[Illustration: TYPICAL HOUSE INTERIOR, TIBURON ISLAND]
Traditions of this Franciscan mission still linger about Hermosillo
and at Rancho San Francisco de Costa Rica, and they, like Arricivita’s
account, indicate that the churchly jacal was planted either hard by
Pozo Escalante or at a traditional Ojito Carrizal (Aguaje Parilla, not
found in the surveys of 1895), supposed to lie a few miles farther
northwestward. All the probabilities point to Pozo Escalante as the
site, despite the fact that no cane now grows there; the topographic
description applies exactly, while the state of the padre’s remains,
when exhumed six months later, attests the dry and saline soil in
this vicinity. None of these conditions exist about Aguaje Parilla at
the southeastern base of Sierra Seri. The present absence of living
carrizal at Pozo Escalante is of little significance, since the
extinction of the plant might easily have been wrought either by the
stock of later expeditions or by the rise of the salt-water horizon
accompanying the local subsidence of the land; certainly dried roots
and much-weathered fragments of cane still remain about the margin of
the playa extending southward from the well.
The episode culminating in the assassination of Fray Crisóstomo was
characteristic: beset at all points and rankling under the invasion
of their range, the Seri sought anew to delude the governor with fair
words, using their own reprobates and apostates at Pitic and elsewhere
to point their asseverations; and remembering the facility with which
the earlier ecclesiastics were duped into unwitting allies, they made
the kindly and long-suffering friars the immediate object of their
petitions. But some of the tribe galled under the lengthy and still
lengthening blood-feud too deeply to tolerate the alien presence; and
one of these, either alone or supported by the alleged accomplices or
others, tried a typical ruse, suggested less by need than inherited
habit; for the friar was helpless in their hands, and might have been
slain in his jacal as easily as in the open. Typically, too, the
assassination initiated or deepened factional dissension and further
bloodshed.
The Franciscan records are of even less ethnologic use than those
of the Jesuits. Beyond his incidental expressions concerning Seri
character and custom in connection with the founding and abandonment
of Carrizal, it need only be noted that Arricivita makes hardly
a reference to the Tepoka, but habitually combines the “Seris y
Piatos”—the latter perhaps representing the “confederate Pima” of
“Rudo Ensayo”, or the Soba occupying the lower reaches of Rio San
Ignacio about that time.
Among the meager and scattered Franciscan records is a letter from
Fray Francisco Troncoso, dated September 18, 1824, which is of note as
containing an estimate of the Seri population at the time:
This island [Tiburon] has more than a thousand savage
inhabitants, enemies of those of California, and it has
frequently occurred that, on balsas of reeds, ... they have
crossed over to invade the mission [of Loreto], killing and
robbing some of those they found there.[132]
[132] Incorporated in Escudero, Noticias Estadisticas de Sonora y
Sinaloa; Mexico, 1849, p. 18.
The record is of value also as indicating that the Seri traversed
the gulf freely, and raided settlements and tribes of the peninsula
ruthlessly as those of the mainland.
* * * * *
The Carrizal episode was followed by a half century of comparative
silence concerning the Seri, though various contemporary records and
later compilations indicate customary continuance of the Seri wars.
Among the more useful compilations is that of Velasco; and among the
more important episodes noted by him was the Cimarrones-Migueletes war
of 1780.[133] The Cimarrones included the greater part of the Seri of
Tiburon and the Tepoka (then estimated at 2,000 of both sexes),[134]
together with the “Pimas called _Piatos_, of the pueblos of Cavorca,
Tubutama, Oquitoa, etc.”, and supposedly certain other representatives
of the Pima and Apache, who had shortly before marauded Magdalena
and sacked Saric, killing a dozen persons;[135] the Migueletes were
national troops assigned to Sonora under the command of Colonel Domingo
Elizondo. The forces met in several bloody battles in Cerro Prieto,
at Jupanguaimas, and at Presidio Viejo; and the former, or at any
rate the Seri, were once more “annihilated” (“reducidos a nulidad”).
Nevertheless, the hydra-headed tribe retained enough vitality in 1807
to induce Governor Alejo Garcia Conde to send an army of a thousand men
to Guaymas, en route to Tiburon, to repeat the extirpation—though the
expedition came to naught for international reasons.
[133] Noticias Estadisticas del Estado de Sonora; Mexico, 1850, p. 124
et seq.
[134] Ibid., p. 132.
[135] Bancroft, op. cit., vol. II, p. 682. It is incredible that
such a confederation of so incongruous elements could ever have been
effected; it is incomparably more probable that there was a succession,
of outbreaks of the Seri, Piato, and Apache, each stimulated by the
removal of soldiers for defense against the other enemies, just as Seri
outrages follow Yaqui outbreaks today; but it was undoubtedly a custom
of the times (a custom still existing) to connect the several enemies
in current thought and speech.
Among the more useful contemporary records is an unpublished manuscript
report by Don José Cortez, dated 1799, found in the Force library,
translated by Buckingham Smith, and abstracted by Lieutenant A. W.
Whipple for the Report of the Pacific Railway Survey. A subsection of
this report is devoted to “the Seris, Tiburones, and Tepocas”. It runs:
The _Seri_ Indians live towards the coast of Sonora, on the
famous Cerro Prieto, and in its immediate neighborhood. They
are cruel and sanguinary, and at one time formed a numerous
band, which committed many excesses in that rich province. With
their poisoned shafts they took the lives of many thousand
inhabitants, and rendered unavailing the expedition that was
set on foot against them from Mexico. At this time they are
reduced to a small number; have, on many occasions, been
successfully encountered by our troops; and are kept within
bounds by the vigilance of the three posts (_presidios_)
established for the purpose. None of their customs approach, at
all, to those of civilization; and their notions of religion
and marriage exist under barbarous forms, such as have before
been described in treating of the most savage nations. The
_Tiburon_ and _Tepoca_ Indians are a more numerous tribe, and
worthy of greater consideration than the Seris, but their
bloodthirsty disposition and their customs are the same. They
ordinarily live on the island of Tiburon, which is connected
with the coast of Sonora by a narrow inundated isthmus, over
which they pass by swimming when the tide is up, and when it is
down, by wading, as the water then only reaches to the waist,
or not so high. They come onto the continent, over which they
make their incursions, and, after the commission of robberies,
they return to the island; on which account no punishment
usually follows their temerity. It is now twenty-three or
twenty-four years since the plan was approved by His Majesty,
and ordered to be carried out, of destroying them on their
island; but, until the present season, no movement has been
made to put it into execution. To this end the troops of
Sonora are being equipped; a corvette of the department of San
Blas aids in the expedition and two or three vessels of troops
from the companies stationed at the port of that name on the
South sea.[136]
[136] Reports of Explorations and Surveys to ascertain the most
practicable and economical Route for a Railroad from the Mississippi
River to the Pacific Ocean, vol. III, part 3: Report upon the Indian
Tribes, 1855, pp. 122-123. The original Cortez manuscript is now in the
Library of Congress.
The record is significant as voicing an ill-founded discrimination
of the wandering Seri from the inhabitants of Tiburon, as echoing
persistent conception of Tiburon as a peninsula, and as summarizing the
characteristics of the tribe recognized at the end of the last century.
* * * * *
Meantime population and industries increased, while civil and military
development pursued its course; the Presidio of Pitic expanded into a
pueblo, and later into the city which gradually adopted the cognomen
of General José Maria Gonzalez Hermosillo, a hero of Sonora in the
stirring times of 1810-1812; Pueblo Seri became Mexicanized, retaining
only a few Seri families in 1811, according to Manuel Cabrera;[137]
Guaymas grew into a port of some commercial note; pearl fishing
progressed along the coast and prospecting in the interior; despite
constant harrying by Seri raids, the rancho of Bacuachito (probably the
Bacoachizo of Escudero[138]) became a flourishing pueblo; and plans for
ports in the northern gulf were broached and even tested. Moreover,
the dawn of the nineteenth century stirred scientific interest in the
native tribes, including the obstinate owners of Tiburon—an interest
stimulated by Humboldt’s American journeys of 1803.
[137] In Velasco, op. cit., p. 137.
[138] Noticias Estadisticas de Sonora y Sinaloa, Compiladas y
Amplificadas para la Comision de Estadistica Militar, por el Lic. D.
José Agustin de Escudero; Mexico, 1849, p. 88.
Combining earlier cartography (originating with Kino) and persistent
tradition up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, Humboldt
mapped “Isla de Tiburon” nearly a degree too far northward, and
separated from the mainland by a greatly exaggerated strait. The land
portion of the map is strikingly defective, revealing in numerous
imaginary mesas the author’s penchant for Mexican plateaus, while “Rio
Hiaqui” (“de Yaqui ou de Sonora” in the text) is combined with Rio
Sonora and given an intermediate position, and “Rio de la Ascencion”
(Rio San Ignacio) is represented as passing through an estuary into the
gulf just off the northern end of Tiburon; the “Indiens Seris” being
located on a figmentary mesa north of the latter river and due west
of Caborca, Pitic (apparently a composite of San Diego de Pitic, or
modern Pitiquito, with San Pedro de Pitic, or modern Hermosillo), and
Altar.[139] His text corresponds:
[139] Atlas Géographique et Physique du Royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne,
par Al.a de Humboldt; Paris, 1811, carte générale.
On the right bank of Rio de la Asencion live some very
bellicose Indians, the Seris, to whom many Mexican savants
ascribe an Asiatic origin by reason of the analogy offered
by their name with that of the Seri located by the ancient
geographers at the base of the Ottorocorras mountains.[140]
[140] Voyage de Humboldt et Bonpland, troisième partie: Essai Politique
sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne, tome I; Paris, 1811, pp. 296-297.
Naturally most of the scientific inquiries of the time were, like those
of Humboldt, based on tradition rather than on direct observation.
* * * * *
Toward the end of the first third of the century an important
contribution to actual knowledge of Seriland and the Seri at last
grew out of the pearl industry. In May, 1825, Lieutenant R. W. H.
Hardy, R. N., was commissioned by the “General Pearl and Coral Fishery
Association of London” to investigate the pearl fisheries of the
Californian gulf; and his task was performed with promptness and
energy. On February 13, 1826, he visited Pitic (under Hermosillo):
Half a league short [south] of it is another small place,
called the Pueblo de los Céres, inhabited by a squalid race
of Indians who are said to indulge in constant habits of
intemperance and to have lost the fire of the warrior. In its
stead they manifest the sullen stupidity peculiar to those who,
feeling themselves unfitted for companionship, strive to vent
their pusillanimous rage upon objects the most helpless and
unoffending, such as women, children, and dogs, who appear to
be the chief victims of their revenge.[141]
[141] Travels in the Interior of Mexico in 1825, 1826, 1827, and 1828;
London, 1829, p. 95.
His chief object in visiting Pitic was to obtain information concerning
Tiburon, its natives, and its pearl-oyster beds; and he was rewarded
with characteristic accounts of the ferocity of the tribesmen and their
use of poisoned arrows, which he received with some incredulity.[142]
[142] Ibid., p. 107.
After examining the principal pearl fisheries of the western coast,
Lieutenant Hardy reached the “Sal si Puedes” in the throat of the
gulf, and, on August 9, “got aslant of wind, which carried us up to
the northwest end of Tiburow island”[143]—i. e., apparently over the
precise route sailed by Padre Ugarte in 1721. Anchoring on the island,
he had the good fortune first to meet a native able to speak Spanish,
and later to successfully treat the sick wife of the principal chief,
after which he was treated with great consideration, and—unwittingly
on his part—adopted into the tribe as a member of the chief clan by
the ceremony of face painting, the symbol being that of the turtle
totem, to judge from the superficial description. Taking slightly
brackish water, just as Ugarte had done one hundred and five years
before, and arming his crew, he spent the night near the rancheria
(evidently in Bahia Agua Dulce). Next morning he “traveled over the
greater part of the island” (!) in fruitless search for pearls and
gold, and in the afternoon “got under weigh, and stood into a bay of
the continent to the northeast of the island,” discovering and naming
“Sargent’s Point”, together with “Cockle Harbour”, and “Bruja’s bay”
in the lee of the point, and also “Arnold’s Island”; this island being
apparently the present prominent cusp of Punta Sargent, now connected
with the mainland by a continuous wave-built bar rising a little way
above reach of tide. Anchoring in the bay named from his vessel (_La
Bruja_), he examined the adjacent shore, ascertaining that “there is
no fresh water near the spot, except during the rainy season, which
only lasts about a month or six weeks”, nor “any vestige of Indians to
be seen except a solitary hut erected by the Tiburons to serve them
when they go there to fish”; and, noting the report that Padre Kino had
visited this point, he quite appositely questioned the truth of the
tradition, partly on the ground of the absence of fresh water, partly
because “the Tepoca Indian establishment” mentioned in the tradition
“is many leagues farther to the northward.” Awakened by an approaching
storm, he was under way next morning at daylight, and, getting out of
the “bad holding ground”, was caught by a gale and carried back to his
“old anchorage in Freshwater Bay”, where he found the Indians rejoicing
over the success of a ceremonial incantation to which they ascribed
his return. The reconnaissance map is ill-drawn, locating “Fresh Water
B.” on the mainland side and apparently combining “Sargent’s Point”
and “Arnold’s Island” as “Sargents I.”; “San Miguel Pt.” is properly
located, and idealized route lines traverse the “Canal peligroso de
San Miguel” (El Infiernillo), which is of greatly exaggerated width.
The careful itinerary shows, however, that Hardy scarcely entered this
strait, and made but three or four anchorages in the vicinity—i. e., in
Bahia Agua Dulce, in Bahia Bruja, probably in Cockle harbor (or “Cochla
Inlet”), and finally off Isla Patos.
[143] Ibid., p. 280.
Hardy’s notes on the Indians are first hand, and hence of exceptional
value. He says:
The Indians on the island of Tiburon are very stout, tall, and
well-built fellows, exceedingly like the Twelchii tribe of
Indians in Patagonia, and with a language so like theirs that I
imagined I was transported back into those wild regions. They
by no means look so ferocious as they are represented, and
there is something peculiarly mild in the countenances of the
females. Their dress is a sort of blanket, extending from the
hips to the knees. But most of the old women have this part
of the body covered with the skins of the eagle, having the
feathers turned _towards the flesh_. The upper part of the body
is entirely exposed, and their hair is dressed on the top of
the head in a knot which greatly sets off the effect of their
painted faces. The men use bows and stone-pointed arrows; but
whether they are poisoned I do not know. They use likewise a
sort of wooden mallet called Macána, for close quarters in war.
They have a curious weapon which they employ for catching fish.
It is a spear with a double point, forming an angle of about 5
degrees. The insides of these two points, which are 6 inches
long, are jagged; so that when the body of a fish is forced
between them it cannot get away on account of the teeth.[144]
[144] Op. cit., p. 289-290.
He saw “about fifteen or twenty canoes made of three long bamboo
bundles fastened together”, and observed that, when engaged in turtle
fishing, the Indian “paddles himself from the shore on one of these
by means of a long elastic pole of about 12 or 14 feet in length, the
wood of which is the root of a thorn called mesquite, growing near
the coast”, this pole serving also as a harpoon shaft, provided with
a harpoon head and cord, such as those still in use. Respecting the
invocatory appurtenances, he says:
My attention was directed by the old women to a pile of bushes
outside the hut, which had a staff of about 5 feet in length
sticking up through the center. From the upper end of the
staff was suspended by a cord 12 or 14 inches long a round
stone ball, and to this ball was fastened another string
furnished with bits of cork, surrounded with small feathers
stuck into them at the distance of about 3 inches apart: the
only use of the stone ball being to prevent the wind from
blowing out horizontally the string which was furnished with
feathers.... Upon examining the bushy pile, I discovered a
wooden figure with a _carved hat_, and others of different
shapes and sizes, as well also as leathern bags, the contents
of which I was not permitted to explore.[145]
[145] Op. cit., pp. 294-295.
