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.
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 se 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:
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]
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.
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.
The ethnic relations of the Seri people attracted early and repeated attention. Humboldt gave currency, albeit not unquestioningly, to a supposed Chinese or related Oriental affiliation; Hardy noted the similarity of the Seri tongue to that of the Patagonians; Lavandera classed the language as Arabic; Stone and Bancroft circulated a supposed identification of the speech with the Welsh; Ramirez, and more especially Pimentel, narrowed the field of affiliation to Mexico and defined the tongue as distinct; Orozco y Berra, and more especially Malte-Brun, slightly reextended the field and suggested affiliation with the Caribs; while Herzog, Gatschet, and Brinton reextended the field in another direction and saw, in a vocabulary obtained from a Seri scion but alien thinker, similarities between the Serian and Yuman tongues. The recent researches tend strongly to corroborate the evidence collected and the conclusions reached by Ramirez and Pimentel; for the somewhat extended comparisons between the Serian and neighboring languages (introduced and discussed in other paragraphs) indicate that the Seri tongue is distinct save for two or three Cochimi or other Yuman elements, which may be loan words such as might readily have been obtained through the largely inimical interchange of earlier centuries described by Padre Juan Maria de Sonora and other pioneer observers—certainly the slight and superficial similarities with other tongues of the region seem insufficient to meet the classific requirement of supposititious descent from “a common ancestral speech”.[234] Accordingly the group may be defined (at least provisionally) as a linguistic family or stock, and may be distinguished by the family name long ago applied by Pimentel and Orozco, with the termination prescribed in Powell’s fifth rule,[235] viz., Serian. Conformably, the classification of the group would become—
Serian stock, comprising—
Seri tribe, including Tiburones and (certain) Salineros;
Tepoka tribe;
Guayma tribe;
Upanguayma tribe.
Naturally this classification is provisional in certain respects. It is little more than tentative in so far as the Tepoka are concerned, since no word of the Tepoka tongue has ever been recorded, so far as is known, and since the tribe is still extant and within reach of research; it must be held provisional also in respect to the separateness of the stock, which may be found in the future to be affiliated with neighboring stocks, though the effect of the more recent and more critical researches in eliminating supposed evidences of affiliation points in the opposite direction. The arrangement is in some measure provisional also with respect to the relations between the long-extinct Guayma and Upanguayma and the type tribe, especially since contrary suggestion has been offered in terms implying the existence of unpublished data; yet the presumption in favor of the critical work by Ramirez, Pimentel, and Orozco is so strong that practically this feature of the classification may be deemed final.
No attempt has been made to render the tribal synonymy exhaustive, though search of the records has incidentally brought out the more important synonyms, as follows:
Seri Tribe
Ceres—1826; Hardy, Travels, p. 95.
Ceri—1875; Pimentel, Lenguas Indígenas, tomo II, p. 229.
Ceris—1745; Villa-Señor, Theatro Americano, p. 391.
Ceris Tepocas—1850; Velasco, Noticias Estadísticas, p. 132.
Heri—1854; Buschmann, Die Spuren der aztekischen Sprache, p. 221.
Heris—1645; Ribas, Triumphos de Nuestra Santa Fee, p. 358.
Herises—1690 (?); Van der Aa, map.
Sadi—1896; San Francisco Chronicle, January 24.
Se-ere—Etymologic form.
Seres—1844; Mühlenpfordt, Republik Mejico, Band I, p. 210.
Seri—1754; [Ortega], Apostolicos Afanes, p. 244.
Seris—1694; Mange, Resumen de Noticias (Documentos para la Historia de Mexico, série 4, tomo I, p. 235).
Seri Salineros—1842; Alegre, Historia de la Compañia de Jesus, tomo III, p. 117.
Seris Salineros—1694; Mange, Resumen de Noticias (Documentos, série 4, tomo I, p. 321).
Serys—1754; [Ortega], Apostolicos Afanes, p. 367.
Soris—1900; Deniker, The Races of Man, p. 533.
SSeri—1883; Gatschet, Der Yuma Sprachstamm, p. 129.
Zeris—1731; Dominguez, Diario (MS.).
Kmike—1879; Pinart, MS. vocabulary.
Komkak—1879; Pinart, MS. vocabulary.
Kunkaak—1896; McGee and Johnson, “Seriland”, Nat. Geog. Mag., vol. VII, p. 133.
Salineros—1727; Rivera, Diario y Derrotero, I. 514-1519.
Tiburon—1799; Cortez (Pacific Railroad Reports, vol. III, p. 122).
Tiburones—1792; Arricivita, Crónica Seráfica, segunda parte, p. 426.
Tiburow Ceres—1826; Hardy, Travels, p. 299.
Tepoka Tribe
Tepeco—1847; Disturnell, Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Mejico, New York.
Tepoca—1748; Villa-Señor, Theatro Americano, p. 392.
Tepoca Ceres—1826; Hardy, Travels, p. 299.
Tepocas—1748; Villa-Señor, Theatro Americano, p. 391.
Tepococ—1865; Velasco, Bol. Soc. Mex. Geog. y Estad., tomo XI, p. 125.
Tepoka—Phonetic form.
Tepopa—1875; Dewey, map.
Tepoquis—1757; Venegas, Noticia, tomo II, p. 343.
Topokis—1702; Kino, map (in Stocklein, Der Neue Welt-Bott).
Topoquis—1701; Kino, map (in Bancroft, Works, vol. XVII, 1889, p. 360).
Guayma Tribe
Baymas—1754; [Ortega], Apostolicos Afanes, p. 377.
Gayama—1826 (?); Pike (Balbi), (in Pimentel, Lenguas Indígenas, tomo II, p. 234).
Guaima—1861; Buckingham Smith, Heve Grammar, p. 7.
Guaimas—1702; Kino, map (in Stocklein, Der Neue Welt-Bott).
Guayamas—1757; Venegas, Noticias, tomo II, p. 79.
Guayma—1701; Juan Maria de Sonora, Report (Documentos para la Historia de Mexico, série 4, tomo V, p. 154).
Guaymas—1700; Juan Maria de Sonora, Report (Documentos para la Historia de Mexico, série 4, tomo V, p. 126).
Guaymi—1882; Bancroft Works, vol. III, (Native Races, vol. III), p. 704.
Guaymis—1844; Mühlenpfordt, Republik Mejico, Band I, p. 210.
Gueimas—1748; Villa-Señor, Theatro Americano, p. 401.
Gueymas—1748; Villa-Señor, Theatro Americano, p. 402.
Guiamas—1763; [Nentwig?], Rudo Ensayo, p. 229.
Guimies (?)—1701; Kino, map (Bancroft, Works, vol. XVII, 1889, p. 360).
Upanguayma Tribe
Houpin Guaymas—1829; Hardy, map.
Jumpanguaymas—1860; Velasco, Bol. Soc. Mex. Geog. y Estad., tomo VIII, p. 292.
Jupangueimas—1748; Villa-Señor, Theatro Americano, p. 401.
Opan Guaimas—1763; [Nentwig?], Rudo Ensayo, p. 229.
Upanguaima—1864; Orozco y Berra, Geografía de las Lenguas, p. 42.
Upanguaimas—1878; Malte-Brun, Congrès International des Américanistes, tome II, p. 38.
Upanguayma—Synthetic form.
Upanguaymas—1882; Bancroft, Works (Native Races, vol. I, p. 605).
Upan-Guaymas—1890; Bandelier, Investigations in the Southwest, p. 75.
Possibly the name Cocomagues (1864, Orozco y Berra, Geografía de las Lenguas, p. 42), or Cocomaques (1727, Rivera, Diario y Derrotero, I. 1514-1519) should be introduced among the synonyms of the Seri, but in the absence of definite information it may perhaps better be left unassigned.[236]
Of the four tribes assigned to the stock, the Upanguayma have been extinct probably for more than a century; the Guayma may survive in a few representatives probably of mixed blood and adopted language; the Tepoka have never received systematic investigation, but appear to survive in limited numbers on the eastern coast of Gulf of California about the embouchure of the Rio Ignacio sand-wash; while the Seri alone continue to form a prominent factor in Sonoran thought.