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
spouse of a supporter at the supply station broke under the strain,
and died of her terrors—and the return of the party was, to the Papago
women and oldsters at least, as the rising of the dead. The dread
inspired by the personal presence of the alien is stronger still; when
the Seri rancheria at Costa Rica was visited in 1894 it was found
needful to keep the Papago interpreter and others of the tribe at a
distance, since the mere sight of the inimical tribesmen threw even the
women and children into watchful irritation, like that of range-bred
horses at scent of bear or timber-wolf, or that of oft-harried cats and
swine at sight of passing dog—they instinctively huddled into circles
facing outward, and ceased to think connectedly under the stress of
nervous tension. The irritation was so far mutual that it was days
before the usually placid interpreter, José Lewis, recovered his normal
spirits; while the 1895 interpreter, Hugh Morris, was actually rendered
ill by the mere entrance into Seriland at Pozo Escalante. And the
antipathy between Seri and Yaqui is nearly as great as that between the
common-boundary neighbors.
The instinctive antagonism, or race antipathy, between the Seri and
the widely distinct Caucasian is less trenchant and intense than the
local antipathy; yet even between Seri and Caucasian there would
seem to be hardly a germ of sympathy. In the days of his prime, the
Tiburon islanders flocked around Don Pascual, first as a provider of
easy provender and later as a superpotent shaman whose wrath bore
destruction; yet their allegiance was never more than that of the cowed
and beaten brute to a hated trainer, and his coming never brought a
smile to their stolid features—indeed, his passage among their jacales
was met with the same stolid yet sinister indifference accorded the
solitary visitor to a menagerie of caged carnivores. And no sooner did
his vision become impaired than their fear-born veneration evaporated,
and their native antipathy reappeared in original virulence. The 1894
party was fortunate in successfully treating a sick wife of sub-chief
Mashém, and subsequently spent days in the rancheria, distributing
gifts to old and young in a manner unprecedented in their experience
and making liberal exchanges for such small possessions as they wished
to spare; yet, with a single possible exception, they succeeded
in bringing no more human expression to any Seri face or eye than
curiosity, avidity for food, studied indifference, and shrouded or
snarling disgust. Among themselves they were fairly cheerful, and the
families were unobtrusively affectionate; yet the cheerfulness was
always chilled and often banished by the approach of an alien. The
Sonorenses generally hold the Seri in indescribably deep dread as
uncanny and savage monsters lying beyond the human pale; while the
reciprocal feeling on the part of the Seri toward Caucasians, and still
more toward Indian aliens, seems akin to that of the average man toward
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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