He also mentions that “in their festivities the Indians wear the head
(with the horns on)” of the bura or mule deer. He adds:
It is believed that the Céres Indians have discovered a method
of poisoning their arrows, and that they do it in this way:
They kill a cow and take from it its liver. They then collect a
number of rattlesnakes, scorpions, centipedes, and tarantulas,
which they confine in a hole with the liver. The next process
is to beat them with sticks in order to enrage them, and being
thus infuriated, they fasten their fangs and exhaust their
venom upon each other and upon the liver. When the whole mass
is in a high state of corruption the old women take the arrows
and pass their points through it. They are then allowed to dry
in the shade, and it is said that a wound inflicted by them
will prove fatal. Others again say that the poison is obtained
from the juice of the yerba de la flécha (arrow wort).[146]
[146] Ibid., pp. 298, 299.
He purchased some of the arrows, which were stone-tipped, and had
“certainly had an unguent applied to them”.
He was impressed by indications of family affection, and noted the
custom of having two wives. Concerning tribal relations he says:
These people have been always considered extremely ferocious,
and there is little doubt, from their brave and warlike
character, that they may formerly have devastated a great part
of the country; but in modern days their feuds are nearly
confined to a neighboring tribe of the same name as themselves
(Céres), who speak the same language and in all probability
originally descended from the same stock. They are said to be
inferior to those of this island both in courage and stature,
and they are never suffered to cross the channel. From what I
was told * * * the Tiburow Céres have lately returned from a
sanguinary war with the Tépoca Céres, in which the former were
victorious.[147]
[147] Ibid., pp. 299, 300.
Later in his itinerary Hardy noted a typical Yaqui revolution, with
a characteristic effort to secure the cooperation of the Seri.[148]
He defined the Seri habitat as “the island of Tiburow, the coast of
Tépoca, and the pueblo of Los Céres, near Pitic”;[149] and he estimated
the population at “3,000 or 4,000 at the very utmost”,[150] and quoted
the estimate of Don José Maria Retio, viz., that the Seri population of
Tiburon was 1,000 to 1,500.[151]
[148] Ibid., p. 395 et seq.
[149] Ibid., p. 437.
[150] Ibid., p. 438.
[151] Ibid., pp. 235, 540.
Like most of those visitors to the Seri who have returned to tell their
tale, Hardy “praised the bridge that carried him over” and gave the
tribe passable character—worse, of course, than that of any other, yet
hardly so bad as painted at Pitic.
A noteworthy traveler in western America during 1840-1842 was M. Duflot
de Mofras, an attache of the French legation in Mexico. He traversed
the Californias and entered Sonora, and while he failed to see
Seriland, he made a note on the tribe, valuable as a current estimate
of the population:
At the gates of the city of Hermosillo is established a Mission
which contains 500 Seri Indians; 1,000 of them, inhabit the
coast to the north of Guaymas and Île du Requin (Isla del
Tiburon).[152]
[152] Exploration du Territoire de l’Orégon, des Californies et de la
Mer Vermeille, exécutée pendant les années 1840, 1841 et 1842, tome i;
Paris, 1844, p. 214.
The next noteworthy episode in the external history of the Seri
chronicled in the civil records of Sonora culminated in 1844. “The
above-named Seris, although their number never became important, did
not abandon their propensity to revolt, and, while they never rose en
masse, made many factional uprisings. Ultimately ... they displayed
such boldness, robbing ranchos, assassinating all they encountered,
assaulting on the roads arrieros and other travelers”, that a
considerable force was sent against them from Hermosillo under the
direction of Captain Victor Araiza. It was planned to support this land
force by a sea party from Guaymas, but delays and misunderstandings
caused the practical abandonment of the plan. Tiring of the delay,
Araiza “declared war on the Indians, surprising them on Punta del
Carrizal, killing 11, including several innocent women and children”,
and taking 4 captives of from 1 to 11 years in age; whereupon the army
returned to Hermosillo.[153]
[153] Velasco, Noticias Estadisticas, pp. 124, 125. This chronicle is
rendered peculiarly valuable by supplements in the form of Andrade’s
and Espence’s journals, the latter incorporated (p. 125) after
Velasco’s own writing was completed. The whole was revised, extended,
and republished in the several volumes of the first series of Bol. Soc.
Mex. Geog. y Estad., 1861-1806.
Disapproving of this undignified and inhuman crusade, the acting
governor, General Francisco Ponce de Leon, planned a still more
vigorous campaign by land and sea for the purpose of capturing the
entire tribe and transporting them to Pueblo Seri, where a few of
their kin were still harbored.[154] The command was intrusted to
Colonel Francisco Andrade, who took personal charge of the land force,
including 160 infantry from Guaymas, 60 infantry and 30 cavalry from
Hermosillo, and considerable corps from Horcasitas and Altar. The
naval auxiliary, in charge of Don Tomás Espence,[155] pilot, comprised
a schooner of 12 tons; two launches, one carrying a 4-pound cannon
and the other a 2-pound falconet; and one rowboat. On August 11,
1844, Espence sailed from Guaymas, and six days later cast anchor at
the embarcadero (apparently a convenient place on the coast of Bahia
Kino due west of Pozo Escalante—the Embarcadero Andrade of figure 1)
opposite Tiburon. Andrade marched from Hermosillo August 13, reached
Carrizal August 16, and had detachments at the coast to meet the
squadron the next day. Both the vessels and this detachment were out of
water, and next morning Espence, taking a few soldiers and an Indian
guide, made his way to Tiburon in search of springs; but “on arriving
it turned out that the Indian had deceived the party or did not wish
to reveal the water.” Nevertheless they landed, and Espence hoisted
the Mexican flag, “taking possession of the island in the name of the
Mexican Government, as the first civilized person to touch the soil.”
Afterward he divided his force, and he and the sailors wandered far,
spending the entire day in vain search for water. Toward evening he
“made the men wade into the sea up to their necks, and in this manner
mitigated somewhat their burning thirst.” Meantime the soldiers had
traveled inland some 6 or 8 miles, and found water at the head of an
arroyo (apparently a temporary tinaja west of Punta Narragansett),
but it was surrounded by Indians, who at once gave battle. Such was
their thirst that the soldiers held their ground, drinking one at a
time under the protection of their comrades. At length they killed
two chiefs (one of whom wore a jacket taken from one Hijar, robbed on
the Cienega road a few days before), and succeeded in withdrawing to
a small eminence and sheltering themselves behind a rock. Later they
effected a retreat without loss, and of course without water, so that
they arrived at the shore even thirstier than the sailors. Making their
way back to the mainland during the night, the party were relieved
the following day by mule-loads of water sent over from Carrizal. On
August 20 Colonel Andrade marched to the coast with most of his force,
leaving a detachment to guard the route; and the next day Espence
transported to the island 125 troops, 16 horses, and some mules and
cattle, without other accident than the drowning of a mule and a
steer “by the strength of the current”. Suffering much from thirst,
the troops pressed inland to the watering-place already discovered,
where they camped. The next day Colonel Andrade, with Lieutenant Jesus
Garcia, worked northward, finding another watering-place (doubtless
Tinaja Anita) 3½ leagues distant from the first; and this was made
headquarters for the force. Several parties were sent out in search of
water and Indians. A few watering-places were found, and a number of
women and children with a few men were captured, though the journals
indicate that the excursions were of limited extent only. Meantime
Espence brought over the baggage and provisions; and on August 24,
leaving a launch and a rowboat for the use of the troops, he sailed
northward through the strait, and three days later, after passing many
bars of sand, entered the bay at the extreme north (Bahia Agua Dulce),
opposite Punta Tepopa, finding sharks swarming in thousands. Here he
found fresh water 250 paces from the beach—the water which sustained
Hardy eighteen years before, and Ugarte over a century earlier still.
He found no Indians here, but a number of jacales and balsas (which he
immediately burned), as well as bones and other remains of horses.[156]
On August 28 and 29 Espence skirted the abrupt and rocky coasts of
Tiburon, west and south of the northern bay, without seeing trace of
natives; on the 30th he reached the western bay, where he found huts
and fresh tracks, and captured a woman disabled by snake-bite. Farther
down the bay he encountered a considerable party, who first prepared to
attack, and then, overawed by his bold front, sued for peace; whereupon
he accepted their submission, and sent them with a letter to Colonel
Andrade. This affair concluded, and escaping currents so contrary
that he was nearly locoed (“por las corrientes encontradas que me
volvian loco”),[157] he coasted southward; and on September 1, at the
southwestern point of the island, he found another rancheria, and made
peaceful conquest of the occupants, whom he also sent with a letter to
Andrade. Thence he coasted eastward, and, on September 3, returned to
his starting point, “having navigated the island in the period of nine
days, having in this time burned 64 huts and 97 balsas, and reduced to
peace 104 Indians with their families.” The next day he transported
the captives to the mainland, “their number, comprising men, women,
and children, reaching 384, besides about 37 remaining at large on the
island.”[158] On September 5 the remaining troops were transferred to
the mainland, with the exception of a small detachment, which remained
for an unspecified, but evidently short period, in the vain hope of
corralling the warriors, with the families to which they belonged,
supposed (on grounds not given) to remain on the island. The troops and
their captives immediately moved to Laguna de los Cercaditos (probably
Laguna la Cruz) to rejoin the cavalry guard; thence, suffering much
from thirst, they marched toward Hermosillo, arriving at that place
September 12,[159] where the troops and captives formed a triumphal
procession, met on the highroad by the merchants and the civil and
military authorities, and greeted by the ringing of bells and the
firing of rockets, and with music and refreshments.
[154] On August 14, 1844, Secretary Manuel Cabrera reported that “there
are in this pueblo not more than fifteen families of Ceris located
within its borders, maintaining themselves by the manufacture of
earthen ollas and by the garbage of their neighbors, i. e., in time of
harvest they glean the wheat and corn left scattered, and the bones,
entrails, and hoofs of the stock slaughtered for consumption by the
inhabitants.” (Incorporated in Velasco, op. cit., p. 138.)
[155] Thomas Spence, of Guaymas; apparently the “Mr. Spence” mentioned
favorably by Hardy (Travels, p. 90).
[156] The expressions of the journal indicate that Espence was not
familiar with the Seri custom of eviscerating and quartering stolen
stock, consuming the entrails at once, and transporting the more
substantial pieces across the strait on their balsas. Velasco fell into
still further error in assuming that the expressions relate to tracks
and other indications of the presence of living stock on the island.
[157] Velasco, op. cit., p. 168.
[158] Ibid., p. 169. On the same page Espence classifies the captives
as 6 oldsters (“viejos de sesenta años arriba”), 12 beldames (“viejas
de cuarenta arriba”), 1 blind, 1 idiotic boy, 5 cripples male, 1
cripple female, 180 women, 160 children, and 144 men—510 in all.
Andrade’s report enumerates the captives as 120 in each of two lots,
with 20 or more in a third, making 260 odd (ibid., p. 180); while
Velasco put the number at 200 and odd (“docientas y tantas persones”),
men, women, and children, including only 30 odd oldsters and warriors
combined. The discrepancies are characteristic, and of a piece with
those prevailing in the same latitude and longitude today: e. g.,
Velasco says there are but four waters on the island, Espence says
there are eight or ten, and Andrade implies that there are many;
Velasco says there were 160 troops from Guaymas, while Andrade mentions
only 80; Espence says that in transporting the stock (as noted above)
but one mule was drowned by the strength of the current, while Andrade
says that a mule and a steer were lost on account of the bad storm
which prevailed during the day; yet there is such agreement between
dates and facts in the independent journals of Andrade and Espence as
to establish general verity despite the provincial weakness concerning
details.
[159] According to Andrade (ibid., p. 182); Velasco says September 16
(ibid., p. 126).
The captives were imprisoned over night in the mint, the children
weeping, the women chattering angrily or humbly, and the men sulking.
Next day the Hermosilleños began distributing the children among
themselves, some families taking three and many two, while the adults
were transferred to Pueblo Seri, placed in charge of a single keeper,
and set to gathering fuel, etc. Naturally this unstable status did not
long persist; “within two months they began to disappear, fleeing to
their respective and native haunts, stealing and carrying with them the
children from whom they had been separated”;[160] and, according to
Espence, they committed “many murders on the Pitic and Guaimas roads”
as they returned to Tiburon.[161]
[160] Velasco, Noticias Estadisticas, p. 127.
[161] Ibid., p. 170.
While the Tiburon captives were escaping, the campaigning continued;
and, in November, 1844, several Seri families, comprising 63
men, women, and children, who had been scavengering Rancho del
Burro (“manteniéndose allí á merced de los desperdicios de dicho
rancho”),[162] were captured and transported to the mint at Hermosillo,
and soon afterward transferred to Pueblo Seri. During the same month
a report came from Rancho del Pocito, on the Guaymas road, that Seri
marauders (assumed to belong to the 16 families left on the island) had
killed 10 head of stock; and a detachment of 15 cavalry was sent to
inflict punishment. Early in December this party met a Seri force of
over seventy warriors, including some of those captured on Tiburon and
escaped from Pueblo Seri; after a battle of four hours the troops found
their ammunition exhausted, several of their carbines out of order,
and all but four or five of their horses winded; so that they were
driven to parley with the Indians and to procure their surrender by
pacific means—especially promises of good treatment.[163] Subsequently
a municipal commission from Hermosillo reminded the defeated Seri
of their surrender, and “three, four, or eight” of them presented
themselves (“presentándose tres, cuatro ú ocho hombres”), and were
probably added to the colony at Pueblo Seri.
[162] Ibid., p. 128.
[163] Ibid., p. 129. This naive recital is far from unique among the
chronicles of conquest over the Seri. All of the records recount
victories more or less brilliant, even when there are strong
indications between lines that the Caucasians were outnumbered,
outfought, forced from the field, and even driven into the protection
of the pueblos. The Seri side of the story has never been told.
Espence’s journal clearly indicates a complete circumnavigation of
Tiburon, the second in history (that of Ugarte in 1721 being the
first); and naturally some of his notes are of ethnologic value:
The Ceris Indians are tall, well formed, not very corpulent;
the women are remarkable for small breasts and feet and high
insteps. At night they travel ill; this is to be attributed
to the reflection of the sun on the sand, which is quite
white, and as they all live on the shore where they gain
sustenance, which is fish and plankton [marisco], they are
daily exposed to a glare which injures their vision. Their
favorite food is turtles and horses.... They are all in the
most savage condition it is possible to conceive. Their
language is guttural, and they are most filthy in their
persons, as in their food, which is mostly eaten raw, or at
the best half cooked; they endure a thousand miseries on the
island, yet the love they have for it is incredible. They are
always accompanied by innumerable dogs, ... which they have
domesticated.[164]
[164] Velasco, Noticias Estadisticas, pp. 169-171.
Velasco adds:
The Ceris subsist on fish, the seeds of grass, and coastwise
shrubs, as well as on the flesh of horses and deer, which
they kill. There is no better proof of this fact than this—on
approaching the said Ceris, one instantly perceives that their
bodies exhale an intolerable stench, like that of a corpse of
eight or more days, totally rotten, so that it is necessary to
withdraw far as possible from them.[165]
[165] Ibid., pp. 127-128.
Of all the Indian tribes known in Sonora, none are more
barbarous and uncivilized than the Ceris. They are perverse to
the limit, vicious beyond compare in drunkenness, infinitely
filthy, the bitterest enemies of the whites, like the worst of
the Indians.[166]
[166] Ibid., p. 129.
He adds also that the men wear a pelican-skin robe and a breechclout of
cotton cloth, with most of the body uncovered; “they have their faces
painted or barred with prominent black lines. They use no foot-gear
of any kind, and many have the nasal septum pierced and adorned with
pieces of greenstone or ordinary glass.” “They are robust in stature,
tall and straight, generally with bright black eyes. The women are not
uncomely, and of bronzy color [de color abronzado]. Their clothing is
made of pelican skins fastened together, retaining the feathers; with
this they are covered from the waist downward”, the remainder of the
body being bare. The women of Hermosillo provide them with cast off
garments when they approach the city, and these they wear, unwashed,
until they fall to pieces. “The said tribe, in addition to being
the vilest and most brutal known in the country, are preeminently
treacherous and traitorous, so that forty of their outbreaks may be
counted during the efforts to reduce them to civilized life.” At
the time of the Cimarrones outbreak, the Seri of Tiburon and Tepoka
numbered 2,000; “to day [about 1846 or 1847], counting the 259, which
are all that inhabit Tiburon and the most that can be presented,
including the Tepoka Seri [los Ceris Tepocas], who have always been
much fewer, their whole number will not amount to 500 persons of all
sexes and ages, and the warriors can not exceed 60 or 80 at the most.”
The Seri are not polygamous, though apparently promiscuous (“se nota en
sus matrimonios mucha tolerancia mútuamente”). They “adore the moon,
which they venerate and respect as a deity; when they see the new moon,
they kneel and make obeisance; they kiss the earth and make a thousand
genuflections, beating their breasts.”[167]
[167] Ibid., pp. 131-133.
The remarkably vigorous expedition of Andrade and Espence occurred
within the memory of men still active, and naturally it lives in
tradition at Hermosillo and Bacuache, and among the ranchos lying
toward the border of Seriland; indeed, one of the two Mexicans
accompanying the 1895 expedition, Don Ygnacio Lozania, retained shadowy
impressions of participating in an invasion of the island, which
could have been none other than that planned by Governor De Leon and
executed by Colonel Andrade. Yet it is not uncharacteristic of Sonoran
history that the wave of anti-Seri activity culminating in 1844 hardly
outlasted its own breaking; certainly Escudero, writing less than five
years later, declared of “la nacion _Seri_”: “During thirty-three years
they have committed not a single act of hostility and live in peace
and perfect harmony with the Sonorenses.” He added that they occupied
the islands of Tiburon and Tepoca (sic) and the coasts of the gulf
contiguous to Sonora and California, and from the most remote antiquity
had been known by the names of “_tiburones_” or “_seris_”. Describing
Pueblo Seri, he observed: “It now contains hardly a dozen aged Seris of
both sexes”; and he forecast the early extinction of the tribe, since
the people were incapable of abandoning their independent and solitary
existence.[168]
[168] Noticias Estadisticas, pp. 141-142.
* * * * *
Here ends, practically, the history of Pueblo Seri as a Seri
settlement, for, although one of the tribe survived for half a century
and a few others may have survived for a decade, the “aged Seris of
both sexes” melted away so rapidly as to leave no later record, and
were apparently never replaced by others. Briefly, the history of the
pueblo began with the establishment of a presidio or military post
in 1741 in the natural gateway and watering-place leading into the
settled valleys of the Opodepe and upper Sonora, for the sole purpose
of protecting the settlements against the wandering Seri, who used
this typical Sonora watergap as a way-station on forays but never
as a place of residence. The history grew definite when the Jesuits
obtained the allotment of lands for the Seri and established for them
a mission, which was at the same time a place of catechizing for
Seri neophytes, a place of detention for Seri captives, a place of
refuge for Seri weaklings, and a place of resort for Seri sneaks and
spies. The history proceeded with many vicissitudes, as the presidio
was alternately abandoned under Seri attacks and reoccupied when the
attacks were repulsed, and as the neophytes alternately escaped and
suffered recapture; the formal history waned in relative importance
as the population and interests of Pitic and afterward of Hermosillo
waxed, and as the lands originally allotted to the Seri were gradually
taken and held by Mexican settlers, and ended when the Seri tenure was
formally extinguished in 1844, as described by Cabrera and Velasco;
and the general history dropped into unimportance with the escape
of Andrade’s captives, after temporary quartering on the legally
established landholders and householders of the Mexicanized pueblo.
For a century and a half the name of the pueblo has continually raised
and renewed the assumption that it marks a site of aboriginal Seri
habitation or has played some other leading rôle in Seri history, and
this assumption has shaped opinion past and present; yet its error is
clearly shown by scrutiny of the historical records, as well as by
collateral ethnologic and archeologic evidence.
Here may be said to end, too, the local chronicles of the Seri; for
although the state archives are crowded with charges, petitions,
commissions, reports, and other papers pertaining to the irrepressible
Seri; although these materials have overflowed to Ciudad, Mexico, and
even to Washington, in official documents both numerous and voluminous;
although Dávila in 1894 increased Velasco’s forty Seri wars to fifty;
and although the weightiest events in the internal history of the Seri
have occurred since 1844, little attempt has latterly been made to
reduce the abundant data to print.
The Mexican geographic knowledge of the time was surprisingly vague,
as is shown by the current maps, for example, the Tanner maps which
appeared in several editions: the 1846 edition recalls and evidently
reflects the Humboldt map of the beginning of the century; “R.
Ascencion” is represented as embouching through an estuary about 30°
20', with the “Seris Indians” north of its lower half-length and west
of “Pitic” and “Ft. del Alter”; Ures is located 3 or 4 miles southeast
of this fort, and “Racuach” (the Bacuachito of the present) is 20 miles
farther southeastward. Neither Rio Sonora nor any of its important
branches are indicated, while “Pitic” is placed several times too far
from the coast and from Guaymas, in a featureless expanse of paper;
“Rio Hiaqui” is shown as a branchless and conventional stream of a
single crescentic curvature, embouching in about the right latitude.
The coast of the gulf is distorted, and “Tiburon” is shown as an island
much too large and nearly a degree too far north, separated from the
mainland by a greatly exaggerated strait, with an elongated mesa (“Mt.
del Picu”) skirting the mainland coast—in short, the cartography is
largely traditional if not fanciful.[169]
[169] A Map of the United States of Mexico, as organized and defined
by the several Acts of the Congress of that Republic, constructed from
a great variety of Printed and Manuscript Documents, by H. S. Tanner.
Third edition, 1846. The map in De Mofras (op. cit., atlas) is little
better.
* * * * *
The career of the Seri during the half century 1844-1894 is traceable
by aid of (1) unpublished documents, (2) published results of
scientific inquiries and surveys, and (3) personal reminiscences of men
living on the Seri frontier; but in a summary touching only salient
points the first-named source may be passed over.
One of the first foreign visitors to follow Baron Humboldt in
systematic inquiries concerning the aborigines of northwestern Mexico
was Henri Ternaux-Compans; his information, too, was secondhand and
remote, yet he correctly recognized Isla Tiburon as “inhabited by the
Seris, who have some huts also on the mainland”.[170]
[170] Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, tome iii, 1842, p. 320 (cited by
Buschmann, Die Spuren der aztekischen Sprache im nördlichen Mexico und
höheren amerikanischen Norden, in Abhandlungen der Königlichen Akademie
der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, aus dem Jahre 1854, zweiter Supplement,
Band; Berlin, 1859, p. 219).
Later came Eduard Mühlenpfordt, an attaché of a German commercial
company and later a Mexican state official, who traveled extensively
and wrote partly at first hand, though there is little indication of
personal acquaintance with Seriland or the Seri: he described “Bahia
de San Juan Bautista”, with “the small island San Augustin” lying
before it (in such manner as to identify this islet with Isla Tassne),
and located “the large island Tiburon farther northward, opposite a
mountainous coast”.[171] He added:
[171] Versuch einer getreuen Schilderung der Republik Mejico besonders
in Beziehung auf Geographie, Ethnographie, und Statistik: Hannover,
1844, Band I, p. 441; Band II, p. 415.
The waterless but cattle-stocked plains between the place
Pitic and the coast, and thence up to the river Ascension,
are inhabited by a meager remnant of the Seri tribe, while on
Tiburon island, opposite this coast, the Tiburones dwell. The
Seris were formerly very numerous, by far the fiercest of all
the Indian tribes of northern Mexico, and very warlike. Through
ceaseless war with the Tiburones and the troops from the
Spanish presidios they are now nearly extinct.[172]
[172] Ibid., Band II, pp. 419-420.
Elsewhere the Tiburones were characterized as enemies of the Seri,[173]
while the “Heris” tribe was enumerated as a branch of the “Pimas Bajas”
people. Herr Mühlenpfordt’s characterization of the Seri and the
Tiburon islanders as enemies would appear to be groundless, yet not
wholly incomprehensible; in the first place, the earlier literature
indicates that the term Seri (Seris, Ceris, Heris, etc.) was an alien
designation of lax application,[174] doubtless extended occasionally
or habitually to marauding nomads, regardless of affinity; again there
is conclusive evidence that in many instances Seri convert-captives
attached to the missions and pueblos were often regarded as tribal
apostates and outlaws whose lives were forfeit; and, moreover, the
region in which Herr Mühlenpfordt gained his information was and
still is one of abounding tale, whose frequent exaggeration and not
infrequent invention conceal and distort the simple facts.
[173] Ibid., Band I, p. 210.
[174] Peñafiel defines “Seris” as the “name of a tribe of Sonora,
originating probably in the Opata language” (Nomenclatura Geográfica
de Mexico—Etimologías de los Nombres de Lugar ... por el Dr. Antonio
Peñafiel, primera parte, 1897, p. 225); while Pimentel defines two
suggestively similar Opata words, “_Serarai_, paso menudo y bueno”,
and “_Sërerài_, velocidad de la persona que corre” (Vocabulario Manual
de la Lengua Opata, Bol. Soc. Mex. Geog. y Estad., tomo X, 1863, p.
306), i. e., a good and direct pace, and the speed of a person running,
respectively (cf. postea. p. 125).
In 1850, Don Diego Lavandera transmitted to the Mexican Society of
Geography and Statistics, through the hands of Señor José F. Ramirez,
certain documents, accompanied by a note to the effect that “The tribe
of the Seris speak Arabic, and it is understood by the Moors at the
first interview”—this note merely expressing a prevailing current
opinion. Undertaking to test the opinion, Señor Ramirez sent to
Lavandera, in Sonora, a number of words in three Arabic dialects, at
the same time asking for the Seri equivalents; and the inquiry yielded
a Seri vocabulary (probably the first ever printed) of eleven words.
Of these none show the slightest affinity with the Arabic dialects;
at least four (horse, chamber, population, wine) express concepts
alien to the Seri; and only three or four can be identified with Seri
terms recorded in later vocabularies. No reference is made to Señor
Lavandera’s aboriginal informant; but there is a strong presumption
that it was the official interpreter at Hermosillo and Pueblo Seri—a
presumption warranted by coincident historical records and statements
of contemporaries still living, to the effect (1) that an official
interpreter was there then and for a long time later, (2) that neither
then nor later were there other Seri representatives able to furnish
vocabularies at Hermosillo, Pueblo Seri, or other towns, and (3) that
at that time (as at most others) the relations between the Seri and the
whites were such as to prevent amicable communication through casual
meeting or otherwise.
Proceeding with his discussion, Señor Ramirez sought to correct the
allegation of Abbé Hervas that “in the mission of Belen live three
nations, called Hiaqui, Seri, and Guaima, who speak _three different
languages_.” After quoting a Jesuit manuscript of July, 1730, reporting
that “the language of the Seris is the same as that of the Guaimas”,
he added a significant statement contained in a manuscript report
from the Bishop of Sonora, directed to Don José de Galvez, under date
of September 20, 1784, concerning the mission of Belen: “Two nations
of Indians, Pimas Bajos and Guaimas, live united, the latter having
abandoned their pueblo under the continuous assaults of the Seris.
The Pimas use their own language.... The Guaimas use their ancient
language.” Summarizing the evidence (of course secondhand and derived
from the observations and reports of the missionaries), Señor Ramirez
held as proved, first, “the existence of two diverse languages at the
mission of Belen—that of the Guaimas and that of the Pimas Bajos”; and
second, that “the Guaimas and the Seri are the same”.[175] It would
appear that Señor Ramirez hardly appreciated the significance of the
statement of sixty-four years before that the Guayma were still using
their “ancient” language, with the implication that they were acquiring
familiarity with the Piman tongue—a familiarity that may well have
misled later inquirers.
[175] Lenguas Primitivas, in Boletin del Institute Nacional de
Geografía, y Estadística de la República Mexicana, third edition, tomo
II; Mexico, 1861, pp. 148-149.
* * * * *
It is just to say that scientific knowledge of the Seri began with
the visit to Hermosillo of United States Boundary Commissioner John
Russell Bartlett, on December 31, 1851. True, Commissioner Bartlett
approached no nearer Seriland than Hermosillo and Guaymas, and saw but
a single Seri; yet he obtained an excellent vocabulary and considerable
collateral information from this Indian. According to this information—
The Ceris tribe of Indians, with the exception of those which
are christianized and reside in the village near Hermosillo,
occupy the island of Tiburon in the Gulf of California, north
of Guaymas. Although believed not to number over 100 warriors,
they have long been the dread of the Mexicans between Guaymas
and Hermosillo, as well as the country to the north, on account
of their continual depredations and murders. Their practice
is to lie in wait near the traveled roads, and there surprise
small and unprotected parties. Their place of abode being
on an island or the shores adjacent, and their subsistence
being chiefly gained by fishing, they have no desire to steal
animals, which would be of no use to them; nor do they take
any prisoners. To murder and plunder small parties of Mexicans
seems to be their only aim, and every arrow or lance thrown
by the Ceris that pierces the skin causes death, as all are
poisoned. Many expeditions, fitted out at a great expense, have
been sent against them; but, though commanded by competent
officers, all have failed. The number being so small, they
manage when pursued to conceal themselves where they can not
be found. The island of Tiburon, as well as the mainland
adjacent, is exceedingly barren and destitute of water; hence
parties have suffered greatly in the campaigns against them,
without accomplishing anything. I was told that the Government
had already expended more than $1,000 for every male of the
tribe. The last serious attack of these people was made upon a
gentleman traveling to Guaymas in his carriage with his family
and attendants, embracing 16 persons. They were surprised in an
unfrequented place and every soul put to death.[176]
[176] Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas, New
Mexico, California, Sonora, and Chihuahua, Connected with the United
States and Mexican Boundary Commission, during the years 1850, ’51,
’52, and ’53; New York, 1854, vol. I, p. 403 et seq.
Commissioner Bartlett quoted Hardy’s description of the arrow poison,
and, speaking of the Seri tongue, added:
I found it an extremely harsh language, very difficult to
express with our letters, and totally different from any
aboriginal tongue I had heard spoken; ... but it was impossible
for me, without a close philological comparison with other
Indian languages, to arrive at any correct conclusion as to
whether this people are allied or not to other aboriginal
tribes.
He also referred to a prevalent notion that “the Ceris were of Asiatic
origin, in proof of which some statements were made too improbable to
repeat. This idea seems to have originated from the resemblance between
their name and that given by the ancients to the Chinese.”
In order to obtain a Seri vocabulary, Commissioner Bartlett had a
messenger dispatched “to a pueblo or village of these Indians near
Hermosillo. The person sent for made his appearance in a few hours”;
he was “a good-looking man, about 30 years of age. His complexion was
fair, and resembled that of an Asiatic rather than an American Indian.
His cheek bones were high, and his head round and well formed, though
the anterior portion was somewhat angular and prominent. His hair was
short, straight, and black. He was a full-blooded Ceris, and came
originally from the island of Tiburon. In about three hours I completed
the vocabulary quite satisfactorily to myself.”[177] The vocabulary was
not printed with the narrative; nor were references made to the Seri
population, either in the pueblo or in Seriland.
[177] Ibid., pp. 463-464.
While the vocabulary was not published by Commissioner Bartlett, it
was preserved and passed into the hands of George Gibbs, who made a
systematic transcript;[178] this came into possession of Dr Albert S.
Gatschet, and a copy is preserved in the archives of the Bureau of
American Ethnology. The name of the native informant is not recorded,
but fortunately he was found still living, and was fully identified,
during the expeditions of 1894 and 1895—especially toward the end of
the latter, when, on January 4, 1896, he was employed as an informant.
He was then a fine-looking man of noble stature and figure, and of
notably dignified air and manner, dressed in conventional attire;
his hair was luxuriant, iron-gray in color, and trimmed in Mexican
fashion. His looks indicated an age of about 70, but in his own opinion
(which was corroborated by that of Señor Pascual Encinas and other
old acquaintances) he was at least 75. His movements were vigorous,
his eyes clear and bright, his vision good, and, except for hardly
perceptible imperfection of hearing, he was in full possession of
normal faculties. He was in the employ of the state as a trustworthy
attaché of the governor’s palacio, where his services were nominal;
his real function was that of a Seri interpreter in case of need; and
on the day specified he was temporarily assigned to the service of the
expedition by His Excellency Governor Corral. By Mexican acquaintances
he was commonly called Fernando, though he called himself Kolusio,
sometimes using the former designation as a forename; he was also
known as “El General” (= Chief), or “El General de los Seris”. He
had a vague memory of Tiburon island, which he left in childhood
(at about 6 years of age, according to his estimate) and had never
revisited, though he had been on the Seri border so late as 1870.
Except when temporarily at Rancho San Francisco de Costa Rica, he had
lived in Pueblo Seri, usually reporting in Hermosillo daily for such
duty as might be assigned to him at the palacio. He was aware that he
was regarded as a tribal outlaw, and admitted that no consideration
could induce him to approach Seriland, since he would be slain by
his tribesmen more eagerly than any alien; indeed, he hardly dared
venture so far westward as Molino del Encinas, in the outskirts of
Hermosillo, and only did so in daylight or in company of others. His
few kinsfolk in Pueblo Seri had died or deserted so long before that he
had forgotten names and dates; and, as he remarked with half-realized
pathos, he had been alone amid aliens for very many years (“muy muchos
años”). The linguistic inquiries put to him reminded him of previous
interrogations of the sort, and he voluntarily described the visit of
a distinguished American who, a long time ago (more than 40 years, he
thought), came down from Ures, with many books and papers, and spent
New Year’s day in interrogating him about his language and his people.
He was much impressed with the ability displayed by the “Gringo muy
grande” in writing the terms and afterward repronouncing them properly;
and he described the visitor as appearing very pale and sick (“muy
palido y malo”), and under the necessity of frequently resting and
taking medicine, and also as having wavy hair, worn so long as to hang
down over the neck and shoulders. He could not recall that he had
ever heard the American’s name; but his description pointed clearly
to Commissioner Bartlett, who had risen from a sick-bed at Ures and
was on his way to Guaymas to get the benefit of a sea voyage, and who
wore his hair long during a part or all of his expedition (as was
subsequently ascertained by extended inquiry). Kolusio also remembered
“giving his language” (a bold if not sacrilegious act, according to
his view) to two or three other persons, (one “not a Mexicano” though
speaking Spanish, none “Americano”[179]); but the first-mentioned
instance was the one most deeply impressed on his mind. At this time
(1896) he retained a working knowledge of the Seri tongue, and was able
to serve satisfactorily as a Spanish-Seri interpreter; yet careful
test showed that he had forgotten numerous native terms, and sometimes
inadvertently substituted other Indian (Yaqui, Papago, and probably
Opata) and Spanish words; while he knew so little of the tribal customs
and beliefs that inquiries pertaining to them were too nearly fruitless
to be long pursued. Undoubtedly his knowledge of the Seri tongue was
fresher and fuller in 1852; but since he was practically isolated
from his tribe in early childhood, he probably never possessed much
information concerning the esoteric characters of his people.
[178] This transcript is entered in a blank schedule Vocabulary of
180 Words, printed by the Smithsonian Institution for Gibbs, with
a supplementary sheet; it is dated January 1, 1852; and while the
published “Narrative” implies that it was recorded December 31, 1851,
the manuscript date is confirmed by the Seri interpreter, Kolusio.
[179] At the time of inquiry the importance of the other vocabularies
was not suspected, and the interrogation was not pushed far enough to
permit identification of the persons to whom they were given.
The next noteworthy scientific student of the Seri was Johann Carl
Eduard Buschmann, who visited various Mexican tribes, but whose
knowledge of the Seri was wholly secondhand. Quoting Villa-Señor and
Arrecivita and other early writers, noting unfortunate passages from
Bartlett, and magnifying Mühlenpfordt’s misapprehensions into positive
error, he reduced knowledge of this and neighboring tribes to chaos.
The “Guaymas” were separated from the “Seris (oder Seres)”, and these
(at least by implication) from the “Tiburones”, while the “Piatos” were
combined with the Seri, the traditional alliance with the Apache was
greatly overdrawn, and the “Heri oder Heris” and the “Tepocas” were
treated as distinct.[180] No new facts were adduced, no use was made
of local sources of information, and no notice was taken of other than
literary data.
[180] Die Spuren der aztekischen Sprache im nördlichen Mexico und
höheren amerikanischen Norden. Zugleich eine Musterung der Völker
und Sprachen des nördlichen Mexicos und der Westseite Nordamerikas
von Guadalaxara an bis zum Eismeer. Von Joh. Carl Ed. Buschmann (in
Abhandlungen der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, aus
dem Jahre 1854, zweiter Supplement-Band); Berlin, 1859, pp. 218-221 and
elsewhere.
In 1857 the gigantic surveying enterprise of Jecker & Co. was
undertaken, under a concession from the Government of Mexico, and the
scientific surveys were intrusted to a commission headed by El Capitan
Carlos Stone (General Charles Pomeroy Stone, U. S. A.). The commission
headquartered at Guaymas, purchased vessels for the survey of the
coast, and began operations also in the interior; Bahia Pinacati and
George island (named by Hardy in 1826) were surveyed, as well as the
entire Sonoran coast south of Guaymas, and “one hundred miles of coast
near Tiburon”, besides many hundred square miles of valuable lands.
At this stage friction developed between the progressive commission
and the conservative Sonorenses, which ended in the expulsion of the
scientific commission by the State government.[181] By reason of
the premature termination of the work, few of the observations and
other results were ever published. General Stone himself traveled
extensively in Sonora, and delved deeply in the historical records of
northern Mexico; and, while there is no indication that he ever came
in personal contact with the Seri, he collected and sifted current
local information relating to the tribe with notable acumen. In certain
“Notes” prepared in Washington in December, 1860, he wrote:
[181] Arizona and Sonora, etc., by Sylvester Mowry; New York, 1864. pp.
98-102.
The _Ceris_ are a peculiar tribe of Indians occupying the
island of Tiburon and the neighboring coast. They are yet in a
perfectly savage state, and live solely by fishing and hunting.
Having been at war with the whites from the time of the first
missions, they have become reduced in numbers to about 300,
counting some 80 warriors. They are of large stature, well
made, and athletic. In war and in the chase they make use of
poisoned arrows, the wounds from which are almost always fatal.
In preparing the poison, it is said they procure the liver of a
deer or cow, and by irritating rattlesnakes and scorpions with
it, cause it to be struck by a great many of these reptiles.
They then hang up the mass to putrefy in a bag, and in the
drippings of this bag they soak their arrowheads. I can not
vouch for the truth of this statement, but it is current in
Sonora. I was informed by a gentleman in Hermosillo that one
of his servants, who was slightly shot by a Ceri’s arrow,
died quickly from the effect of the wound (which mortified
almost immediately) in spite of the best medical treatment.
Their language is guttural, and very different from any other
Indian idiom in Sonora. It is said that on one occasion some
of these Indians passed by a shop in Guaymas, where some Welsh
sailors were talking, and on hearing the Welsh language spoken,
stopped, listened, and appeared much interested, declaring that
those white men were their brothers, for they had a tongue like
their own. They are very filthy in their habits, and are said
to be worshipers of the moon.[182]
[182] Notes on the State of Sonora, by Charles P. Stone, 1800;
Washington, 1861, p. 19. Reprinted in Historical Magazine, vol. V,
1861, pp. 161-169.
Another Mexican traveler of note who collected local and contemporary
information concerning the Seri, though enjoying no more than slight
inimical contact with them, was Herr Clemens A. Pajeken, of Bremen (for
some time a resident of California). He classed as wild Indians (“Wilde
Indianer, Indios broncos”) the Seri and Apache tribes. Of the former he
wrote:
Ceris. This is a small tribe, their number not exceeding 400
souls, or rather head [dessen Seelenzahl oder besser Kopfzahl];
yet the government of the State could not restrain this little
band of robbers and marauders that for more than twenty years
have perpetrated their atrocities on travelers between the
port of Guaymas and the city of Hermosillo, the metropolis
of the State.... The Ceris appear not to grasp the idea that
they are human. Like the prey-beasts of the wilderness, they
go out to slay men and animals, sparing only their own kind.
In many respects they are viler than the beasts, since they
slay without need merely to satisfy a lust for slaughter.
They are not only the stupidest and laziest of the Indians of
Sonora, but also the most treacherous and deceitful. During the
Spanish rule, from the time the first visit was made to lead
them toward social life, they have rebelled more than forty
times. Only a couple of families [ein paar Familien] still
reside in the village [Pueblo Seri], where they make ollas and
subsist on the offal of the shambles. The proper home of these
barbarians is the island of Tiburon and the adjacent coasts,
whither they return after their outbreaks, although it is an
incredibly desert region. Thence they repair to the highways to
kill travelers and arrieros, or to the ranges to steal cattle.
They confine themselves to the bow and arrow, and the latter
are poisoned, so that every wound made by them is deadly, or at
best highly dangerous. On my second journey into the interior
of the country my horse received an arrow in the hip; the
arrow, which entered 4 inches, could not be withdrawn until the
following day; and for seven months the wound suppurated....
Their chief food consists of oysters, mussels, snakes, with
fish and other sea food, which they consume entirely raw and
which surrounds them with an intolerable stench; though this
may be partly due to their exceeding uncleanliness, since the
process of washing is wholly unknown to them. Their clothing
consists of a kilt of pelican skin. They tattoo their faces,
and some pierce their noses to insert a certain green stone
[obsidian]. They are of dark copper color, large and strongly
built. Although in their faces no human sentiments can be
discerned, yet they can not be called ugly. Their limbs are so
beautifully proportioned that the Spanish ladies in Hermosillo
view with envy the slender shapes and the comely hands and
feet of the young Ceris maidens. They wear no headdresses, and
as their coarse, shaggy hair is neither combed nor cleaned,
it sticks out in tangled tufts in all directions like spines
on a hedgehog; this alone gives them a forbidding appearance.
Their speech is quite like their character; it is guttural,
discordant, and meager, resembling more the howling of wild
animals than human speech, wherefore it is difficult for a
human to learn. They have no religion—at least, I do not deem
the gambols and amusing capers in which they indulge at the
new moon to be religious customs. The tribe is constantly
diminishing in numbers, and it is hoped they may soon disappear
from the earth by natural decrease—unless the State government
sooner undertakes a war of extermination.[183]
[183] Reise-Erinnerungen und Abenteuer aus der neuen Welt in
ethnographischen Bildern, von C. A. Pajeken; Bremen, 1861, pp. 97-99.
Herr Pajeken’s record bears inherent evidence (at least to one familiar
with the region) of reflecting the current local knowledge and opinion
concerning the Seri with unsurpassed—indeed unequaled—fidelity; and
it is also of value in that it indicates the approximate number of
the tribe then surviving in Pueblo Seri, and in that it gives the
contemporary estimate of the tribal population.
Among the more careful students of the Seri at second hand should be
mentioned Buckingham Smith, an enthusiastic collector, translator, and
publisher of rare Americana. In the introduction to an anonymous and
dateless grammar of the Heve language he wrote in 1861:
The lower Pima are in the west of the province [of Sonora],
having many towns extending to the frontier of the indomitable
Seri, who live some 30 leagues to the north of the mouth of
the Hiaqui, and have their farthest limit inland some dozen
leagues from the sea, finding shelter among the ridges and in
the neighboring island of Tiburon.
He added in a note:
The Guaima speak nearly the same language as the Seri,
are few in number, and live among the Hiaqui in Belen and
elsewhere, having retreated before the sanguinary fury of their
conquerors.[184]
[184] A Grammatical Sketch of the Heve Language, translated from an
unpublished Spanish manuscript; in Library of American Linguistics,
vol. III, New York, 1861, p. 7.
While the scientific knowledge of the Seri began with Bartlett’s visit,
it assumed definite shape only through the classic researches of Don
Francisco Pimentel (Count Herras) in the early sixties. His analysis
and classification of the Seri tongue rest on a short vocabulary
collected by Señor D. A. Tenochio and transmitted to the Mexican
Society of Geography and Statistics. Noting the condition of the tribe
at the time, Señor Pimentel wrote:
The Seris are now reduced to a few families only, inhabiting
Sonora, especially the island of Tiburon, for which reason
they are also known sometimes by the name Tiburones. The
Indians called Salineros, who live on the borders of Pimeria
Alta, and the Tepocas, who live toward the south, belong to
the Seri nation. The Seris have always been notable for their
ferocity and barbarism, preferring death in war against the
whites to the adoption of civilization. They are dreaded and
notorious for their arrows, poisoned with a most virulent venom
[emponzoñadas con activísimo veneno]. They are tall and well
formed, and their women are good-looking. By reason of their
distrust of the whites, it has not been possible to ascertain
their traditions, farther than that their ancestors came from
distant lands of unknown direction. Of their religion it is
known that they adore daily the rising sun.[185]
[185] Cuadro Descriptivo y Comparativo de las Lenguas Indigenas de
México, ó Tratado de Filología Mexicana, por Francisco Pimentel,
segunda edicion unica completa, tomo II; Mexico, 1875, p. 229. The
first edition of the work was published in two volumes, dated,
respectively, 1862 and 1865.
After brief discussion of the grammar, and extended comparison of
some sixty out of the seventy vocables selected by Señor Tenochio, he
concluded:
Although in the list of Seri words consulted the foregoing
reveal analogies with those of the Mexican group, there are,
without doubt, other terms belonging exclusively to the Seri
or some other branch extraneous to the Mexican group; for this
reason it would appear that the idiom represents a distinct
family.[186]
[186] Ibid., p. 241.
The list of these distinct words was appended. Referring to the
dialects, Señor Pimentel expressed the opinion, based on literary
references, that the “Guayma” or “Gayama”, “Upanguaima”, and
“Cocomaques” may be considered as belonging to the Seri family.[187]
[187] Ibid., p. 234.
While Señor Pimentel gave credit to his informant, Señor Tenochio,
he did not indicate the original source of the vocabulary; but the
source may be defined approximately by a process of elimination:
there is hardly a possibility that the terms were obtained from any
tribesmen in Seriland, since they were all inimical to the whites,
and since very few of them have ever known enough of the Spanish
tongue to permit communication with the Mexicans; accordingly, it is
practically certain that the Seri interpreter must have been either (1)
a resident of Pueblo Seri or (2) an attaché of rancho San Francisco
de Costa Rica (of which more anon); and in either case it would seem
certain that the native informant could have been none other than the
standard Seri-Spanish interpreter of the last half century—Kolusio.
Indeed, Kolusio was, at the time, the only Seri habitué of Pueblo Seri
possessing sufficient knowledge of the Spanish and enough intelligence
and independence to “give his language”, and was one of the two
frequenters of the rancho similarly equipped.
Pimentel’s contemporary, Licenciate Manuel Orozco y Berra, contributed
in important measure to systematic knowledge of the Seri, which he
defined (apparently on the basis of the Tenochio vocabulary systemized
and published by Pimentel) as a distinct linguistic family with two
dialectic branches,[188] viz.:
[188] Geografia de las Lenguas y Carta Etnográfica de México,
Precedidas de un Ensayo de Clasificacion de las Mismas Lenguas y de
Apuntes para las Inmigraciones de las Tribus, por el Lic. Manuel Orozco
y Berra; Mexico, 1864, p. 59.
_IX FAMILIA.—SÉRI._
XXXIII. _Séri_, por los séris, céris, tiburones, tepocas,
salineros, en Sonora.