To the actual observer of the Seri in his prime there is an indefinable
but none the less impressive harmony between the intense regimen and
the trenchant structural development characteristic of the tribe—a
harmony like unto that felt by naturalist and artist alike in viewing
at once the clean-cut form and vigorously easy mobility of tiger or
thoroughbred horse; and simple inspection of the lithe limbs and
body-muscles stirs into living realization a half-felt inference
from many facts—the obvious and indubitable inference that they are
stress-shaped structures. Accordingly, the concentrated and robust
bodies, the shapely jaws, the well-chiseled arms, and the statuesque
legs of the Seri, no less than their powerful hands and bulky feet,
direct special attention to the axiom that somatic structures are the
product of exercise, and indicate with convincing clearness that the
structures are trenchantly developed because of the supreme intensity
of the creative exercise. It may be impracticable to outline in terms
of metabolism the precise processes of waste and repair in organs and
organisms, or to define the relative periods of action and assimilation
(or of catabolism and anabolism) best adapted to the development
of motile tissue; yet the external facts of all bodily growth
demonstrate the efficiency of alternating effort and repose, while the
characteristics of highly developed animal bodies (including those
of the Seri) demonstrate that the most beneficial exercise is that
of relatively brief but intense stresses alternating with relatively
long intervals of sluggish movement or complete repose. Moreover, the
facile metabolism involved in the widely alternating regimen implies
exceptional somatic plasticity of the sort normally accompanying youth
and attending tissue growth; and this persistent bodily plasticity is
in harmony with the peculiarly dilatory maturation characteristic of
the Seri tribe. So the animal-like bodies of the Seri, no less than
their animal-like movements, which at first sight suggest primitive
condition, may safely be held in large measure to reflect specific
habits of life, themselves reflecting a distinctive habitat.
Still more suggestive to the observer than the well-molded structures
and the intense functioning with which they are conjoined are those
elusive yet persistent characteristics of the Seri comprised in their
distinctive race sense—characteristics ranging from overweening
intratribal pride to overpowering extratribal hatred. Even at first
blush it would seem obvious that the tribal isolation, itself the
reflection of environment, would necessarily tend toward a segregative
habit with concomitant hostility toward aliens; yet the race-sense
of the Seri so far transcends that of other segregated tribes as to
suggest the existence of a specific cause. So, too, it would seem
obvious that the race feeling gathers about a corporeal nucleus in the
form of the race-type exemplified in the heroic stature, the shapely
face, the mighty chest, the luxuriant hair, the well-modeled muscles,
the powerful feet and hands, the “collected” carriage, and the stored
vitality, which (as already indicated) synthesize the environmental
interactions of generations; yet the actual student can not avoid
the impression that the race-sense dominates the race-type—that
the Seri are farther away from neighboring tribes in feeling than in
features, in function than in structure, in mind than in body. Now,
in seeking the sources of this distinctive (not to say specific)
race-sense, several suggestions arise. Naturally the first suggestion
is that of simple sexual selection, the (assumptive) analogue of an
important factor in biotic evolution; but the suggestion is at once
apparently negatived by the fact that all the mature men and women are
married and have families of children proportionate to their ages.
True, undesirable fiancés may be expelled from the tribe, or even
executed (as intimated by neighboring Sonorenses); yet there is little
evidence that either method of selection is employed among the Seri
more largely than among other peoples; and, as all recent researches
indicate, the higher peoples at least have risen above the plane of
sexual selection per se as an effective factor in somatic development.
A second suggestion arises in the axiom (vivified by realization of the
connection between Seri movements and Seri structures) that perfected
organs are the product of stressful functioning—indeed, the suggestion
is but the extension of the axiom from the individual to the stirp and
the group. In developing the suggestion it is convenient to divide the
career of the stirp into periods defined by the successive wax and
wane of vitality in its most significant manifestations; and this may
be done in terms of successive individual lifetimes in their three
successive aspects of (1) youth, (2) maturity, and (3) senility, in
which the dominant constructive functions are respectively (1) somatic
growth, (2) collective growth (comprising both procreation and the
accumulation of artificial possessions), and (3) dissipation of somatic
vitality and distribution of extrasomatic accumulations (generational
as well as material and intellectual). Now, it is a commonplace in
every stage of culture that vital capacity, and also the inherent
sense of kind manifested in pairing, culminate in the medial portion,
or prime, of individual life; and if this universal recognition is
valid, it is just to hold that the career of the stirp is defined by
the successive vital climaxes expressing the primes of the series of
generations pertaining to the stirp. It follows that each generation
must represent, not the average qualities of the entire generation
past, but the qualities of the most virile and muliebrile fraction
of that generation; whence it follows in turn that in general the
generations must develop along the lines most prominent in the lives
of each people in their prime. The process may be formulated as the
_law of periodic conjugation_, under which successive generations are
initiated, not at random, but at periods of culminant effectiveness
in shaping the course of the stirp. The immediate application of
this law to the Seri tribe is manifest, for it explains (the initial
condition of isolation and the consequent incipient segregative habit
being given) how and why the tribal standards have grown more definite
from generation to generation, and have interacted cumulatively
with the distinctive environment in such manner as continually to
widen the chasm between the desert-bound tribe and their alien
neighbors. Yet the general application of the law leads only to a
more specific application; for, just as the career of the stirp is
made up of a succession of vital maxima and minima, so the lifetime
of the individual, even in the median stage, is made up of a series
of vital climaxes separated by relatively inert intervals; and, as
recognized by every naturalist and romancist, every philosopher and
poet, in every stage of culture, it is during the periods of conative
domination by the master passion that the career of the individual
is shaped and that the stirp-sentiment (or susceptibility to kind)
culminates in intensity. It follows that the progeny of successive
generations represent not merely the optimum median stage of life
in which vitality and virility and muliebrity are at flood, but the
very climaxes of this stage in which manhood and womanhood attain
their ideals, and in which the ideals react on the physical system
with unequaled intensity; it follows in turn that each generation
must (in so far as intellectual tension can control long series of
metabolic interactions after the manner in which short series are
controlled by direct volitional exercise) incarnate the ideals of the
preceding generation; whence it follows still further that in general
isolated race-types tend constantly and cumulatively to increase in
definiteness—at least until the somatic factors are counterbalanced
by demotic relationships arising with considerable increase in
population. It is true that the extent to which the incarnation of
ideals is effective or even possible has not been measured; it is
also true that the naturalists of the higher culture-stages commonly
neglect the process; yet the occasional recognition of its positive
aspect, as in Goethe’s “elective affinities” and in Jacob’s getting of
“ringstraked, speckled, and spotted” stock (Genesis XXX, 37-41), and
the practically universal recognition—more especially among primitive
peoples—of its negative aspect in adverse prenatal influences, clearly
indicates its importance; the fact that the ancient Greeks at once
idealized in unparalleled degree, and produced unexcelled perfection
in, the human form being of no small significance. Even if the
measure of the incarnation of ideals be reduced to the lowest minimum
consistent with common knowledge, it remains true that the progeny of
successive generations are not the offspring of average parents, but of
pairs at the perfection and conjugal culmination of their virile and
muliebrile excellencies; so that the generations must run in courses of
cumulatively increasing racial (or human) perfection, under a general
_law of conjugal conation_.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY