* * * * *
The external history of the Seri since the spring of 1894 is fairly
known, both through the direct researches and through press reports,
and would seem to be typical. This era may be assumed to open with
the arrival on Tiburon’s shores of the sloop _Examiner_, carrying
two San Francisco newspaper writers, Robinson and Logan, with two
assistants, Clark and Cowell. The to-have-been-expected happened
duly, save that two of the party escaped, and on reaching Guaymas
advertised the disaster through correspondence and the press. Several
of the accounts indicated that the two victims were not only slain
but eaten, and various plans were laid in California, Arizona, and
Sonora for the recovery of the bones[222]—as if, forsooth, the
omnivorous and strong-toothed Seri spared anything save scattered
teeth and split sections of the longer shafts of skeletons the size
of those of _Homo sapiens_. While in Guaymas the two survivors set up
claims for indemnity, which initiated international correspondence and
inquiry into the details of the affair. These details are indicated,
in sufficient fulness for present purposes, in a formal communication
incorporated in the international correspondence, viz.:
[222] A number of Californians and Arizonians, especially M. M. Rice,
of Phoenix, intimated a strong desire to join the 1895 expedition of
the Bureau of American Ethnology for the express purpose of personally
ascertaining the fate and seeking the remains of Robinson, who was
extensively known in southern California and southwestern Arizona.
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION,
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY,
_Washington, December 14, 1894._
SIR: Early in November I visited the Seri tribe of Indians,
inhabiting Tiburon island in the Gulf of California and
an area of several thousand square miles of the adjacent
mainland in Sonora, Mexico. The visit was for the purpose
of making collections under your authority as Secretary of
the Smithsonian Institution; but I availed myself of the
opportunity for obtaining additional information relating to
the customs, habits, and history of the tribe. In addition to
my own party I was accompanied by Señor Pascual Encinas, a
prominent citizen of Hermosillo, and owner of several ranchos
adjacent to, and one within, the territory claimed by the
Seri Indians; also by Señor A. Alvemar-Leon of Hermosillo, a
young Mexican gentleman educated in the United States. For
Señor Encinas the Seri Indians have the highest regard, and
his kindly motive in accompanying the party was to facilitate
friendly intercourse with the Indians; Señor Alvemar-Leon acted
as Spanish-English interpreter, and one of the tribe who speaks
Spanish [Mashém] acted as the Seri interpreter.
One of the subjects of inquiry of the Indians related to the
alleged killing of two Americans by the Seri Indians on Tiburon
island during last spring at a date not definitely known
either to the Indians or to myself. At first the Indians were
indisposed to convey information on the subject, but after
receiving presents from Señor Encinas and myself, and friendly
assurances from the former, the interpreter for the tribe
confessed the crime and detailed the circumstances, denying,
however, that any of the Indians present at the place of
conference (Rancho de San Francisco de Costa Rica, 17 leagues
west-southwest of Hermosillo and near the coast) participated.
According to the first account given through the Indian
interpreter, the Indians on the island saw a small vessel
approach the shores of the island, and saw four men land
therefrom in a small boat. The spokesman among the strangers
made inquiry, chiefly by signs, as to whether game was abundant
in the interior of the island, and was by signs answered in
the affirmative by the chief of the tribe, who displayed a
letter of authority from the state officials at Hermosillo.
Then the strangers divided, two remaining on the shore by the
small boat, while the spokesman and another, accompanied by
several Indians, started toward the interior of the island.
When they were some distance away—the account continues—some of
the Indians remaining on shore indicated by signs a desire to
borrow the rifle of one of the two men on the beach, and after
some parley the rifle was turned over to them; then the Indians
desired also to borrow the small boat in which the party of
white men had landed, and after one of the two men remaining
on the shore was put aboard the vessel, this, too, was placed
in the hands of the Indians. Thereupon several of the Indians
entered the small boat, carrying the white man’s rifle, and
rowed around a headland a short distance away. Passing this
point they landed and a part of them ran quickly into the
interior in such direction as to intercept the course of the
white men. There they lay in wait until the strangers appeared,
when they shot the spokesman, killing him almost instantly.
On this the second white man cried out for help, whereupon he
too was shot and wounded, and then (according to the first
account) ran away and concealed himself in the bushes and was
seen no more. The Indians who had borrowed the boat then went
back to the shore, and reentered the boat with the intention
of returning and capturing the fine vessel of the strangers;
but as they approached the vessel, being at the time quite near
the shore, the man on board arose suddenly with a gun pointed
toward them and shouted, whereupon they dropped the borrowed
gun and, leaping from the boat, ran away among the mesquite
bushes, all escaping unhurt. The white man on the beach then,
as the account ran, leaped into the boat, and, recovering his
gun, rowed to the vessel and got aboard, when the two men at
once made sail and escaped down the bay.
The foregoing account was given to Señor Encinas alone by the
Indians through their interpreter, and was afterward conveyed
to me through Señor Alvemar-Leon. Both of us recognized the
incongruity with the character of the Seri Indians of that part
of the narrative relating to the wounding and escape of the
second man, and Señores Encinas and Leon and myself sought to
impress the improbability of the account on the interpreter.
Subsequently the Indians, through their interpreter, conveyed
to Señor Encinas a modification of the account (after adhering
to the first version for twenty-four hours), which agreed
in all essential respects with the first, excepting the
supplementary statement that some of the Indians (but neither
the party who accompanied the white men nor those who followed
in the boat) ran after the wounded man, caught him, shot him
again—whereupon he again cried out—and then killed him
with stones. This modified account, also, Señor Encinas duly
conveyed to me.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY