* * * * *
Of the foregoing hupfs several are aberrant, and serve merely to
illustrate the prevailing directions of departure from the optimum form
and size of implements. Six of the specimens may be deemed typical;
they are as follows:
Plate | Locality | Material | Weight | Condition
No. | | | |
-------+--------------+----------+---------------+-----------------
| | | _Lb. Ozs._ |
XLIII |Costa Rica |Quartzite |1 14 (0.85 kg.)| Nearly natural.
| | | |
XLIV |Campo Navidad |Tuff |1 1 ( .48 kg.)| Four-fifths
| | | | natural.
XLVI |Pozo |Vesicular |1 13 ( .82 kg.)| Nearly natural.
| Escalante | lava. | |
LIV |Punta Miguel |Granite |1 10 ( .74 kg.)| One-fifth natural.
LV |Punta | do |1 11 ( .77 kg.)| One-fourth natural.
| Narragansett| | |
LVI |South point |Andesite |1 15 (.88 kg.) | One-third
| Sierra Seri.| | | natural.
-------+--------------+----------+---------------+-----------------
From these specimens a type of Seri hand implement may easily be
formulated: it is a wave-worn pebble or cobble of (1) granite,
quartzite, or other tough and hard rock, (2) tuff, or other light and
pulverulent rock, or (3) vesicular lava; it is of flattened ovoid
form, or of biscuit shape; it weighs a trifle under 2 pounds (about
0.85 kilogram); originally the form and surface are wholly natural,
but through the chance of use it is modified (_a_) by a battering
of the ends and more projecting edges, and (_b_) by grinding and
consequent truncation of the sides; though initially a natural pebble,
chosen nearly at random from the beach, it eventually becomes personal
property, acquires fetishistic import, and is buried with the owner at
her death.
The ahsts and the heavier cobbles used alternatively as ahsts and hupfs
are too fortuitous for reduction to type; while the protean pebbles
utilized in emergency, and commonly discarded after a single use, are
too numerous and too various for convenient or useful grouping.
* * * * *
There is a distinctive type of Seri stone artifacts represented by
a single category of objects, viz., chipped arrowpoints. Several of
the literary descriptions of the folk—particularly those based on
second-hand information, and far-traveled rumor—credit the Seri with
habitual use of stone-tipped arrows,[297] and it is the current fashion
among both Mexican and Indian residents of Sonora to ascribe to the
Seri any shapely arrowpoint picked up from plain or valley; yet the
observations among the tribesmen and in their haunts disclose but
slight basis for classing the Seri with the aboriginal arrow-makers of
America.
[297] The most specific reference is that of Hardy: “The men use bows
and stone-pointed arrows; but whether they are poisoned, I do not
know.” Travels, p. 290.
[Illustration: FIG. 37—Seri arrowpoints.]
Among the 60 Seri (including 17 or 18 warriors) at Costa Rica in 1894,
three bows and four quivers of arrows were observed, besides a number
of stray arrows, chiefly in the hands of striplings. The arrows seen
numbered some 60 or 70, including perhaps 20 “poisoned” specimens;
nearly half of them were tipped with hoop-iron, as illustrated in plate
XXX, while about as many more were fitted only with the customary
foreshafts (usually sharpened and hardened by charring), and the
small remainder had evidently lost iron tips in use; there was not
a single stone-tipped arrow in the rancheria. Moreover, when the
usually incisive and confident Mashém was asked for the Seri term for
stone arrowpoint he was taken aback, and was unable to answer until
after lengthy conference with other members of the tribe—his manner
and that of his mates clearly indicating ignorance of such a term
rather than the desire to conceal information so frequently manifested
in connection with esoteric matters; and the term finally obtained
(_ahst-ahk_, connoting stone and arrow) is the same as that used to
denote the arrowpoint of hoop-iron. The most reasonable inference
from the various facts is that whatsoever might have been the customs
of their ancestors, the modern Seri are not accustomed to stone
arrow-making.
The 1895 expedition was slightly more successful in the search for
Seri arrows. About midway between the abandoned Rancho Libertad and
Barranca Salina, an ancient Seri site was found to yield hundreds of
typical potsherds, half a dozen shells such as those used for utensils,
the fragments of a hupf evidently shattered by use as a fire-stone,
and the small rudely chipped arrowpoint shown in figure 37_a_; and
among the numerous relics found on a knoll overlooking Pozo Escalante
(including two jacal frames, two or three graves, an ahst, several
shells and discarded hupfs, a broken fictile figurine, etc.), was
the still ruder arrowpoint represented in figure 37_b_ (both figures
are natural size). The specimens are nearly identical in material—a
jet-black slaty rock with a few lighter flecks interspersed, weathering
gray on long exposure (as is shown by the partly natural surface of
the larger point); similar rock abounds in several easterly spurs of
Sierra Seri. The smaller specimen was evidently finished and used; its
features indicate fairly skilful chipping, though its general form is
crude—in addition to the asymmetric shouldering, the entire point is
curved laterally in such manner as to interfere with accurate archery.
The larger specimen is still more strongly curved laterally, and the
chipping is childishly crude; while the rough surface, clumsy tang, and
unfinished air indicate that it was never used even to the extent of
shafting. It is possible that the specimens may have been imported by
aliens, but the probabilities are strong that they were manufactured
by the Seri. No other arrowpoints and no chips or spalls suggesting
stone arrow-making were found in all Seriland, though the entire party
of twelve were on constant lookout for them for a month. The natural
inference from these facts is that the ancestral Seri, like their
descendants, were not habitual stone arrow-makers.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY