The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1899-11-29
RED BRONCHO
MARES DEATH.

4 Il L.
'Of course you have all seen that old
circus fake Of the man running against
a horse on the hequarter mile hippodrome
track" said a man recently returned
from Mexico. II want to tell you that
less than month ago I saw race of a
man on foot against a wild horse,
where the man won, and the race was
on the dead level, too. 1t was down in
Mexico, on the edge Of the Yaqui coun-
try, where they are just now pulling
OF their semi annual bargain counter
insurrection. / was down there looK-
ing after the interests of some people
who had money in the Yaqui placers,
and / wandered over to the northwest
to the edge of the Seri Indian country,
where happened to see the man who
could beat running home.
''The Seri country is about fifty miles
northwest OF H M sillo, the cap tltf
the State of Sonora. The Seris are
probably the most peculiar Indians in
the Western hemisphere. They do net
seem to be related by language, Gus
toms or physical makeup to any other
known tribe. They are race of big,
black giants for the most part, some of
them measuring six feet seven and near
ly all of them one or two inches over
ai = f.of The x.yor,,a,, mill a.,o-,r.- an
er than white men, so that the tribe as
whole is a formidable proposition.
They have the pleasant habit of kill
ing off all weakling children, as well
as the members of the tribe who are too
old and feeble to shift for themselves,
and the country they live in is so in
hospitable that the tribe is fine type
of the survival of the fittest. In color
and features they are more like negroes
than Indians, and some of their rites
and superstitions seem to have a dis
tinctly African tinge. 1t is a capital
ofense for one Of them TO marry out
side of the tribe, and the principal tenet
Of their religion, according to the neigh
boring Mexicans, is to kill every one
they meet who is not of their own
blood.
I "All this don't bear on the horse-race
particularly, but it will give you some
idea Of the sort Of people the Seris are,
and lend color of probability to an
otherwise strong story. kept hearing
all sorts of pipe stories of the Seris as
soon as we got anywhere near their
country. The Mexieans are afraid of
them and endow them with almost
fabulous powers of endurance and des-
ert cunning. We were told that a Seri
could trail a man across country by star
light and that they never used horses
except to kill and eat, and that they
could run down a deer on foot. The
deer story was repeated by everybody,
but never met man who pretended
to have actually seen it till we stopped
at the Costa Rica ranch, owned by old
Pasqual Encinas, right on the edge OF
the Seri country. Encinas is the DAN
iel Boone of Mexico, and the man who
solved the Seri problem for Sonora. He
got a grant of land from the Govern
ment and settled down right in Seri
territory, surrounded himself with a
small army of vaqueros and Papsgo In
dians, as armed retainers and fought
the Seris 10 a standstill. Now they
are thoroughly afraid Of him, and nev-
er kill his stock if they can find any
other brand on the range, and never
shoot his vanqueros from ambush with
their poisoned arrows unless they hap
pen TO have some personal score to set
tie. As the old man and his followers
have planted some three hundred Seris
in that part of the country it may be
inferred that there are still some old
scores of that sort outstanding.
''Old Encinas is very fond of talking
over his coffee and cigarettes after din
ner out under the brick-fioored veranda
of the ranchhOuse, and he assured me
that be had several times seen Seris
run down deer on foot. His explana-
tion was that they trail almost as well
as dogs, running by eye, Of course, In
stead Of by nose, and that they can go
at lope and keep deer's trail through
the brush, no matter what sort of
ground he crosses. One Of them will
start out and scare up a deer in the
mesquite and keep after it at a swift
wolftrot all day if necessary, never
giving it q chance to stop for food or
water. In the course of day he will
run it off its feet and kill it with q
knife.
"'The first time, said the old man,
that / ever saw a deer run down in
that way was soon after got well set
tied here. The Seris were nominally
at peace with us for the time, and I had
a lot of them working for me, as have
off and on all the time. One afternoon
one Of them came to me and asked to
get off to g. hunting. 1t was well on
In the afternoon then, and said To
him: "Valga, you do not want to hunt.
You want to get drunk on Antonio Me-
guile's mescale and not go to work to-
morrow" But he sulked around and
said | wanted to starve his sorrowing
family and that there were deer out in
the mesquite yearning to be killed. So
l told him to go, knowing well enough
he would 90 anyhow and probably take
the whole lot of his fellows along with
him IL he were crossed. did not
think anything more about him till
after sunset, when he came up. just as
we were stopping work for the day.
said to him: "Well, you have had
,od sleep in the brush. | hope you
are satisfied" Said he: "Yes, l did
have a good sleep, and dreamed that
killed deer. If the senor will look