The adjunct islets of Seriland are miniatures of Tiburon in all essential respects, save that they are without fresh water. The largest is San Esteban, a somewhat complex butte rising sharply from the waters in a nearly continuous sea-cliff recording vigorous work by storms and tides; it is occasionally visited by the Seri, chiefly in search of water-fowl and eggs. The most important of the series in Seri economy and mythology is Isla Tassne, off the mouth of Bahia Kino; it is a rugged butte some 600 feet high, rising in wave-cut cliffs on the sea side and pedimented by low spits and banks of sand toward the lea; the sand-banks are literally flocked with pelicans, while other fowl cover the flatter ledges and crowd the crannies of the pinnacle. Isla Turner is a somewhat smaller and still more rugged butte, bounded on both sides by precipitous cliffs, while Roca Foca is merely a great rock shelving upward from the storm-swept waters off the most exposed angle of Tiburon; in the crannies of the former birds nest abundantly, while the lower ledges of both are haunted by seals. Isla Patos, north of Tiburon, is a breeding-place for different water-fowl, and is especially noted as a refuge for ducks; it, too, is for the most part a rocky butte, with a sandy shelf at the eastern base. Beyond San Esteban lies the similar but smaller Isla San Lorenzo, while Isla Salsipuedes and a few other islets stretch thence northward half way to the southern point of Isla Angel de la Guarda, the second-largest island of the gulf. San Lorenzo and the smaller islets are occasionally visited by the Seri, partly for a mineral pigment used in face-painting, partly in quest of game; and they sometimes push on to the larger island to enjoy its fairly abundant game, including the easily taken iguana, amid the ruins of an ancient culture apparently akin to that of southern Mexico. Even the most frequented islets, Tassne and Patos, can be reached only by crossing miles of open sea; but in their way the Seri are as canny navigators as they are skilful boat-builders—it is their habit to hug the shore in threatening weather, to await wind and tide for hours or days together, to set out on distant journeys only when all conditions favor, and in emergency to seize inspiration from the storm like the vikings of old, and bend supernormal power to the control of their craft.
Summarily, the prevailing features of Seriland may be said to be characterized by extreme development or intensity, many of them being of such sort as to be adequately described only by the aid of strong comparatives or superlatives. Seriland is the most rugged portion of piedmont Sonora, and is bounded by its most forbidding desert; the territory is nearly if not quite, the most arid and inhospitable of the Sonoran province; the diurnal and sporadic temperature-ranges are apparently the widest, and the gales and other storms apparently the severest of the entire province; the flora is among the most meager and least fruitful, and the mountains are among the craggiest of the continent; the tides are among the strongest and the tidal currents among the swiftest of the world; and, as shown by the limited direct observations and by the extraordinary marine transgression, the waters are among the most turbulent known. At the same time, the waters washing Seriland are among the richest of America in sea-food, so that the habitat is one of the easiest known for a simple life depending directly on the product of the sea. It is but natural that these extreme factors of environment should be measurably reflected in pronounced characteristics on the part of the inhabitants.
SUMMARY HISTORY
There is some doubt as to who was the first among the Caucasian explorers of the Western Hemisphere to set eyes on the Seri Indians. Nuño de Guzman, rival of Cortés and invader of Jalisco and Sinaloa, must have approached the southern boundary of Seri territory about 1530, though there is no record of contact with these tribesmen. Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, one of Cortés’ captains, coasted along southern Sonora in 1532 to a point considerably beyond Rio Yaqui, where he was massacred on his return, and hence left no record of more northerly natives.[19] Both of these pioneers must accordingly be eliminated from the list of probable discoverers of the Seri.
In the course of their marvelous transcontinental journey, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and his companions also approached Seriland, and apparently skirted its borders shortly before meeting Captain Diego de Alcaraz, of Guzman’s party; this was in April, 1536, according to Bandelier.[20] Vaca wrote: “On the coast is no maize: the inhabitants eat the powder of rush and of straw, and fish that is caught in the sea from rafts, not having canoes. With grass and straw the women cover their nudity. They are a timid and dejected people.”[21] He added half a dozen ambiguous sentences, of which only a part, apparently, refer to the “timid and dejected people”; half of these describe a poison used by them “so deadly that if the leaves be bruised and steeped in some neighboring water, the deer and other animals drinking it soon burst”. The people were identified as Seri (Ceris) by Buckingham Smith and General Stone,[22] and the identification may be considered as strongly probable, provided the Tepoka be classed with the Seri.
The next Caucasians to approach Seriland appear to have been the two Spanish monks, Fray Pedro Nadal and Fray Juan de la Asuncion, who, in 1538, sought to retrace Vaca’s route, and traveled northward to a river somewhat doubtfully identified as the Gila;[23] but the meager accounts of this journey contain no clear reference to the Seri Indians.
On March 7-19, 1539, the Italian friar Marcos de Niza left San Miguel de Culiacan under instructions from the Viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza, to explore the territory traversed by Vaca, under the guidance of the negro Estevanico, the only one of Vaca’s three companions remaining in Mexico; in good time he reached a point probably not far from the center of the present state of Sonora, whence messengers were sent coastward to return duly accompanied by certain “very poor” Indians wearing pearl-oyster (?) ornaments, who were reputed to inhabit a large island (almost certainly Tiburon) reached from the mainland by means of balsas. Bandelier identified these coastwise Indians with the Guayma tribe, a supposed branch of the Seri;[24] but if the “large island” were Tiburon, it would seem more probable that the Indians belonged to the tribe now known as Seri, while both description and location suggest the Tepoka. This record is of questionable weight, partly by reason of the doubtful identification of the Indians, and partly because the friar’s itinerary was found to be misleading by his immediate successors, because of the fact that portions of his narrative were based on hearsay; though it is just to note that Bandelier, after critical study, deemed the record about as trustworthy as others of the time, and to add that the disparagement of Niza’s discoveries by his followers was in accord with the fashion of the day—indeed it was little more severe relatively than the criticism of the strikingly trustworthy Ulloa by his first follower, Alarcon.
On July 8-19, 1539, according to the collection of Ramusio, three vessels sent out by Cortés to discover unknown lands—“Of Which Fleete was Captaine the right worshipfull knight Francis de Vlloa borne in the Citie of Merida”—sailed from Acapulco.[25] Skirting the mainland northwestward, they explored Mar de Cortés, or Gulf of California; and on September 24 (as fixed by interpolation from Ulloa’s excellent itinerary) they descried and described the features of the coast in such fashion as to locate their vessels (one was already lost) off the southern point of Tiburon, and in sight of the islands of San Esteban and San Lorenzo, as well as locally prominent points on the mainland of Lower California. Here they “discerned the countrey to be plaine, and certaine mountaines, and it seemed that a certaine gut of water like a brooke ran through the plaine” (p. 322). Judging from other geographic details, this “gut of water” was certainly the tide-torn gateway now named Boca Infierno; while the next day’s sailing (it is noteworthy that this was “north” instead of northwestward as usual) carried them by “a circuit or bay of 6 leagues into the land with many coones or creeks”, evidently Bahia Tepopa with the northern end of the turbulent strait El Infiernillo. The record shows clearly that Ulloa discovered Tiburon, but failed (quite naturally, in view of the route pursued and the peculiar configuration at both extremities of the strait) to perceive its insular character. No mention is made of inhabitants or habitations on this land-mass, though both are described on the neighboring island of Angel de la Guarda in terms that would be applicable to the Seri.