The Seri Indians. (1898 N 17 / 1895-1896 (pages 1-344*))McGee, W J
History
The Seri Indians. (1898 N 17 / 1895-1896 (pages 1-344*))
McGee, W J
Seri Indians; Seri language; Yuman languages
The Ceris Indians are tall, well formed, not very corpulent;
the women are remarkable for small breasts and feet and high
insteps. At night they travel ill; this is to be attributed
to the reflection of the sun on the sand, which is quite
white, and as they all live on the shore where they gain
sustenance, which is fish and plankton [marisco], they are
daily exposed to a glare which injures their vision. Their
favorite food is turtles and horses.... They are all in the
most savage condition it is possible to conceive. Their
language is guttural, and they are most filthy in their
persons, as in their food, which is mostly eaten raw, or at
the best half cooked; they endure a thousand miseries on the
island, yet the love they have for it is incredible. They are
always accompanied by innumerable dogs, ... which they have
domesticated.[164]
[164] Velasco, Noticias Estadisticas, pp. 169-171.
Velasco adds:
The Ceris subsist on fish, the seeds of grass, and coastwise
shrubs, as well as on the flesh of horses and deer, which
they kill. There is no better proof of this fact than this—on
approaching the said Ceris, one instantly perceives that their
bodies exhale an intolerable stench, like that of a corpse of
eight or more days, totally rotten, so that it is necessary to
withdraw far as possible from them.[165]
[165] Ibid., pp. 127-128.
Of all the Indian tribes known in Sonora, none are more
barbarous and uncivilized than the Ceris. They are perverse to
the limit, vicious beyond compare in drunkenness, infinitely
filthy, the bitterest enemies of the whites, like the worst of
the Indians.[166]
[166] Ibid., p. 129.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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