[Illustration: PUNTA YGNACIO, TIBURON BAY]
The coastwise plain skirting eastern Tiburon has a few wave-built
projections analogous to those east of El Infiernillo; the most
conspicuous of these are Punta Tormenta, Punta Tortuga, and Punta
Perla with its tide-swept extensions, Bajios de Ugarte. All of these
are located primarily by sierra-fed arroyos, but all are greatly
extended by wave-borne material laid down along lines determined by
the prevailing currents of this best-protected portion of the coast.
The long outer face of Punta Tormenta, shaped by the storms of Bahia
Kunkaak, is strikingly regular and symmetric; its broad extremity and
inner face are diversified by subordinate bars and lagoons, evidently
tending to connect with the main coast toward Punta Tortuga, and
thereby to transform the whole of Rada Ballena into a lagoon. Already
the narrow embayment is so shallow that, although a comfortable haven
at high tide, it is mostly mud-flat and sand-waste at extreme low
tide—a condition which explains the stranding of an 80-foot whale in
this treacherous harbor about 1887. The rada is between two and three
miles in length. It abounds in marine life of kinds preferring quieter
waters: clams are plentiful in its mud-flats, a sponge lines portions
of the bottom toward its inner extremity, oysters cluster numerously
on bowlders and on the mangrove-like roots and trunks of a large shrub
along the outer shore, and various fishes find refuge here from the
fierce currents and the hungry sharks and porpoises of the open strait;
these and other creatures form food for innumerable waders and other
water-fowl that seek shelter in the quiet bay, which is still further
protected by salt-enduring shrubbery on the bars of the point and by
the shrubby thickets and wave-cast banks and wind-built dunes on the
mainland side.
The combination of conditions renders this portion of the Tiburon coast
the optimum habitat of the Seri Indians. There are, indeed, no houses
or other traces of permanent habitation on Punta Tormenta itself,
which is not only swept by gales but must sometimes be inundated by
gale-driven waters at high spring tide; but at the inner end of the
long sand-spit, and also on the mainland opposite the outer portion of
Rada Ballena, there are extensive and well-kept rancherias, capacious
enough to accommodate comfortably thirty or forty Seri families, i.
e., 150 or 200 persons. Toward its landward end the sand-spit is built
largely of pebbles and cobbles, of which thousands of tons are adapted
to industrial use; sea-food is practically unlimited and is readily
taken; water-fowl literally crowd the protected rada within arrow-shot
of natural cover; the outer slope of the bar is admirably suited for
landing and embarking balsas in calm weather, while the bay is an
ideal harbor for the portable craft, and the shrub-grown shores give
unlimited opportunity for concealing them when not in use; the dunes
and banks are high enough to protect the low jacales from storm-winds,
while the abundant sponges and turtle-shells afford material for
thatching and shingling the more exposed walls and roofs; and finally,
it is but a favorite distance (about 4 miles) to the permanent fresh
water of Tinaja Anita. From this Seri metropolis well-trod trails
radiate toward all other parts of the island; the best beaten leads
to the tinaja, sending branches into all the neighboring gorges, in
which game is sometimes taken; next best-worn is the trail laid across
Sierra Kunkaak to strike Arroyo Carrizal mid-length of its permanently
wet portion; others pass northward to rancherias at different points
on the coast, and still another skirts the coast southward by several
smaller rancherias to the considerable jacal collection near Punta
Narragansett—this, like other longshore routes, having alternative
trails, the evanescent fair-weather one following the beach, while
the permanent path threads the thorn-set thickets marking the crest
of the sea-cliff or cuts across the longer salients. The Narragansett
rancheria is also a center for radiating trails, the best-beaten
of these leading toward the fresh waters of Tinaja Anita and Arroyo
Carrizal; and even the rancherias half-way thence to Punta Mashém
send their most permanent paths over 15 miles of intervening ranges
and spall-strewn valleys toward the same waters. According to
Mashém’s cautious statements, there is a minor Seri metropolis at
the northwestern spur of Sierra Kunkaak, within reach of Pozo Hardy
and Arroyo Agua Dulce, and two or three smaller rancherias along the
western shore; but these were not reached by the 1895 expedition.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY