Of the foregoing hupfs several are aberrant, and serve merely to illustrate the prevailing directions of departure from the optimum form and size of implements. Six of the specimens may be deemed typical; they are as follows:
| Plate No. | Locality | Material | Weight | Condition |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lb. Ozs. | ||||
| XLIII | Costa Rica | Quartzite | 1 14 (0.85 kg.) | Nearly natural. |
| XLIV | Campo Navidad | Tuff | 1 1 (.48 kg.) | Four-fifths natural. |
| XLVI | Pozo Escalante | Vesicular lava. | 1 13 (.82 kg.) | Nearly natural. |
| LIV | Punta Miguel | Granite | 1 10 (.74 kg.) | One-fifth natural. |
| LV | Punta Narragansett | do | 1 11 (.77 kg.) | One-fourth natural. |
| LVI | South point Sierra Seri. | Andesite | 1 15 (.88 kg.) | One-third natural. |
From these specimens a type of Seri hand implement may easily be formulated: it is a wave-worn pebble or cobble of (1) granite, quartzite, or other tough and hard rock, (2) tuff, or other light and pulverulent rock, or (3) vesicular lava; it is of flattened ovoid form, or of biscuit shape; it weighs a trifle under 2 pounds (about 0.85 kilogram); originally the form and surface are wholly natural, but through the chance of use it is modified (a) by a battering of the ends and more projecting edges, and (b) by grinding and consequent truncation of the sides; though initially a natural pebble, chosen nearly at random from the beach, it eventually becomes personal property, acquires fetishistic import, and is buried with the owner at her death.
The ahsts and the heavier cobbles used alternatively as ahsts and hupfs are too fortuitous for reduction to type; while the protean pebbles utilized in emergency, and commonly discarded after a single use, are too numerous and too various for convenient or useful grouping.
There is a distinctive type of Seri stone artifacts represented by a single category of objects, viz., chipped arrowpoints. Several of the literary descriptions of the folk—particularly those based on secondhand information, and far-traveled rumor—credit the Seri with habitual use of stone-tipped arrows,[297] and it is the current fashion among both Mexican and Indian residents of Sonora to ascribe to the Seri any shapely arrowpoint picked up from plain or valley; yet the observations among the tribesmen and in their haunts disclose but slight basis for classing the Seri with the aboriginal arrow-makers of America.
Fig. 37—Seri arrowpoints.
Among the 60 Seri (including 17 or 18 warriors) at Costa Rica in 1894, three bows and four quivers of arrows were observed, besides a number of stray arrows, chiefly in the hands of striplings. The arrows seen numbered some 60 or 70, including perhaps 20 “poisoned” specimens; nearly half of them were tipped with hoop-iron, as illustrated in plate XXX, while about as many more were fitted only with the customary foreshafts (usually sharpened and hardened by charring), and the small remainder had evidently lost iron tips in use; there was not a single stone-tipped arrow in the rancheria. Moreover, when the usually incisive and confident Mashém was asked for the Seri term for stone arrowpoint he was taken aback, and was unable to answer until after lengthy conference with other members of the tribe—his manner and that of his mates clearly indicating ignorance of such a term rather than the desire to conceal information so frequently manifested in connection with esoteric matters; and the term finally obtained (ahst-ahk, connoting stone and arrow) is the same as that used to denote the arrowpoint of hoop-iron. The most reasonable inference from the various facts is that whatsoever might have been the customs of their ancestors, the modern Seri are not accustomed to stone arrow-making.
The 1895 expedition was slightly more successful in the search for Seri arrows. About midway between the abandoned Rancho Libertad and Barranca Salina, an ancient Seri site was found to yield hundreds of typical potsherds, half a dozen shells such as those used for utensils, the fragments of a hupf evidently shattered by use as a fire-stone, and the small rudely chipped arrowpoint shown in figure 37a; and among the numerous relics found on a knoll overlooking Pozo Escalante (including two jacal frames, two or three graves, an ahst, several shells and discarded hupfs, a broken fictile figurine, etc.), was the still ruder arrowpoint represented in figure 37b (both figures are natural size). The specimens are nearly identical in material—a jet-black slaty rock with a few lighter flecks interspersed, weathering gray on long exposure (as is shown by the partly natural surface of the larger point); similar rock abounds in several easterly spurs of Sierra Seri. The smaller specimen was evidently finished and used; its features indicate fairly skilful chipping, though its general form is crude—in addition to the asymmetric shouldering, the entire point is curved laterally in such manner as to interfere with accurate archery. The larger specimen is still more strongly curved laterally, and the chipping is childishly crude; while the rough surface, clumsy tang, and unfinished air indicate that it was never used even to the extent of shafting. It is possible that the specimens may have been imported by aliens, but the probabilities are strong that they were manufactured by the Seri. No other arrowpoints and no chips or spalls suggesting stone arrow-making were found in all Seriland, though the entire party of twelve were on constant lookout for them for a month. The natural inference from these facts is that the ancestral Seri, like their descendants, were not habitual stone arrow-makers.