| Constituents | Per cent | Quantity | Units | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aggregate | Apiece | Aggregate | Apiece | ||
| Pounds | Pounds | ||||
| Turtles | 25 | 75,000 | 250 | 750 | 2½ |
| Pelicans | 5 | 15,000 | 50 | 1,200 | 4 |
| Other water-fowl and eggs | 8 | 24,000 | 80 | ||
| Fish | 15 | 45,000 | 150 | ||
| Shellfish (except turtles) | 10 | 30,000 | 100 | ||
| Large land game | 7 | 21,000 | 70 | 200 | ⅔ |
| Other land game | 8 | 24,000 | 80 | ||
| Stock | 6 | 18,000 | 60 | 40 | 2/15 |
| Tunas | 9 | 27,000 | 90 | 216,000 | 720 |
| Other vegetals | 5 | 15,000 | 50 | ||
| Miscellaneous | 2 | 6,000 | 20 | ||
| Total | 100 | 300,000 | 1,000 | ||
Of course the constituents vary with temporary conditions; during “The Time of the Big Fish”, practically all other sources of food were neglected until the providential supply was exhausted; during the decades of main subsistence on stolen stock it is probable that the consumption of other constituents, perhaps excepting the tunas, was proportionately reduced; and it is not improbable that during the warfare between Seri and Tepoka, described by Hardy, the consumption of turtles was materially diminished. Judging from the direct and indirect data and from general analogies, the least variable constituent is the cactus fruit, which probably fails but rarely and is so easily harvested as practically to supplant all other supplies during its season of a month or more. At the best, too, the quantitative estimates are nothing more than necessarily arbitrary approximations, based on incomplete inquiries and observations;[285] yet they are better than no estimates at all, and appear to form a fairly trustworthy basis for consideration of the Seri food habits.
On reviewing the constituents it would appear that the Seri must be regarded as essentially a maritime people, in that about two-thirds of their food is derived from the sea; also that they must be deemed essentially carnivorous, since fully five-sixths of their diet (84 per cent plus a share of the miscellaneous—chiefly scatophagous—category) is animal. The tabulation does not show the relative proportions of the several constituents cooked and eaten raw, but the best available data indicate that fully three-fourths of the ordinary dietary, both animal and vegetal, is ingested in raw condition, and that the greater part of the remaining fourth is imperfectly cooked.
In recapitulating the devices for food-getting, it is found that nearly all of the more distinctive artifacts and crafts are either directly or indirectly connected with that primary activity of living things, food-conquest. Foremost among the distinctive artifacts of the Seri, in its relation to daily life and in its technical perfection, is the canteen-olla; probably second in importance, and also in technical perfection, is the balsa—whose functions, however, extend beyond simple food-getting; next comes the crude and simple, yet economically perfected, turtle-harpoon, with its variants in the form of arrow (with a function in warfare as well as in food-getting) and fire-drill; while the light basket-tray, although capable of carrying ten to twenty-five times its own weight, is perhaps the least perfect technically of the artifacts directly connected with sustentation. And it should be noted that the prevailing tools—hupf, ahst, multifunctional shell, and awl of mandible or bone or tooth—have either an immediate or a secondary connection with food-getting.
NAVIGATION
At first sight Seriland seems an abnormal habitat for a primitive people, since its land area is cleft in twain by a stormy strait—a strait whose terrors to the few Caucasian navigators who have reached its swirling currents are indicated by their appellations, “El Canal Peligroso de San Miguel”[286] and “El Infiernillo”; for such a stretch of troubled water is commonly a more serious bar to travel than any moderate land expanse. This intuitive notion of the effectiveness of a water barrier, and the correlative feeling of the incongruity of a land barrier insuperable for centuries, is well illustrated by prevailing opinion throughout northwestern Mexico; for it is commonly supposed in Sonora and neighboring states that Seriland is conterminous with Isla Tiburon, i. e., that the mainland portion of the province (including Sierra Seri with its flanking footslopes) lies beyond the diabolic channel. Yet longer scrutiny shows that the superficial impression merely mirrors Caucasian thought and fails to touch the essential conditions, especially as they are reflected in the primitive minds of the local tribe; and careful study of the habits and history of the Seri shows that the dangerous strait has been a potent factor in preserving tribal existence and perpetuating tribal integrity. Naturally the factor operates through navigation; for it is by means of this art that the tribesmen are able to avoid or to repel the rare invaders of either mainland or insular portions of their province, the overland pioneers from the east being stopped by the strait and the maritime explorers from south and west being unable to maintain themselves long about the stormy shores and never outfitted for pushing far toward the mainland retreats and strongholds; while by means of their light and simple craft the Seri were able to retreat or to advance across the strait as readily as over the adjacent lands to which they were wonted by the experience of generations. In their minds, indeed, El Infiernillo is the nucleus of their province. So the Seri were among the lowliest learners of that lesson of highest statecraft, that lands are not divided but united by intervening sea; and their ill-formulated and provincial notions are of much significance in their bearing on autochthonous habits and habitats.
The water-craft of which the Seri make so good use is a balsa, made of three bundles of carrizal or cane lashed together alongside, measuring barely 4 feet abeam, 1½ feet in depth, and some 30 feet in length over all. A fine specimen (except for a slight injury at one end) is shown in plan and profile in plate XXXI. It was obtained near Boca Infierno in 1895, partly towed and partly paddled thence to Embarcadero Andrade, wagoned laboriously across Desierto Encinas and on to Hermosillo, conveyed in an iron-sheathed box on two gondolas of the narrow-gage Ferrocarril de Sonora to the international frontier, and finally freighted to the United States National Museum, where (in the Mall just outside the building) the photographs reproduced in the plate were taken.
The manufacture of the balsa has never been seen by Caucasian eyes, but the processes are safely inferred from the structure, whose testimony is corroborated in part by Mashém’s imperfect descriptions. The first step is the gathering of the carrizal from one of the patches growing about the three or four permanent fresh waters of Seriland, the canes being carefully selected for straightness, symmetry, and uniformity in size; these are then denuded of leaves and tassels, tied in bundles of convenient size (one seen on Tiburon contained 40 or 50 canes), and carried to the shore. In actual construction the canes are laid butt to butt, but overlapping 2 or 3 feet, the overlap being shifted this way and that with successive additions, so that the aggregate length of overlapping in the bundle reaches 10 or 12 feet—i. e., the full length of the body of the finished craft. The growing bundle is wrapped from time to time with lashings of mesquite root or maguey fiber, and kept in cylindrical form by constant rolling and by means of the lashing; though the cord used for the purpose is so slender as to do little more than serve the purposes of manufacture (only stray shreds of the interior cording could be found in an old and abandoned balsa on Punta Antigualla). As the bundle approaches the requisite size, the building process changes; the butts of the successively added stalks are thrust obliquely into the interstices extending beyond the butts of earlier-used canes, and the stems are slightly bent to bring them into parallelism with their fellows; and this interweaving process is continued with increasing care until, when the bundle is completed, there are no visible butts (all being pushed into the interior of the bundle), while the only visible tips are those projecting to form the tapering extremities. The finished bundle is then secured by a spiral winding of slender cord. Two other bundles are next made, the three being entirely similar, so far as is known; then the three are joined by a lashing of slender cord like that used for the separate bundles, which is twined alternately above and below the central bundle in such manner as to hold the three in an approximate plane save toward the extremities, where the lashing is much firmer and the tapering tips of the bundles are brought into a triangular position, i. e., the position of smallest compass. The cordage is of either mesquite root or maguey fiber, the former being the more common, so far as observed (doubtless by reason of the dearth of the latter plant); it is notably uniform in twist and size, though surprisingly slender for the purpose, barely three-sixteenths of an inch, or 5 mm., in diameter, and limited in quantity.[287] The only tools or implements used in the manufacture (and repair), so far as is known, are light wooden marlinspikes, two of which are illustrated in figure 26; these are used in working the cane-butts into the bundles. In collecting the canes the tassels are broken off and the leaves stripped by the unaided hands, while the stalks are broken off usually below the secondary roots in the downward taper, and the rootlets and loose ends are removed either with the hands or by fire.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXXI