In extending the general law of conjugal conation to the Seri, it is
found peculiarly applicable, in view of their distinctive marriage
custom, the effect of which is to intensify conjugal sentiments, with
the attendant magnification, and potential if not actual incarnation,
of ideals.[256] Accordingly there would appear to be a harmony
between Seri race-sense and Seri race-type no less delicate than
that between the stressful action and the stress-shaped structures
of the tribe, and while the inception of both type and feeling may
be ascribed to the isolated environment, it seems manifest that both
have interacted constructively and in cumulative fashion through a
significant process exemplified more clearly by this tribe than by
others thus far studied. At the same time, analysis of the harmony
between type and sentiment indicates that the lowly Seri are actually,
albeit unconsciously, carrying out a meaningful experiment in
stirpiculture—an experiment whose methods and results are equally
valuable to students. The Seri gymnastic and the Seri stirpiculture
are in close accord, in that both are conditioned by initially
dilatory yet ultimately intense action; the results are equally
accordant in that the one conduces toward individual vigor and the
other toward a vigorous and distinctive stirp; while the excellence of
the methods (viewed from the somatic standpoint) is attested by the
magnificence of the product. Now, comparison of the stirpicultured
Seri with contemporary tribes shows that the desert-bound folk
have attained unequaled somatic development, and suggests that the
intuitive stirpicultural processes have been rendered peculiarly
effective through the persistence of that tribal isolation in which
the processes apparently took rise; so the race-sense of the Seri may
be regarded as the product of long-continued stirpicultural processes,
initially shaped by environment, yet developed to unusual degree
by somatico-social habits, kept alive largely through continuous
environmental interaction.
[256] The law of conjugal conation was indeed suggested by observations
on the peculiar marriage custom and peculiarly developed race-sense
of the Seri tribe, and it has already been applied in certain of its
aspects as an explanation of the initial humanization of mankind (The
Trend of Human Progress, American Anthropologist, new series, vol. 1,
1889, pp. 415-418).
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY