_Resumé of the Peculiarities of the Skeleton_
The nerve and blood-vessel foramina are generally large. This character
and the platycnemic tibiæ indicate an ample musculature of the subject.
The height is above the general average for a woman, which, according
to Topinard, is 1.53.
The petro-basilar fissures are large and visibly pervious. This
condition is found occasionally; significance doubtful; it is more
frequent in young subjects.
_Platycnemic tibiæ_—This is considered a simian character.[247] It
was found first by Broca in 1868[248] on bones from Eyzies; it is
associated with relative strength of the muscles of the leg; is very
frequent among the characters found on bones from the epoch of polished
stone in Europe.[249] J. Wyman found this character more accentuated
than at Cro-Magnon or at Gibraltar on a third of the tibias from the
mounds of the United States.[249]
[247] Hovelacque et Hervé, Précis d’Anthropologie, 1887, pp. 112, 2937.
[248] Bulletin de la Société d’Anthropologie, 1868.
[249] Hovelacque et Hervé, op. cit., p. 113.
_Perforated humerus_—Noticed first by Desmoulins, 1826, on the humeri
of Guanches and Hottentots;[250] occurs with greatest frequency in the
following peoples:[251]
[250] Histoire Naturelle des Races Humaines, 1826, p. 304.
[251] Hovelacque et Hervé, op. cit., p. 291.
Per cent.
156 neolithic humeri from around Paris 21.8
97 humeri of African negroes 21.7
122 humeri of Guanches 25.6
80 humeri from the mounds of United States (J. Wyman) 31.2
32 humeri of Polynesians 34.3
30 humeri of altaic and American races 36.2
Summarily, Dr Hrdlička’s special determinations conform with
the external observations on the Seri body; they indicate an
exceptionally large stature, together with a notably well-developed
and well-proportioned osseous framework, of the native American type,
yet significantly approaching the Caucasian in several respects. It is
especially noteworthy that the cranium is well formed and capacious,
the precise measurements corroborating the external observation that
the Seri head is of good absolute size, though relatively smaller
(in comparison with height and weight) than that of some neighboring
tribes of less stature—e. g., the Papago. It may be noted, too, that
the imperfect ankylosis of the epiphyses, and various other skeletal
features, are in accord with the inferences from the living body as to
the slowness of attaining maturity. It may be noted further that the
extraordinary development of the muscular attachments, especially in
the masculine cranium, is quite in harmony with the habits of the tribe.
* * * * *
The remaining somatic characteristics of the Seri are for the greater
part of such sort as to be described by generalities and negatives.
In general they correspond with those of typical American tribesmen
and other peoples; and they do not exhibit striking peculiarities
in proportion or structure. In the opposability of the thumb, the
nonopposability of the hallux, and the independence of fingers and
toes, the Seri hands and feet are developed quite up to, if not
somewhat beyond, the Amerindian[252] average; the feet are set
straight in walking, as befits the pedestrian habit; the arms are
not elongated, and the thighs seem no longer in proportion to other
elements of the stature than are those of the highest human types. In
like manner the bodies are notably free from artificial deformation;
the skulls are not flattened or otherwise distorted; there is no
scarification, or even tattooing; neither ears nor lips are pierced
for pendants or labrets; the teeth are not filed or drilled, though
in some cases at least the first incisors of females are extracted;
and while there are trustworthy records of the piercing of the nasal
septum for the insertion of pendants, no examples were found at Costa
Rica in 1894. The food habits and other customs of the tribe indicate,
or at least suggest, more or less specialized and perhaps distinctive
internal characters; but, without actual examination of the organs,
these inferred characters demand little more than passing notice.
[252] The term _Amerind_ (with the self-explanatory mutations
_Amerindian, Amerindize,_ etc.) has been established by the
Anthropological Society of Washington as a convenient collective
designation for the aboriginal American tribes (American
Anthropologist, new series, 1, 1899, p. 582).
* * * * *
On reviewing the more prominent somatic characters of the Seri, it is
found that the greater number are either functional or presumptively
correlated with function, and that only a few—chiefly stature and
color—are simply structural; accordingly a comparison of the peculiar
somatic features and the peculiar individual habits of the tribe would
seem to be instructive in more than ordinary degree.
The most striking trait of the Seri is the pedestrian habit. The
warriors and women and children alike are habitual rovers; their
jacales and even their largest rancherias are only temporary domiciles,
evidently vacant oftener than occupied; the principal rancherias are
separated by a hard day’s journey or more; and none of the known
rancherias or jacales of more persistent use are nearer than 4 to 10
miles from the fresh water by which their occupants are supplied.
Probably the most persistently occupied rancherias of the last half
century have been those located from time to time near Costa Rica,
yet even these were seldom occupied by the same group for more than
a fortnight or possibly a month, and were often vacated within a day
or two after erection. Still more temporary camps intervene between
jacales, and their sites may be seen in numbers in the neighborhood
of the better-beaten paths, or along the shores, or even over the
trackless spall-strewn plains; they may be merely trampled spots,
sparsely strewn with oyster shells and large bones gnawed at the ends,
usually in the lea of a shrub or rock; in places of small shrubbery
or exceptionally abundant grass there may be two or three or perhaps
half a dozen “forms” (suggesting the temporary resting places of
rabbits), in which robust bodies nestled and shrugged themselves into
the warm earth and under the meager vegetation. Rarely there are
ashes and cinders hard by, to mark the site of a tiny fire, and more
frequently battered and stained or greasy bowlders record their own
use as meat-blocks or metates, though it is manifest that most of the
camps were fireless and many foodless. It is particularly noteworthy
that even the more temporary resting-places are seldom if ever less
than a mile or two from the nearest fresh water. In short, the Seri
are not a domiciliary folk, but rather homeless wanderers, customarily
roving from place to place, frequently if not commonly sleeping where
overtaken by exhaustion or storm, ordinarily slumbering through a part
of the day and watching by night, habitually avoiding fresh waters
save in hurried and stealthy visits, and apparently gathering in their
flimsy huts only on special occasions.
In conformity with their rovingness the Seri are notable
burden-bearers. They habitually carry their entire stock of personal
belongings (arms, implements, utensils, and bedding), as well as their
stock of food and—weightiest burden of all—the water requisite for
prolonged sustenance amid scorching deserts, in all their wanderings,
the water being borne chiefly by women, in ollas, either balanced on
the head singly or slung in pairs on rude yokes like those of Chinese
coolies. And they have never grasped the idea of imposing their burdens
on their bestial associates; their coyote-curs are not harnessed or
even led; when they surround and capture horses, burros, and kine
they make no use of ropes, never think of mounting even when pursued
by vaqueros, but immediately break the necks or club out the brains
of the beasts, perchance to tear the writhing body into quarters and
flee for their lives with the reeking flesh still quivering on their
sturdy heads and brawny shoulders—and scores of vaqueros agree in the
affirmation (wholly incredible as it would be if supported by fewer
witnesses) that even when so burdened the Seri skim the sand wastes of
Desierto Encinas more rapidly than avenging horsemen can follow.
* * * * *
The hardly conceivable fleetness of the Seri is conformable with
their habitual rovingness and their ability as burden-bearers; and
this faculty is established by cumulative evidence so voluminous
and consistent as to outweigh the presumption arising from the
standards attained among other peoples. A few minutes after they were
photographed, the group of boys shown in plate XVI, with several others
of about the same size, provided themselves with a stock of their
favorite human-hair cords, “rounded up” a dozen mongrel coyote-dogs
haunting the rancheria at Costa Rica, and herded the unwilling animals
toward a shrubbery-free space a quarter of a mile away, in order to
rope them in imitation of the work of the Mexican cowboys earlier in
the morning. From time to time as they went a frightened cur sneaked
or broke through the cordon of boys, and made for distant shrub-tufts
at top speed; yet in every case a boy darted from the ring, headed
off the animal within one or two hundred yards, and lashed it back
to its place. On arriving at their miniature rodeo the boys widened
their ring, and at a signal scattered and frightened the dogs; then,
when the fleeing animals had a fair start, each selected his victim
and followed it, yelling and swinging his light lasso, until, after
much doubling and dodging and many unsuccessful casts, he caught and
dragged the howling beast back to the open; and it was only after half
a dozen repetitions that enough dogs had escaped to spoil the sport. As
the boys lounged chattering back toward the rancheria their course lay
between two clumps of the usual desert shrubbery, so placed that when
the first was obliquely left and 40 or 50 feet distant from them, the
other was obliquely right and 100 feet away. At this point a bevy of
small birds (perhaps blackbirds—at any rate corresponding to blackbirds
in size and flight) fluttered suddenly out of the nearer clump toward
the more distant one, when, too instantaneously for the untrained
eye to catch exchange of signal or beginning of movement, the boys
lunged forward in a common effort to seize the birds; and though none
were entirely successful, one exultantly displayed a tuft of feathers
clutched by his fingers as the bird darted into and through the thorny
harbor. When the distances were paced it was found that, although the
birds had the advantage of the start, the boys covered at least 90 per
cent of their distance in the same time; while the spontaneity of the
impulse demonstrated habitual chase of flying game under fit conditions.
While obtaining the Seri vocabulary with Mashém’s aid, advantage was
taken of every opportunity to secure collateral information concerning
the actual use of the terms, and thereby of gaining insight into the
tribal habits. Through his naive explanations, usually repeated and
corroborated by the elderwoman of the Turtle clan (Juana Maria) and
others of the tribe, it was learned that half-grown Seri boys are fond
of hunting hares (jack-rabbits); that they usually go out for this
purpose in threes or fours; that when a hare is started they scatter,
one following it slowly while the others set off obliquely in such
manner as to head it off and keep it in a zigzag or doubling course
until it tires; and that they then close in and take the animal in
their hands, frequently bringing it in alive to show that it was fairly
caught—for it is deemed discreditable, if not actually wrong, to take
game animals without giving them opportunity for escape or defense by
exercise of their natural powers. Similarly, Mashém described the chase
of the bura and other deer as ordinarily conducted by five persons (of
whom one or two may be youths), who scatter at sight of the quarry,
gradually surround it, bewilder it by confronting it at all points, and
finally close in either to seize it with their hands, or perhaps to
brain it with a stone or short club; the former being held the proper
way and the latter a partial failure. This hunting custom, described
as a commonplace by Mashém, is established by the vaqueros who had
frequently witnessed it from a distance; and the same extra-tribal
observers described still more striking feats of individual Seri
hunters: Don Manuel, son of Señor Encinas, and Don Ygnacio Lozania were
endeavoring to train to work a robust Seri (one of a band sojourning
temporarily at Costa Rica) noted for his prowess in hunting. One
hot afternoon he begged relief from his tasks, saying the spirit of
catching a deer had hold on him; and he was excused on condition that
the deer be brought entire to the rancho. Two hours later he was seen
driving in a full-grown buck; on approaching the rancho the terrified
animal turned this way and that, describing long arcs in wild efforts
to avoid the human habitation; yet the hunter kept beyond it, heading
it off at every turn and gradually working it nearer, until, at a
sudden turn, he was able to rush on it; whereupon he caught it, threw
it over his shoulders, and ran in to the rancho with the animal still
struggling and kicking off its overheated hoofs.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY