To the actual observer of the Seri in his prime there is an indefinable but none the less impressive harmony between the intense regimen and the trenchant structural development characteristic of the tribe—a harmony like unto that felt by naturalist and artist alike in viewing at once the clean-cut form and vigorously easy mobility of tiger or thoroughbred horse; and simple inspection of the lithe limbs and body-muscles stirs into living realization a half-felt inference from many facts—the obvious and indubitable inference that they are stress-shaped structures. Accordingly, the concentrated and robust bodies, the shapely jaws, the well-chiseled arms, and the statuesque legs of the Seri, no less than their powerful hands and bulky feet, direct special attention to the axiom that somatic structures are the product of exercise, and indicate with convincing clearness that the structures are trenchantly developed because of the supreme intensity of the creative exercise. It may be impracticable to outline in terms of metabolism the precise processes of waste and repair in organs and organisms, or to define the relative periods of action and assimilation (or of catabolism and anabolism) best adapted to the development of motile tissue; yet the external facts of all bodily growth demonstrate the efficiency of alternating effort and repose, while the characteristics of highly developed animal bodies (including those of the Seri) demonstrate that the most beneficial exercise is that of relatively brief but intense stresses alternating with relatively long intervals of sluggish movement or complete repose. Moreover, the facile metabolism involved in the widely alternating regimen implies exceptional somatic plasticity of the sort normally accompanying youth and attending tissue growth; and this persistent bodily plasticity is in harmony with the peculiarly dilatory maturation characteristic of the Seri tribe. So the animal-like bodies of the Seri, no less than their animal-like movements, which at first sight suggest primitive condition, may safely be held in large measure to reflect specific habits of life, themselves reflecting a distinctive habitat.
Still more suggestive to the observer than the well-molded structures and the intense functioning with which they are conjoined are those elusive yet persistent characteristics of the Seri comprised in their distinctive race sense—characteristics ranging from overweening intratribal pride to overpowering extratribal hatred. Even at first blush it would seem obvious that the tribal isolation, itself the reflection of environment, would necessarily tend toward a segregative habit with concomitant hostility toward aliens; yet the race-sense of the Seri so far transcends that of other segregated tribes as to suggest the existence of a specific cause. So, too, it would seem obvious that the race feeling gathers about a corporeal nucleus in the form of the race-type exemplified in the heroic stature, the shapely face, the mighty chest, the luxuriant hair, the well-modeled muscles, the powerful feet and hands, the “collected” carriage, and the stored vitality, which (as already indicated) synthesize the environmental interactions of generations; yet the actual student can not avoid the impression that the race-sense dominates the race-type—that the Seri are farther away from neighboring tribes in feeling than in features, in function than in structure, in mind than in body. Now, in seeking the sources of this distinctive (not to say specific) race-sense, several suggestions arise. Naturally the first suggestion is that of simple sexual selection, the (assumptive) analogue of an important factor in biotic evolution; but the suggestion is at once apparently negatived by the fact that all the mature men and women are married and have families of children proportionate to their ages. True, undesirable fiancés may be expelled from the tribe, or even executed (as intimated by neighboring Sonorenses); yet there is little evidence that either method of selection is employed among the Seri more largely than among other peoples; and, as all recent researches indicate, the higher peoples at least have risen above the plane of sexual selection per se as an effective factor in somatic development. A second suggestion arises in the axiom (vivified by realization of the connection between Seri movements and Seri structures) that perfected organs are the product of stressful functioning—indeed, the suggestion is but the extension of the axiom from the individual to the stirp and the group. In developing the suggestion it is convenient to divide the career of the stirp into periods defined by the successive wax and wane of vitality in its most significant manifestations; and this may be done in terms of successive individual lifetimes in their three successive aspects of (1) youth, (2) maturity, and (3) senility, in which the dominant constructive functions are respectively (1) somatic growth, (2) collective growth (comprising both procreation and the accumulation of artificial possessions), and (3) dissipation of somatic vitality and distribution of extrasomatic accumulations (generational as well as material and intellectual). Now, it is a commonplace in every stage of culture that vital capacity, and also the inherent sense of kind manifested in pairing, culminate in the medial portion, or prime, of individual life; and if this universal recognition is valid, it is just to hold that the career of the stirp is defined by the successive vital climaxes expressing the primes of the series of generations pertaining to the stirp. It follows that each generation must represent, not the average qualities of the entire generation past, but the qualities of the most virile and muliebrile fraction of that generation; whence it follows in turn that in general the generations must develop along the lines most prominent in the lives of each people in their prime. The process may be formulated as the law of periodic conjugation, under which successive generations are initiated, not at random, but at periods of culminant effectiveness in shaping the course of the stirp. The immediate application of this law to the Seri tribe is manifest, for it explains (the initial condition of isolation and the consequent incipient segregative habit being given) how and why the tribal standards have grown more definite from generation to generation, and have interacted cumulatively with the distinctive environment in such manner as continually to widen the chasm between the desert-bound tribe and their alien neighbors. Yet the general application of the law leads only to a more specific application; for, just as the career of the stirp is made up of a succession of vital maxima and minima, so the lifetime of the individual, even in the median stage, is made up of a series of vital climaxes separated by relatively inert intervals; and, as recognized by every naturalist and romancist, every philosopher and poet, in every stage of culture, it is during the periods of conative domination by the master passion that the career of the individual is shaped and that the stirp-sentiment (or susceptibility to kind) culminates in intensity. It follows that the progeny of successive generations represent not merely the optimum median stage of life in which vitality and virility and muliebrity are at flood, but the very climaxes of this stage in which manhood and womanhood attain their ideals, and in which the ideals react on the physical system with unequaled intensity; it follows in turn that each generation must (in so far as intellectual tension can control long series of metabolic interactions after the manner in which short series are controlled by direct volitional exercise) incarnate the ideals of the preceding generation; whence it follows still further that in general isolated race-types tend constantly and cumulatively to increase in definiteness—at least until the somatic factors are counterbalanced by demotic relationships arising with considerable increase in population. It is true that the extent to which the incarnation of ideals is effective or even possible has not been measured; it is also true that the naturalists of the higher culture-stages commonly neglect the process; yet the occasional recognition of its positive aspect, as in Goethe’s “elective affinities” and in Jacob’s getting of “ringstraked, speckled, and spotted” stock (Genesis XXX, 37-41), and the practically universal recognition—more especially among primitive peoples—of its negative aspect in adverse prenatal influences, clearly indicates its importance; the fact that the ancient Greeks at once idealized in unparalleled degree, and produced unexcelled perfection in, the human form being of no small significance. Even if the measure of the incarnation of ideals be reduced to the lowest minimum consistent with common knowledge, it remains true that the progeny of successive generations are not the offspring of average parents, but of pairs at the perfection and conjugal culmination of their virile and muliebrile excellencies; so that the generations must run in courses of cumulatively increasing racial (or human) perfection, under a general law of conjugal conation.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXII
THE HELIOTYPE PRINTING CO., BOSTON
SERI MATRON
In extending the general law of conjugal conation to the Seri, it is found peculiarly applicable, in view of their distinctive marriage custom, the effect of which is to intensify conjugal sentiments, with the attendant magnification, and potential if not actual incarnation, of ideals.[256] Accordingly there would appear to be a harmony between Seri race-sense and Seri race-type no less delicate than that between the stressful action and the stress-shaped structures of the tribe, and while the inception of both type and feeling may be ascribed to the isolated environment, it seems manifest that both have interacted constructively and in cumulative fashion through a significant process exemplified more clearly by this tribe than by others thus far studied. At the same time, analysis of the harmony between type and sentiment indicates that the lowly Seri are actually, albeit unconsciously, carrying out a meaningful experiment in stirpiculture—an experiment whose methods and results are equally valuable to students. The Seri gymnastic and the Seri stirpiculture are in close accord, in that both are conditioned by initially dilatory yet ultimately intense action; the results are equally accordant in that the one conduces toward individual vigor and the other toward a vigorous and distinctive stirp; while the excellence of the methods (viewed from the somatic standpoint) is attested by the magnificence of the product. Now, comparison of the stirpicultured Seri with contemporary tribes shows that the desert-bound folk have attained unequaled somatic development, and suggests that the intuitive stirpicultural processes have been rendered peculiarly effective through the persistence of that tribal isolation in which the processes apparently took rise; so the race-sense of the Seri may be regarded as the product of long-continued stirpicultural processes, initially shaped by environment, yet developed to unusual degree by somatico-social habits, kept alive largely through continuous environmental interaction.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXIII
THE HELIOTYPE PRINTING CO., BOSTON