[272] These details were furnished largely by Mashém and Señor Encinas, but were verified in essentials by personal observation of dietetic customs at Costa Rica in 1894; and they were corroborated by observations on both shores of El Infiernillo and Bahia Kunkaak in 1895. Especially significant were the remnants of a turtle feast on the southern beach of Punta Miguel interrupted by the approach of the exploring party. The indications were clear that the turtle had been landed and largely consumed before the fire was kindled, and that the cooking of the firmer portions had hardly been commenced before the camp was abandoned so hurriedly that not only the nearly eaten turtle and the glowing embers, but the harpoon (the specimen illustrated in figure 20), the still bloody and greasy hupf (that represented in plate LIV), and the fire-sticks were left behind. Gnawed fragments of charred plastrons are common relics about hastily abandoned camps generally. Perhaps the most significant fact connected with the Seri turtle-fishing is the excellent adaptation of means to ends. The graceful and effective balsa is in large measure an appurtenance of the industry; the harpoon is hardly heavier and is much simpler than a trout-fishing tackle, yet serves for the certain capture of a 200-pound turtle; and the art of fishing for a quarry so shy and elusive that Caucasians may spend weeks on the shores without seeing a specimen is reduced to a perfection even transcending that of such artifacts as the light harpoon and fragile olla. Hardly less significant is the nonuse of that nearly universal implement, the knife, in every stage of the taking and consumption of the characteristic tribal prey; for it may fairly be inferred that the comparative inutility of the knife in dissevering the hard and horny chelonian derm, and the comparative effectiveness of the shell-breaking and bone-crushing hupf, have reacted cumulatively on the instincts of the tribe to retard the adoption of cutting devices. Of much significance, too, is the limited cooking process; for the habitual consumption of raw flesh betokens a fireless ancestry at no remote stage, while the crude cooking of (and in) that portion of the shell not consecrated to other uses might well form the germ of broiling or boiling on the one hand and of culinary utensils on the other hand. On the whole, the Seri turtle industry indicates a delicate adjustment of both vital and activital processes to a distinctive environment, in which the abundant chelonian fauna ranks as a prime factor. Analogy with other primitive peoples would indicate that the flesh of the turtle is probably tabu to the Turtle clan, that the consumption of the quarry is preceded by an oblation, and that there are seasonal or other ceremonial rites connected with turtle-fishing; but no information has been obtained on any of these points save a few vague and unwilling suggestions from Mashém tending to establish the analogy.