Since most of the field work of the two expeditions lay in the
neighboring Republic of Mexico, it became necessary to ask official
sanction for the operations from the Mexican government; and it is
a pleasure to say that every possible privilege and courtesy were
extended by both federal and state officials. Especial acknowledgments
are due to the Mexican minister (and afterward ambassador) to the
United States, his Excellency Don Mateo Romero (now deceased); to
the Ministro de Fomento of the Mexican Republic, Excelencia Don
Fernando Leal; and to the governor of the State of Sonora, Señor Don
Ramón Corral. Equal acknowledgments are due to various United States
officials, notably Honorable W. Woodville Rockhill, First Assistant
Secretary of State when the expeditions were planned; and it is a
pleasure to advert to the active interest taken in both expeditions by
Honorable S. P. Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and
to the careful attention given the 1894 expedition by the late Dr G.
Brown Goode, Assistant Secretary of the Institution.
Mr Willard D. Johnson did invaluable service in connection with the
second expedition, particularly in the execution of surveys and the
construction of maps in inimitable style. Mr William Dinwiddie is
to be credited with the excellent photographs made during the 1894
expedition, with the representation of the devices used in Seri
face-painting, and with various other aids to the investigation; while
Mr J. W. Mitchell is to be credited with the photographs made on Isla
Tiburon, and with other contributions to the success of the 1895
expedition. Acknowledgments are due also to all of the participants
in both expeditions, whose names appear in other paragraphs. Their
contributions were not primarily intellectual, yet were of a kind and
amount to be forever remembered among men who have worked and hungered
and thirsted and stood guard together. The deepest debt connected with
the field work is to the now venerable but ever vigorous pioneer,
Señor Pascual Encinas; and no small part of this debt goes over to
his estimable spouse, Señora Anita Encinas, who twice traversed the
long road from Hermosillo to Costa Rica in the interest of the 1895
expedition.
The scientific results of the researches have been enriched by
invaluable contributions from Director Powell’s store of ethnologic
knowledge, and by suggestions from Messrs Frank Hamilton Cushing,
F. W. Hodge, James Mooney, and other collaborators in the Bureau of
American Ethnology. The qualities of the colored illustrations are
due largely to the artistic skill of Mr Wells M. Sawyer, by whom
they were designed, and of Mr DeLancey Gill, by whom the proofs were
revised. The Spanish translations are due chiefly to Colonel F. F.
Hilder, ethnologic translator of the Bureau, partly to Mr Emanuele
Fronani; though neither can be charged with errors of interpretation
or of Englishing, both finally shaped by the author. The somatic
determinations and discussions were by Dr Ales Hrdlička, of New York;
the tests for arrow poison were made by Dr S. Weir Mitchell, of
Philadelphia; while the philologic comparisons were made almost wholly
(with notable thoroughness and perspicacity, and in such wise as to
illustrate the wealth and utility of the linguistic collections of the
Bureau) by Mr J. N. B. Hewitt. Finally, it has become due, probably
for the first time in the nearly four centuries of their history, to
make public acknowledgment of services by Seri Indians, viz., subchief
Mashém, the real sponsor for the Bureau vocabulary and many other data,
and “El General” Kolusio, the outlaw interpreter of Hermosillo and
contributor to certain historical identifications.