The tribe was visited recently by an expedition from the Bureau of Ethnology, which has just returned to Washington with some very interesting information. Prof. W. J. McGee, who led the party, says: "It is understood that the Seris are cannibals--at all events they eat every white man they can slay. They are cruel and treacherous beyond description. Toward the white man, their attitude is exactly the same as that of a white man toward a rattlesnake--they kill him as a matter of course, unless restrained by fear. Never do they fight in open warfare, but always lie in ambush. They are copper-colored Ishmaelites. It is their custom to murder everybody, white, red or Mexican, who ventures to enter the territory they call their own."
In many respects the Seris are the most interesting tribe of savages in North America. They are decidedly more primitive in their way than any other Indians, having scarcely any arts worth mentioning. In fact, they have not yet advanced as far as the stone age. The only stone implement in common use among them is a rude hammer of that material, which they employ for beating clay to make a fragile and peculiar kind of pottery. When one of the squaws wishes to make meal of mesquite beans, and she has no utensil for the purpose, she looks about until she finds a rock with an upper surface, conveniently hollow, and on this she places the beans, pounding them with an ordinary stone.
The Seris live on the Island of Tiburon, in the Gulf of California. They also claim 5,000 square miles of the mainland in Sonora. Their dwellings are the rudest imaginable. A chance rock commonly serves for one wall of the habitation; stones are piled up so as to make a small enclosure, and the shell of a single great turtle does for a roof. The house is always open on one side, and is not intended as a shelter from storms, but chiefly to keep off the sun. The men and women wear a single garment like a petticoat, made of pelican skin; the children are naked. Not far from Tiburon, which is about thirty miles long by fifteen miles wide, there is a smaller island where pelicans roost in vast numbers. The Seris go at night and with sticks knock over as many birds as they require.
These Indians are fond of carrion. It makes no difference to them whether a horse has died a natural death a week or a month ago, they devour the flesh greedily. The feet of the animal they boil until those parts are tender enough to bite. The Seris are among the very dirtiest of savages. Their habits in all respects are filthy. They seem to have almost no amusements, though the children play with the very rudest dolls. Before the whites came they used pieces of shells for cutting instruments. They are accustomed to killing deer by running and surrounding the animals. No traditions of sufficient interest to justify recording in print appear to exist among these people. The most interesting ornament seen on any member of the tribe was a necklace of human hair, adorned with the rattles of rattlesnakes, which abound in the territory infested with these remnants of all that is most objectionable among the aboriginal red men of this continent.
Physically speaking, the Seris are most remarkable. They are of great stature, the men averaging nearly six feet in height, with splendid chests. But the most noticeable point about them is their legs, which are very slender and sinewy, resembling the legs of the deer. Since the first coming of the Spaniards they have been known to other tribes as the runners. It is said that they can run from 150 to 200 miles per day, not pausing for rest. The jack rabbit is considered a very fleet animal, yet these Indians are accustomed to catch jack rabbits by outrunning them.
For this purpose, three men or boys go together. If the rabbit ran straight away from the pursuer it could not be taken, but its instinct is to make its flight by zigzags. The hunters arrange themselves a short distance apart. As quickly as one of them starts a rabbit, a second Indian runs as fast as he can along a line parallel with the course taken by the animal. Presently the rabbit sees the second Indian, and dashes off at a tangent. By this time the third hunter has come up and gives the quarry another turn. After the third or fourth zigzag, the rabbit is surrounded, and the hunters quickly close in upon him and grab him.
It is an odd fact that this method of catching jack rabbits is precisely the same as that adopted by coyotes, which work similarily by threes. By this strategy, these wild dogs capture the rabbits, though the latter are more fleet by far. It is believed that no other human being approaches the Seris in celerity of movement. A favorite sport of the boys is lassoing dogs. Mongrel curs are the only animals domesticated by these wild people. For amusement sake, the boys take their dogs to a clear place and drive them in all directions, then they capture the frightened animals by running and throwing the lassos, which are made of human hair. They have no difficulty in overtaking the dogs.
One day, a party of boys returning with their dogs after a bout of this sport, passed near a bush in which there were three or four blackbirds; on spying the birds, they dashed toward the bush and tried to catch them with their hands; they did not succeed, though one of the birds only escaped with the loss of several feathers. Some women of the tribe were watching, and they actually jeered at the boys for their failure. The boys were so mortified that they did not go into camp, but went off and sat by themselves in the shade of a greasewood bush. What white man or boy would think of catching blackbirds in such a way? Yet non-success in an attempt of that kind was the exception and not the rule. The Seris often take birds in this fashion.
Señor Encinas was the pioneer in that region. He found good grazing country in the territory claimed by the Seris, and so established his stock farm there. He brought priests with him to convert the savages, and caught a couple of the latter to educate as interpreters. The plan for civilizing the Indians proved a failure. They did not care to become Christians, and they killed the Señor's stock. So, finally, the Señor decided to adopt a new course of procedure. He summoned the Indians to a council, as many of them as would come, and informed them that from that time on he and his vaqueros would slay an Indian for every head of cattle that was killed. At the same time he sent away the priests and engaged an additional number of vaqueros.
The Indians paid no attention to the warning, and a few days later they killed several head of cattle. Without delay the Señor and his men coralled and killed a corresponding number of the Seris. Then there was war. The savages made ambushes, but they had only bows and arrows, and the vaqueros fought bravely with their guns. Every ambush turned out disastrously for the Indians. Finally, the Seris made a great ambush, and there was a battle which resulted in the killing of sixty-five savages. The lesson proved sufficient, and the Indians were glad to conclude a permanent peace, agreeing that no further depredations against the Señor or his property should be attempted. From beginning to end the fighting lasted ten years.