Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1901-11-29
THE sERI INDIANS.
An Interesting Account Of the Most
Primitive Tribe Of American Saw


thing is at last coming to be known re-
garding that strange people, the Seri |
Indians, the fiercest Indians on the Amer |
lean continent and unquestionably the |
least studied and most completely iso- |
lated race of people on the globe. There |
is something almost pathetic in the fact
that what little information has been
Cleaned by the Bureau of American
Ethnology a branch of the United States
government, has been secured on the eve
of the total extinction of this the most
strongly marked and distinctive of the
aboriginal tribes of the New World
For hundreds of years these savages, in
MANY respects the most terrible fighters
the world has ever seen, have been
continually al war with their neighbors
until now the population of the tribe
which couple n centuries ago numbered
several THOUSAND, has been reduced to
little over 300 persons, of whom not over
rs are adult males or warriors. The
great dominant characteristic of the
Seri is their absolute isolation in thought
and life and feeling. More impressive
still is the fact that the ages of life In
their own little sphere. almost as COM
pletely isolated as though they in
habited another planet, have rostered
in the Seri a bitter and implacable
hereditary enmity toward all other
human being. All the mistrust and
hatred which It is possible for one race
to feel for another eliminates on the
borders of Seriland. The nearest neigh
bors to the Seri regard them as hardly
human-a feeling fully shared by the
Seri themselves, who deem themselves
more closely akin to the beasts which
they worship than to the despised hui
mans haunting their borders. In very
truth they stand alone in every respect
far out-Ishmaeling the Ishmael If old on
Arabys deserts.
l, t.
main and its physical features assist
these Indians, If not, indeed compel them
to live a people apart from all the world.
They inhabit Tiburon Island in the Gulf
of California and a very limited area on
the adjacent mainland of Mexico. Their
little principality is protected on one side
by stormy seas in which any craft must
wage a hard fight for life and on the
other by almost impossible deserts.
Their home itself is too hard and poor
to tempt conquest, being arid and
rugged and consisting chiefly of desert
sands and naked mountain rocks with
permanent fresh water in only one or
two places. Finally their possessions are
too meagre to invite spoliation, but did
they possess the treasures of the Aztecs
they would be almost equally secure
since the natural terrors of this mod
ern inferno would be likely to exter-
inmate any civilized force which might
attempt an invasion.
Both the Seri men and women are of
splendid physique, they have fine chests
with slender but sinewy limbs, and are
notably vigorous in movement, erect in
carriage. and remarkable for fleetness
and endurance. The members of the
tribe subsist almost wholly on sea food,
land game and fruits, and most of their
food is eaten raw. They neither plant nor
cultivate and are without domestic ami
mails save dogs, and these latter are little
short of wild beasts. Their only habita-
lions are flimsy bowers of shrubbery,
occasionally shingled rudely with turtle
shells and sponges. The Seri clothing
consists of kilt or shirt extending from
waist to knees, and the women indulge
in the most fantastic symbolic face-paint-
ing.
At present polygymy prevails in the
tribe, but in former years polyandry was
practiced. The primary marriage is
negotiated between the mothers of the
would-be groom and the prospective
bride. If the mother and daughter In
the latter family look. with favor on the
proposal, the candidate is subjected to
rigorous tests of character, and If these
are successfully passed the marriage is
considered complete, and the husband be-
comes a privileged and permanent guest
in the wife's household. In every phase
of the life of these people there crops
other human beings. In their estimation
the brightest virtue is shedding of alien
blood and the blacklist crime on the
Seri calendar is conjugal union with any
person from the outside world.
These Indians, who have for centuries
successfully stayed Spanish, Mexican
and American invasion, worship innum
cradle mystical deities, most prominent
among which are the pelican, the turtle.
I lie known there
are certain observances at the time of
the new moon and that there are held
annual ceremonies at various times, but
the character of these no white man has
ever been able to ascertain. How great
is their secretiveness may be imagined
from the fact that to this day no alien
has ever seen the christening of their
children, the burial of their dead or the
ceremonies of their shrines.
In the olden days the Jesuit mission
aries and after them the Franciscan
friars and the secular officials sought to
scatter the Seri by both cajolery and
coercion, and endeavored to divide fam
flies by restraint of women and children
and by Punishment of wives. There are
traditions, too, of the capture and en-
slavement of Indian and Caucasian
women in Seriland, yet the fact remains
that not a single mixed-blood Seri is
known to exist, and not more than two
of the blood now live voluntarily beyond
the confines of the tribe, and these have
been outlawed and could not return to
their people If they wished.
1t is impossible for a person who has
not Travelled through the country to un-
derstand with what mingled horror and
terror and loathing the Seri are regarded
through the length and breadth of west
ern Mexico and in the southwestern por-
ton of the United States. Their prac-
tees in warfare have afforded repeated
proof that they are not only the most
primitive but by far the most blood
thirsty and treacherous of the Indians
of North America. Even at the present
time, with their wasted forces, 1t would
be little sort of suicide for even a Mex
lean official to visit these Indians or
land on their island without an armed
guard. Any white man, Mexican or In
dian of another tribe coming in contact
with them is killed without the slightest
compunction. In warfare they make use
of the deadly poisoned arrows and al
though the United States government
explorers have virtually established the
fact that these Indians do not practice
cannibalism, as has been supposed until
a few months ago, 1t is known that they
habitually indulge in carrion eating.
Added to these other grewsome details IS
the supreme horror which has been inspir-
ed by the accounts of offense and defense
by nails and teeth which have been given
by men who have met the Seri in battle.
Such is the shuddering antipathy aroused
by these bloodthirsty chronicles that, in
.