. The shuddering antipathy felt for the perpetrators of these inhumanities even a thousand miles away increased toward their frontier, as light toward its source; the dread was deepened by the failure of punitive expeditions sent out again and again only to be balked by waterless sand-wastes or wrecking tiderips; and in 1894 and 1895, at least, the horror of the Seri was a daily and nightly incubus on half the citizens of Hermosillo and the tributary pueblos and ranchos, and a thorn in the flesh of the state officials.

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. X

TYPICAL SERI HOUSE ON THE FRONTIER]

* * * * *

The external history of the Seri since the spring of 1894 is fairly known, both through the direct researches and through press reports, and would seem to be typical. This era may be assumed to open with the arrival on Tiburon’s shores of the sloop _Examiner_, carrying two San Francisco newspaper writers, Robinson and Logan, with two assistants, Clark and Cowell. The to-have-been-expected happened duly, save that two of the party escaped, and on reaching Guaymas advertised the disaster through correspondence and the press. Several of the accounts indicated that the two victims were not only slain but eaten, and various plans were laid in California, Arizona, and Sonora for the recovery of the bones[222]—as if, forsooth, the omnivorous and strong-toothed Seri spared anything save scattered teeth and split sections of the longer shafts of skeletons the size of those of _Homo sapiens_. While in Guaymas the two survivors set up claims for indemnity, which initiated international correspondence and inquiry into the details of the affair. These details are indicated, in sufficient fulness for present purposes, in a formal communication incorporated in the international correspondence, viz.:

[222] A number of Californians and Arizonians, especially M. M. Rice, of Phoenix, intimated a strong desire to join the 1895 expedition of the Bureau of American Ethnology for the express purpose of personally ascertaining the fate and seeking the remains of Robinson, who was extensively known in southern California and southwestern Arizona.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION,
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY,
_Washington, December 14, 1894._

SIR: Early in November I visited the Seri tribe of Indians,
inhabiting Tiburon island in the Gulf of California and
an area of several thousand square miles of the adjacent
mainland in Sonora, Mexico. The visit was for the purpose
of making collections under your authority as Secretary of
the Smithsonian Institution; but I availed myself of the
opportunity for obtaining additional information relating to
the customs, habits, and history of the tribe. In addition to
my own party I was accompanied by Señor Pascual Encinas, a
prominent citizen of Hermosillo, and owner of several ranchos
adjacent to, and one within, the territory claimed by the
Seri Indians; also by Señor A. Alvemar-Leon of Hermosillo, a
young Mexican gentleman educated in the United States. For
Señor Encinas the Seri Indians have the highest regard, and
his kindly motive in accompanying the party was to facilitate
friendly intercourse with the Indians; Señor Alvemar-Leon acted
as Spanish-English interpreter, and one of the tribe who speaks
Spanish [Mashém] acted as the Seri interpreter.

One of the subjects of inquiry of the Indians related to the
alleged killing of two Americans by the Seri Indians on Tiburon
island during last spring at a date not definitely known
either to the Indians or to myself. At first the Indians were
indisposed to convey information on the subject, but after
receiving presents from Señor Encinas and myself, and friendly
assurances from the former, the interpreter for the tribe
confessed the crime and detailed the circumstances, denying,
however, that any of the Indians present at the place of
conference (Rancho de San Francisco de Costa Rica, 17 leagues
west-southwest of Hermosillo and near the coast) participated.

According to the first account given through the Indian
interpreter, the Indians on the island saw a small vessel
approach the shores of the island, and saw four men land
therefrom in a small boat. The spokesman among the strangers
made inquiry, chiefly by signs, as to whether game was abundant
in the interior of the island, and was by signs answered in
the affirmative by the chief of the tribe, who displayed a
letter of authority from the state officials at Hermosillo.
Then the strangers divided, two remaining on the shore by the
small boat, while the spokesman and another, accompanied by
several Indians, started toward the interior of the island.
When they were some distance away—the account continues—some of
the Indians remaining on shore indicated by signs a desire to
borrow the rifle of one of the two men on the beach, and after
some parley the rifle was turned over to them; then the Indians
desired also to borrow the small boat in which the party of
white men had landed, and after one of the two men remaining
on the shore was put aboard the vessel, this, too, was placed
in the hands of the Indians. Thereupon several of the Indians
entered the small boat, carrying the white man’s rifle, and
rowed around a headland a short distance away. Passing this
point they landed and a part of them ran quickly into the
interior in such direction as to intercept the course of the
white men. There they lay in wait until the strangers appeared,
when they shot the spokesman, killing him almost instantly.
On this the second white man cried out for help, whereupon he
too was shot and wounded, and then (according to the first
account) ran away and concealed himself in the bushes and was
seen no more. The Indians who had borrowed the boat then went
back to the shore, and reentered the boat with the intention
of returning and capturing the fine vessel of the strangers;
but as they approached the vessel, being at the time quite near
the shore, the man on board arose suddenly with a gun pointed
toward them and shouted, whereupon they dropped the borrowed
gun and, leaping from the boat, ran away among the mesquite
bushes, all escaping unhurt. The white man on the beach then,
as the account ran, leaped into the boat, and, recovering his
gun, rowed to the vessel and got aboard, when the two men at
once made sail and escaped down the bay.

The foregoing account was given to Señor Encinas alone by the
Indians through their interpreter, and was afterward conveyed
to me through Señor Alvemar-Leon. Both of us recognized the
incongruity with the character of the Seri Indians of that part
of the narrative relating to the wounding and escape of the
second man, and Señores Encinas and Leon and myself sought to
impress the improbability of the account on the interpreter.
Subsequently the Indians, through their interpreter, conveyed
to Señor Encinas a modification of the account (after adhering
to the first version for twenty-four hours), which agreed
in all essential respects with the first, excepting the
supplementary statement that some of the Indians (but neither
the party who accompanied the white men nor those who followed
in the boat) ran after the wounded man, caught him, shot him
again—whereupon he again cried out—and then killed him
with stones. This modified account, also, Señor Encinas duly
conveyed to me.

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XI

OCCUPIED RANCHERIA ON THE FRONTIER]

Still later, in collecting linguistic material through the
Seri interpreter with the assistance of Señor Alvemar-Leon, I
recurred to the subject incidentally (or at least ostensibly
so) on two or three occasions, partly with the view of
verifying or disproving the current report that the men were
eaten by the Indians; and since the first distrust on the part
of the interpreter and the companions (by whom he was commonly
surrounded) had worn off, the questions were answered freely
and with apparent truth. In brief, the information gained in
this way was a repetition in general terms of the statement of
the killing of both men; but the responses indicated (1) that
the Indians are not cannibals, (2) that they do not eat any
portion or portions of the body of an enemy slain in war, (3)
that they do not eat human flesh in a sacrificial way, and (4),
specifically, that they did not eat the flesh of the two white
men killed last spring. I am disposed to give credence to all
of these statements.

Señor Encinas informed me that for a long time after the
reputed killing of the two Americans on the island the Seri
were exceptionally shy and were seldom seen on the mainland;
that the first representatives of the tribe to appear were one
or two old women who came to his rancho with much trepidation;
that these representatives being not ill-treated, a man
appeared, who was also well treated, and that still later other
members of the tribe appeared, though it was only a few days
before our visit that any considerable body of the Seri Indians
showed themselves at their favorite mainland haunt on his
rancho. It was his first communication with the Indians since
the killing, and, both he and they agreed, the first confession
of the crime outside of their own tribe.

While in Sonora various conflicting accounts of the affair were
given me. One, to which I was disposed to attach credence by
reason of the character of my informant and his explanation of
the circumstances under which the information was gained, was
given me (just before the visit referred to above) by ex-Consul
Forbes, of Guaymas. This account corresponds in all essential
details with that conveyed to my party by the Indians, except
that, according to Mr Forbes’ account, the survivors were
altogether unarmed after the borrowing of the rifle by the
Indians, and that when the man in the boat arose suddenly and
shouted he pointed at the Indians not a gun but a stick, in the
hope of deceiving them thereby, as he was fortunate enough to
do.

It may be added that the Seri Indians are at the same time the
most primitive and the most bloodthirsty and treacherous of
the Indians of North America, so far as my knowledge extends;
also that their character is well known throughout Sonora, and
indeed generally throughout Mexico, Arizona, and the southern
part of California. I was assured by the acting governor of
Sonora and by the prefect of Hermosillo that it would be little
short of suicide for even a Mexican official to visit these
Indians or land on their island without an armed guard. Through
conference with the Indians, also, I learned that any white
man, Mexican, or Indian of another tribe coming in contact with
them is killed without the slightest compunction, unless they
are restrained by fear. Accordingly I am satisfied that the
character of the Seri Indians is quite as bad as the unsavory
reputation they have acquired throughout the Southwest.

It should be observed that while the Indians were unable to
give the names of the men killed, their description of men and
vessel agreed exactly with those of the newspaper correspondent
Robinson and his companion, and with the sloop Examiner; and Mr
Forbes’ information was obtained direct from the survivors of
the expedition of which Mr Robinson had charge. There can thus
be no doubt that it was Mr Robinson and his companion who were
killed by these Indians, and whose killing was confessed by
them, as set forth above.

With great respect, your obedient servant,

W J MCGEE,
_Ethnologist in charge._

Honorable S. P. LANGLEY,
_Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution._

On first learning of the incident, months before the diplomatic correspondence began, the state and federal authorities promptly adopted vigorous punitive measures. A vessel carrying a force of federal troops was dispatched from Guaymas and a body of state troops were sent from Hermosillo with instructions to meet on the coast and capture the criminals at any cost, even to the extermination of the tribe if resistance was offered. But like so many others, the expedition failed; the horses of the land party were stalled in the sands and burrow-riddled plains, the vessel was harassed by storms and tidal currents, and the landing boats were swamped by the surf, while the Indians merely fled at sight of the invaders toward inaccessible lairs or remote parts of their territory; and when the water was gone and men and animals were at point of famishing, the forces retired without so much as seeing a single Seri.

During the ensuing autumn the tribe, having quenched their blood-feud in alien blood, turned toward peace, and sent a matron of the Turtle clan, known as Juana Maria, to Costa Rica—i. e., Rancho de San Francisco de Costa Rica—where she was gradually followed by younger matrons and children, then by youths, and finally by warriors (after the fashion of Seri diplomacy) to the aggregate number of about sixty. Here they were found by the first expedition of the Bureau of American Ethnology, in November, 1894; and here, under the still strong influence of the venerable Don Pascual, supplemented by small gifts and persistent pressure, they gradually “gave their language”, submitted to extensive photographing, confessed specifically to the Robinson killing, and yielded up nearly the whole of their portable possessions in the way of domestic implements and utensils, face-painting material, pelican-skin robes, snake-skin necklaces, etc.

With the return of the Bureau party to Hermosillo the Indians became restive and soon withdrew beyond the desert. In the course of the ensuing winter a group returned to the neighborhood of Costa Rica, where, by aid of strategy, seven warriors (including some of those seen at the rancho in the preceding November) with the families of four, were arrested, taken to Hermosillo, tried, and, according to oral accounts, banished. Irritated by this action, and connecting with it the visit of Don Pascual and the strangers desiring their language and sacred things, the clans resumed the warpath, displaying special animosity toward the residents of Costa Rica. There were a few minor skirmishes; then, at the instance of the state officials, a number of Papago Indians, who are feared by the Seri beyond all other enemies, were domiciled at the rancho, where their mere presence proved a sufficient protection. Meantime, according to apparently trustworthy press accounts, two small exploring parties entered Seriland; the first consisted of seven prospectors, who kept well together until about to leave the territory, when one of their number fell behind—and his companions saw him no more, though they carefully retraced their trail beyond the point at which he had stopped; the other was a German naturalist-prospector with two mozos (servant-companions), purporting to hail from Chihuahua, who started across the delta-plain of Rio Bacuache and Desierto Encinas with saddle animals, and never reappeared.

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XII

GROUP OF SERI INDIANS ON TRADING EXCURSION]

Then came the second expedition of the Bureau of American Ethnology, to which several Papago domiciled at Costa Rica were attached as guards. While the party were at the rancho the day before the first entrada into Seriland via Barranca Salina, a party of vaqueros from Rancho Santa Ana tended a herd of stock to the barranca for water; one of the animals strayed behind a dune, and the vaqueros, following its trail, came on a small band of Seri already devouring the entrails, and attacked them so vigorously that they escaped only by outrunning the horses, leaving behind all their unattached possessions, including a bow and quiver of arrows and an ancient and nonusable army rifle. This incident, albeit typical, was untimely, and doubtless aided in rendering the Indians too wild to permit communication with the aliens during the ensuing weeks spent in their territory.

After the withdrawal of this expedition the Seri resumed their range over the borderland plain, with the evident intention of avenging the insult of the invasion. There were a number of skirmishes, in which some of the Papago guards of the 1895 expedition were wounded and had horses killed under them, though they did customary execution on the worse-armed Seri; and extensively published press items indicate that, toward the end of January, 1896, a party of five gold prospectors landed on Tiburon, whence one escaped.

A well-attested episode ensued toward the end of 1896: Captain George Porter and Sailor John Johnson spent the later part of the summer in cruising the coasts of the Gulf, collecting shells, feathers, and other curios in the small sloop _World_. About the end of October they apparently anchored in Rada Ballena; and a day or two later Captain Martin Mendez, of Guaymas, in charge of the schooner _Otila_, being driven up the gulf and into Bahia Kunkaak by storms, came on a horde of Seri looting Porter’s vessel. The episode received publicity on Mendez’s return to Guaymas; United States Consular Agent Crocker instituted inquiries, and Governor Corral sent a force to Costa Rica, where, after some delay, a parley was held with a strong band of Seri under the chiefship of “a seven-foot warrior named El Mudo (The Mute), ... so called for his reticence of speech.”[223] The testimony obtained at the parley and from Captain Mendez indicates that Porter and Johnson landed, or at least approached the shore, probably in a small boat; that they were met by a shower of arrows, under which Johnson immediately fell, while Porter defended himself with a shotgun, slaying five of the Seri before he was himself transfixed; that the vessel was then looted, and that Mendez and his crew were prevented from landing and apparently driven off by the Seri force. In the course of the parley the state officials “demanded the surrender of the ringleaders in the massacre”, with the alternative of “regarding the whole tribe as guilty and punishing them accordingly”; but El Mudo, evidently holding the invasion of the island as the initial transgression and deeming the loss of the tribe under Porter’s marksmanship as more than commensurate with the Caucasian loss, peremptorily ended the conference and returned to the island. Vigorous efforts were made to pursue the tribesmen beyond their practically impassable frontier, with the usual product of ruined horses and famished riders. Then the episode died away in an armed neutrality strained somewhat beyond the normal. Meantime the Papago guards remained at Costa Rica. “They are continuously on the lookout for these Seris, and once or twice have killed a stray one or two.”[224]

[223] San Francisco Chronicle, October 16, 1898, p. 3. The details of the episode, including the correspondence of Consular Agent Crocker, were printed in the newspapers of San Diego (the place of residence of Porter and Johnson), as well as in those of San Francisco and other cities; and there was considerable correspondence concerning the matter with the State Department at Washington. Some reports recount that the bodies of Porter and Johnson were rent to fragments and devoured, but these details naturally lack confirmation. El Mudo’s portrait appears in plate XIX.

[224] The quotations are from the account of T. H. Silsbee, of San Diego, prepared on his return from a visit to Costa Rica.

Both before and after the Porter-Johnson episode schemes were devised by various parties, chiefly Californians, for obtaining concessions covering Tiburon and its resources, most of these schemes involving plans for the extermination of the Seri; and press accounts indicate that a concession covering the islands of the gulf above the latitude of 29° (i. e., including about half of Isla Tiburon) was granted to an American company of much distinction. It would appear from numerous news items that representatives of the company sought to land on Tiburon, where they were first cajoled with offerings of food, afterward found to be poisonous, and later driven off by an enlarged force of naked archers. A recent publication bearing some official sanction announces that “Mr W. J. Lyons, of Hermosillo, Sonora, has secured a concession for the exploration of the island and in November of this year will fit out an expedition for that purpose.”[225] The various movements are significant as indices of current opinion and official policy with respect to the tribe.

[225] El Estado de Sonora, Mexico. Sus Industrias, Comerciales, Mineras y Manufacturas. Obra Publicada bajo los Auspicios del Gobierno del Estado. Obra Ilustrada, Octubre de 1897. By J. R. Southworth, Nogales; p. 73.

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On the whole, the later episodes are natural sequels of the eventful and striking earlier history of the Seri; and they can only be interpreted as pointing to early extinction of one of the most strongly marked and distinctive of aboriginal tribes.

TRIBAL FEATURES

DEFINITION AND NOMENCLATURE

According to Mashém and the clanmother known as Juana Maria, the proper name of the tribe known as Seri is _Kunkáak_ (the first vowel obscure and the succeeding consonant nasalized; perhaps _Kⁿ-káak_ or _Kᵐ-káak_ would better express the sound). According to Kolusio, as rendered by M Pinart, the Seri term for people or nation is _kom-kak_, while the Seri people are designated specifically as _Kmike_, this designation being practically equivalent phonetically (and doubtless semantically) to Sr Tenochio’s general term for women, _kamykij_. Mashém was unable or unwilling to give the precise signification of the tribal appellation used by him, merely indicating Juana Maria and one or two other elderwomen squatting near as examples or types; but comparison of the elements of the term with those used in other vocables affords a fairly clear inkling as to its meaning. The syllable _kun_ (or _kⁿ_, _kon_, _kom_, etc.) certainly connotes age and woman, and apparently connotes also life or living (_kun-kaīe_=old woman, McGee; _i-kom_=a wife, _ekam_=alive, Bartlett; _hikkam_=a wife, _kmam-kikamman_=a married woman, _Yak-kom_=Yaqui tribe, Pinart; _kon-kabre_=an old woman, Tenochio), the forms being distinct from the word for woman (_kmamm_, McGee; _ék-e-mam_, Bartlett; _kmam_, Pinart and Tenochio) and widely different from the term for man (_kŭ-tŭmm_, McGee; _ék-e-tam_, Bartlett; _ktam_, Pinart; _tam_, Tenochio) with its several combining variants; there are also indications in numerous vocables that it connotes person or personality. On the whole, the syllable appears to be an ill-formulated or uncrystallized expression, denoting at once and associatively (1) the state of living or being, (2) personality, (3) age or ancientness (or both), and (4) either femininity or maternity (much more probably the latter), this inchoate condition of the term being quite in accord with other characters of the Seri tongue, and frequently paralleled among other primitive languages. The syllable _kaak_ (or _kak_, and probably _kok_, _koj_, _kolch_, etc.) would seem to be a still more vague and colloidal term, despite the fact that it is used separately to designate the fire-drill. There are fairly decisive indications that it is composite, the initial portion denoting place and the final portion perhaps more vaguely connoting class or kind with an implication of excellence, both elements appearing in various vocables (too numerous to quote). On the whole, _kaak_ would appear to be a typical egocentric or ethnocentric term, designating and dignifying Person, Place, Time, and Mode, after the manner characteristic of primitive thought;[226] so that it may perhaps be translated “Our-Great-(or Strong-)Kind-Now-Here”. The combination of the two syllables affords a characteristically colloidal connotation of concepts, common enough in primitive use, but not expressible by any single term of modern language; in a descriptive way the complete term might be interpreted as “Our-Living-Ancient-Strongkind-Elderwomen-Now-Here,” while with the utmost elision the interpretation could hardly be reduced beyond “Our-Great-Motherfolk-Here” without fatal loss of original signification. It should be noted that the designation is made to cover the animals of Seriland (at least the zoic tutelaries of the tribe) and fire as well as the human folk.

[226] Cf. The Beginning of Mathematics, in the American Anthropologist, new series, vol. I, 1899, p. 651.

The proper tribe name is of no small interest as an index to primitive thought, and as an illustration of an early stage in linguistic development. It is significant, too, as an expression of the matronymic organization, and of the leading role played by the clanmothers in the simple legislative and judicative affairs of the tribe; and it is especially significant as an indication of the intimate association of fire and life in primitive thought.

* * * * *

The designation “Seri”, with its several variants, is undoubtedly an alien appellation, and neither Mashém nor Kolusio could throw light on its origin or meaning, though they did not apparently regard it as opprobrious. Peñafiel describes it as an Opata term; and Pimentel’s Opata vocabulary[227] (extracted from the grammar and dictionary compiled by Padre Natal Lombardo) indicates its meaning satisfactorily, albeit without special reference to the tribe. The key term in this vocabulary is “_Sërerài_, velocidad de la persona que corre.” The accent over the first vowel serves to indicate prolongation, so that term and definition may be rendered, literally, _se-ererài_, speed of the person who runs. Analysis of the term shows that the essential factor or root is that introduced elsewhere in the same vocabulary as “_Ere_, llegar.” Now, “llegar” is a protean and undifferentiated Spanish verb neuter, without satisfactory English equivalent; it may be interpreted as arrive, reach, attain, fetch, endure, continue, accomplish, suffice, ascend, or mount to, while as a verb active and verb reflective its equivalents are approach, join, proceed a little distance, unite, etc.; it may be said to imply movement or process with a centripetal connotation—i. e., a connotation antithetic to that of the expressive irregular verb “ir” in its protean forms, including the ubiquitous and ever-present “vamos” (an American slang equivalent of the Castilian verb “llegar” in certain of its phases is the strong interjectory phrase, “get together”). The prefix <i>se</i> is merely an intensive, running not merely through the Opata, but throughout various tongues of the Piman stock. In his extensive vocabulary of the Pima and Papago Indians of Arizona (1871),[228] Captain F. E. Grossmann defines the term “_se_, very, ad. (prefix)”, and over a hundred and fifty of his terms illustrate the use of this adjectival or adverbial prefix as an undifferentiated yet vigorous intensive (e. g., _uf_, female or woman, _se-uf_, a lady—great or grand woman; _ō´k_, high or height, _se-ō´k_, highmost); and in the Pimentel vocabulary this signification is attested by several other terms (e. g., “_Sererai_, paso menudo y bueno”). Finally, the intercalated consonant _r_ is a common participial element in the Piman, while the suffix _ài_ is a habitual assertive termination, as shown by various terms in the Pimentel and other vocabularies. Dropping this termination, the expression becomes _se-erer_, or—without the nonessential participial element—_se-ere_, signifying (so far as can be ascertained from the construction of the language) “moving”, or “mover”, qualified by a vigorous intensive.[229] To one familiar with the strikingly light movement characteristic of the Seri—a movement far lighter than that of the professional sprinter or of the thoroughbred “collected” by a skilful equestrian, and recalling that of the antelope skimming the plain in recurrent impulses of unseen hoof-touches, or that of the alert coyote seemingly floating eerily about the slumbering camp—this appellation appears peculiarly fit; for it is the habit of the errant Seri to roam spryly and swiftly on soundless tiptoes, to come and go like fleeting shadows of passing cloudlets, and on detection to slip behind shrub or rock and into the distance so lightly as to make no audible sign or visible trail, yet so fleetly withal as to evade the hard-riding horseman. The Seri range over a region of runners: the Opata themselves are no mean racers, since, according to Velasco and Bartlett, “In twenty-four hours they have been known to run from 40 to 50 leagues”;[230] and, according to Lumholtz, their collinguals, the Tarahumari, or “Counting-Runners”, are named from their custom of racing,[231] and display almost incredible endurance:

[227] Vocabulario Manual de la Lengua Ópata, por Francisco Pimentel; Boletin de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografia y Estadistica, tomo X, 1863, pp. 287-313.

[228] In the archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology.

[229] The latter form (_se-ere_) corresponds precisely with the current Papago pronunciation of the term, though none of the various Papago informants consulted were able to interpret the expression; indeed, they simply relegated it to the category of “old names” which they deemed it needless to discuss. An archaic form of orthography, noted in the synonymy (pp. 128-130), is SSeri, which suggests the same sounding of the initial sibilant.

[230] From 105 to 130 miles; Bartlett, Personal Narrative, vol. I, p. 445.

[231] Memoirs of the International Congress of Anthropology, Chicago, 1894, p. 104. In a letter to Mr F. W. Hodge, under date of September 11, 1900, Dr Lumholtz says: “After renewed investigation I have come to another opinion regarding the meaning of the tribal name _Tarahumari_. This word is a Spanish corruption of the native name ‘Raramuri’. Though the meaning of this word is not clear, that much is certain that _rala_ or _tara_ means ‘foot’, and I therefore take it that we must be at least approximately correct when we say that the word signifies ‘foot-runner’.”

An Indian has been known to carry a letter from Guazapares
to Chihuahua and back again in five days, the distance being
nearly 800 miles. In some parts where the Tarahumaris serve
the Mexicans they are used to run in the wild horses, driving
them into the corral. It may take them two or three days to
do it, sleeping at night and living on a little pinole. They
bring in the horses thoroughly exhausted, while they themselves
are still fresh. They will outrun any horses if you give them
time enough. They will pursue deer in the snow or with dogs
in the rain for days and days, until at last the animal is
cornered and shot with arrows or falls an easy prey from sheer
exhaustion, its hoofs dropping off.[232]

[232] American Anthropologist, vol. VIII, 1895, p. 92.

