A rough census of the stone implements of Seriland is not without interest, even though it be no more than an approximation. Some 20 or 25 habitable and recently inhabited jacales were visited, with about twice as many more in various stages of ruin, fully two-thirds of these being on the island; and at least an equal number of camps or other houseless sites were noted. About these 150 jacales and sites there were, say, 50 ahsts, ranging from nearly natural bowlders to the comparatively well-wrought specimen illustrated in plate XXXIX, and an equal number of cobbles used interchangeably as ahsts and hupfs; there were also 200 or 300 pebbles bearing traces of use as hupfs, of which about a third were worn so decidedly as to attest repeated if not regular use; while no flaked or spalled implements were observed save the two doubtful examples illustrated in plates XLVII and L, and only two chipped arrowpoints. It may be assumed that the sites visited and the artifacts observed comprise from a tenth to a fifth of those of all Seriland, in addition to, say, 75 finished hupfs habitually carried by Seri matrons in their wanderings; and it may be assumed also that 50 or 100 metallic harpoon-points and several hundred hoop-iron arrowpoints are habitually carried by the warriors and their spouses.
The most impressive fact brought out by this census is the practical absence of stone artifacts wrought by flaking or chipping in accordance with preconceived design; excepting the exceedingly rare arrowpoints there are none of these. And the assemblage of wrought stones demonstrates not merely that the Seri are practically without flaked or chipped implements, but that they eschew and discard stones edged by fracture whether naturally or through accident of use.
Summarily, the Seri artifacts of inorganic material fall into three groups, viz.: (I) The large and characteristic one comprising regularly-used hupfs and ahsts, with their little-used and discarded representatives; (II) the small and aberrant group represented by chipped arrowpoints, and (III) the considerable group comprising the cold-wrought metal points for arrows and harpoons and awls—though it is to be remembered that the Seri themselves combine the second and third of these groups.
I. On reviewing the artifacts of the larger group it becomes clear (1) that they immediately reflect environment, in that they are characteristic natural objects of the territory; (2) that they come into use as implements through chance demands met by hasty selection from the abundant material; (3) that the great majority of the objects so employed are discarded after a use or two; (4) that when the object proves especially serviceable, and other conditions favor, it is retained to meet later needs; (5) that the retained objects are gradually modified in form and surface by repeated use; (6) that if the modification diminishes the serviceability of the object in the notion of the user (e. g., by such fracture as to produce sharp edges), it is discarded; (7) that if the modification enhances the serviceability of the specimen in the mind of the user it is the more sedulously preserved; and (8) that through the instinctive desire for perservation, coupled with the thaumaturgic cast of primitive thinking, the object acquires at once an artificialized form and a fetishistic as well as a utilitarian function. The significant feature of the development is the total absence of foresight or design, save in so far as the concepts are fiducial rather than technical or directly industrial.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XLVIII
THE HELIOTYPE PRINTING CO., BOSTON
NATURAL PEBBLE SLIGHTLY WORN BY USE