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
Don Pascual estimates that during the dozen years of strife between
his men and the Seri forces about half of the tribe were slain. The
horror of the history of this period may be passed over; it may merely
be noted as a casual fact that one of the two Mexicans accompanying the
1895 expedition was credited with 17 Seri heads. When he pointed out
the site of his last exploit, a mile or two south of Rancho Libertad,
and some incredulity was expressed, he immediately galloped to the
spot and brought back a silent witness in the form of a bleached Seri
skull.[218]
[218] The specimen described by Dr Hrdlička, postea, p. 141.
At the close of the war Don Pascual continued the industrial
development of the plains lying east of the desert border of Seriland,
received new concessions in recognition of his conquest, and developed
the ranches of Santa Ana and Libertad; but the evangelical arm of his
vigorous mission gradually withered. For a dozen years the Seri looked
up to “El Patron” as a quasi ruler, whose approval was requisite for
the ratification of chieftainship, and through him ran a slender thread
of nominal fealty to the state and the republic; yet few parasites
gathered about the rancho. Mashém had gone back to his clan; and
when depredations were committed at Bacuachito or elsewhere and the
criminals were caught, usually through Don Pascual’s instrumentality,
they were sometimes haled to Hermosillo for trial, and Kolusio was
kept there as the official interpreter of charges and evidence and
findings. Sometime during the sixties a few Seri youths were coaxed to
Pueblo Seri for education, but when they were instructed to cut their
hair they slunk dejectedly to their temporary domicile, only to decamp
during the ensuing night; again, in 1870, Kolusio was commissioned
to bring in a few young people and a matron or two of the tribe, and
succeeded in doing so just in time to encounter an epidemic of measles,
from which some died, while the others shook the dust of the pueblo
from their feet forever; and this last straw, added to his alien
residence and his presence at the dreaded trials, broke down the tribal
toleration of Kolusio and made him an outlaw forever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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