[236] These names seem rather to be Yuman; cf. Cocopa, Coconino, Cocomaricopa, Kohun, etc.
[237] It seems probable that the Seri were nearer to tribes of southern Baja California than to those of Sonora at the time of the earliest explorations, yet that the distinction was sufficiently strong to warrant the extension of the proposition to these tribes also.
[238] The Beginning of Agriculture, American Anthropologist, vol. VIII, 1895, p. 350. The Beginning of Zooculture, ibid., vol. X, 1897, p. 215.
[239] The average net height and weight of the unit figure (that of the author) are about 5 feet 8⅝ inches and 200 pounds, respectively.
[240] Or about 1.6176 meters estimated by the method of Rollet (cf. The Races of Man, J. Deniker, London, 1900, p. 33).
[241] The photo-mechanical reproductions do but meager justice to the splendid chest development of the Seri, young and old; for they were not only at semisomnolent rest during the hotter hours at which photography was most feasible, but invariably quailed before the mysterious apparatus and crouched shrinkingly in such wise as to contract their chests and lose their habitually erect and expansive carriage.
[242] A separate cranium was obtained by the 1895 expedition, having been sought and picked up by a Mexican member of the party in verification of his account of the killing of one of the Seri; but, in view of the possibility of erroneous identification, this skull was not submitted in connection with the complete skeleton. Subsequently this specimen also was put in Dr Hrdlička’s hands (at his request), and was kindly examined, with, the results recorded in the following letter:
March 29, 1900.
Professor W J McGee,
Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, D. C.
Dear Sir: The skull which you submitted to me for examination shows the following:
The skull is that of a male between 40 and 50 years of age. The facial parts and a portion of the left temporal bone are wanting; otherwise the specimen shows nothing pathologic. There are signs that the skull belonged to a very muscular individual. The occipital depressions, ridges, and protuberance are very marked, and the temporal ridges approach to within 1.7 cm. on the left and 2.3 cm. on the right of the sagittal suture. The whole skull is rather heavy and massive; thickness of parietal bones 4-8 mm.
The shape of the skull is unusual. The frontal region is rather broad (frontal diameter, minimum, 9.7; frontal diameter, maximum, 12.1 cm.), but quite flat and sloping. Frontal ridges wanting (broken away).
The sagittal region is elevated into a crest which begins 4cm. posteriorly from the bregma, is most marked at the vertex, and proceeds in two tapering diverging crura to the lambdoid suture. The whole vertex region is considerably elevated and forms a blunt cone, which is particularly noticeable when the skull is viewed from the side.
The temporo-parietal regions are moderately convex and expanded anteriorly, but become flattened and gradually narrow toward the parietal bosses. The parietal bones measure each 11 cm. along the coronal, but only 8.8 cm. along the lambdoid suture. The gradual tapering of the parietal regions from their middle backward continues on the occipital bone up to the inion, and gives the norma verticalis of the skull a peculiar appearance.
The occipital region, as a whole, does not protrude much, as in true dolichocephals, but it shows a prominent broad crest, formed by the two superior semicircular lines and the region between them. The extreme occipital protuberance is pronounced and shows signs of strong muscular attachments. A small distance above the foramen magnum, on each side of the median line, is a very marked depression, surmounted by a dull ridge.
Of the mastoids, the right has been broken off and the left is damaged, but they do not seem to have been of extraordinary size.
The base of the skull is fairly well preserved and shows the following characters: The basilar process and the petrous portions of the temporal bones are more massive than usual. The glenoid fossæ are broad and of fair depth. The styloids are quite diminutive (right 0.7, left 0.5 cm. long). The foramen magnum is hexagonal in outline; it is 4.4 cm. long, 3.4 cm. wide; its plane is inclined backwards in such a way that its antero-posterior diameter prolonged would touch about the lower borders of the nasal aperture.
The cranial cavity can be well inspected through the opening caused by injury. The internal surface of the frontal bone shows but very few traces of brain impressions. There are several large impressions on each parietal bone, and deep, though rather small, fossæ for the extremities of the occipital lobes on the occipital bone. The superior border of the dorsum sellæ shows in the middle a rounded notch about 3 mm. deep.
The serration of the sutures is throughout very simple.
Measures—The glabello-occipital length and maximum width of the skull can not be accurately determined on account of injuries to the bones. They amount, respectively, to about 18.8 and 14 cm., giving the cephalic index of about 74.4 (moderate dolichocephaly). The basion-bregma height is 14.1 cm.; basion-vertex, 14.8 cm.; basion-obelion, 13.0 cm.; basion-lambda, 12.2 cm. The two more anterior of these measures characterize the skull as a rather high one. The two more posterior measures show the rapid downward slope of the posterior half of the sagittal region. The maximum circumference of the skull (above the ridges) is 52 cm.
The bregma-lambda arc measures 13.3, the lambda-opisthion arc 12.2 cm. Diameter between the asterions=10.7 cm.
If the skull under examination is considered from a purely evolutionary standpoint, it must be pronounced to be in many points inferior to the average white and even to the majority of Indian crania. An anthropological identification of the specimen is difficult, for the reason that we are still very imperfectly acquainted with the craniology of the peoples of southwestern United States and northern Mexico. From what we know of the crania of the Pima, and the extinct Santa Barbara, Santa Catalina, etc., Californians, it is possible to say that the individual whose skull is here reported upon may have belonged to a people physically related to either of these groups. The skull is very distinct from that of an Apache. The female Seri cranium examined by me before does not show certain of the peculiarities of this specimen; nevertheless it is very possible that both crania belonged to individuals of the same tribe.
Aleš Hrdlička.
[243] Both these incisors were apparently lost at the same time, not from general lesion, and some years previous to the death of the individual, as the sockets appear exactly alike, bear no signs of violence, and are almost filled up with cancellous tissue (some religious or social rite?).