The Papago, of the same region and linguistic stock, have a racing game in which a ball of wood or stone caught on the foot is thrown, followed, and thrown again until the two or more rival racers have covered 20 to 40 miles in the course of a few hours; and their feats as couriers and trailers are quite up to those of the Opata. Yet among all these tribes, and among the Mexicans as well, the Seri are known as _the_ runners par excellence of the Sonoran province; and it is but natural that their astounding swiftness and lightness of foot should have brought them an appellation among contemporaries to whom these qualities peculiarly appeal.

Accordingly, both derivation and connotation give meaning to the name, and warrant the rendering (much weakened by linguistic infelicities) of “spry” or “spry-moving”, used in substantive sense and with an intensive implication.

* * * * *

The chronicles of the tribe, especially those written during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, indicate that the alien designation was applied loosely and with little appreciation of the tribal organization, just as was the case elsewhere throughout the continent. Gradually the chroniclers took cognizance of intertribal and intratribal relations, and introduced various distinctions in nomenclature expressing tribal or subtribal distinctions of greater or less importance. One of the earliest distinctions was that between the Seri and the Tepoka, and this distinction has been consistently maintained by nearly all later authorities, despite the commonly accepted fact (brought out most authoritatively by Hardy) that the tongues of the tribes are substantially alike. Another early distinction was that made between the Seri and the Guayma; it was based primarily on diversity of habitat and persistent enmity, though all the earlier authorities agreed, as well shown by Ramirez, that the tongues were essentially identical. The distinction has been maintained by most authorities and strongly emphasized by one (Pinart, as quoted by Bandelier), and since the Guayma are extinct, and hence beyond reach of direct inquiry, the early interpretation of tribal relation must be perpetuated.[233] Still another distinction was that made between the Upanguayma and the Guayma, and inferentially the Seri also; although the grounds for this distinction were not specifically stated, it seems to have grown out of diversity in habitat merely; but there were clear implications that the tribe or subtribe was affiliated linguistically with the Guayma, and hence with the Seri, and this assignment has been adopted by leading authorities, including Pimentel and Orozco. Among the earlier distinctions based on industrial factors was the setting apart of the Salineros, or Seri Salineros; yet this distinction, fortuitous and variable at the best, expressed no essential character and has not been maintained. A much later distinction was that between the Seri and Tiburones, emphasized by Mühleupfordt and exaggerated by Buschmann; but there seem to have been no better grounds for it than misapprehensions naturally attending a slowly crystallizing nomenclature. In any event it has not been maintained.

[233] In view of the clear indications, both a priori and a posteriori, that the latest Guayma survivors must have taken the language of the Piman (Yaqui) tribesmen with whom they found refuge, and in view of his failure thus far to present his data for public consideration, M Pinart’s inference that the Guayma belonged linguistically to the Piman stock can hardly be admitted to hold against the specific statements of the Jesuit missionaries and such accomplished inquirers as Ramirez and Pimentel.

At several stages the chroniclers coupled the Seri with other tribes, on various grounds: in the eighteenth century they were thus combined with the Pima, the Piato, and especially the Apache tribes. In the earlier half of the nineteenth century they were frequently coupled in similar fashion with the Pima and Apache tribes, and in the later half of the nineteenth century, and even in its last lustrum, they have been similarly combined with the Yaqui. The later combinations seem to explain the earlier: the Yaqui outbreaks withdraw portions of the arm-bearing population from the Seri frontier, and the marauders take advantage of the withdrawal so regularly that a Yaqui scare is invariably followed by a Seri scare, and hence the two warlike tribes are constantly associated in the minds of the Sonorenses as synchronous insurrectionists; and scrutiny of the earlier chronicles indicates that most of the so-called combinations of former times were of similar sort.

On putting the chronicles together, it seems clear that the term “Seri” was originally of lax application, but was gradually restricted to the tribe inhabiting Tiburon and ranging adjacent territory, including the collingual but inimical Guayma and Upanguayma, and also the collingual and cotolerant Tepoka; and that the various Piman tribes, as well as the Apache, were always distinct, and commonly if not invariably inimical.

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