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

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
This project is best displayed in html or ebook readers due to the spacing issues in tables caused by unicode characters.
W J McGee apparently preferrred his initials without periods. The initials W J are retained as scanned.
The letter q does not have a superscript character in unicode. Superscripts with a q are formatted with a caret and any additional superscript characters in braces in the text version.
Pages 129-end are asterisked in the original text because they overlap the pagination of the following article.
Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-96, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898, pages 1—344
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. I
SERILAND
THE SERI INDIANS By W J McGEE
Something has been known of the Seri Indians (Seris, Ceris, Ceres, Heris, Tiburones) since the time of Coronado, yet they remain one of the least-studied tribes of North America. The first systematic investigation of the tribe was made in the course of expeditions by the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1894 and 1895; it was far from complete.
The Seri Indians are a distinctive tribe in habits, customs, and language, inhabiting Tiburon island in Gulf of California and a limited adjacent area on the mainland of Sonora (Mexico). They call themselves Kun-kaak or Kmike : their common appellation is from the Opata, and may be translated “spry”. Their habitat is arid and rugged, consisting chiefly of desert sands and naked mountain rocks, with permanent fresh water in only two or three places; it is barred from settled Sonora by a nearly impassable desert. Two centuries ago the population of the tribe was estimated at several thousands, but it has been gradually reduced by almost constant warfare to barely three hundred and fifty, of whom not more than seventy-five are adult males, or warriors.