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
lay in supplies, and discovered (anew and independently) the mouth of
the Colorado; then, despite repeated risk and much suffering from the
exceeding tides, severe storms, and the terrible tiderips off Islas
Salsipuedes, they finally made return to Loreto.
[83] Venegas, Noticia de la California, tomo II, p. 343.
[84] Venegas, A Natural and Civil History of California, vol. II, p. 48.
The itinerary of this voyage recounts the first recorded navigation
through El Infiernillo; and, while it is too meager to permit retracing
the trip in detail, it seems practically certain that the vessels
entered Bahia Tepopa, watered at Pozo Hardy, passed around Punta
Perla and thence southward through the strait, and emerged through
Boca Infierno into Bahia Kunkaak, afterward proceeding westward and
northward around the outer coast, and thus circumnavigating Tiburon.
While Ugarte’s pilot, Guilermo Estrafort (or Strafort),[85] displayed
great energy and courage in charting the coast, the voyage neither
yielded published maps nor affected current and subsequent cartography;
for, although Ugarte’s narrative and Estrafort’s map and journal were
sent to Mexico to be presented to the viceroy, they were apparently
lost.[86] Nor does the itinerary indicate recognition of Kino’s error
in identification of the Seri island, though several days were occupied
in voyaging from the island to the latitude of Caborca; indeed,
it seems probable that it was either Salvatierra, Kino’s intimate
associate, or Ugarte, Kino’s colleague and Salvatierra’s intimate
friend, who fixed the name of the pioneer padre on the geographic
features still known as Bahia Kino and Punta Kino—features which Kino
never knew, as already shown.
[85] An Englishman named (probably) William Strafford, according to
Bancroft; op. cit, vol. I, p. 444.
[86] Venegas, Noticia de la California, tomo II, p. 370.
Although both Salvatierra and Ugarte were on superficially amicable
terms with the Seri, the amity was evidently of the shallowest and most
evanescent sort. Venegas says:
Of the _Seris_ and _Tepocas_, although the padre passed
among them with the pay in his hand, he could not induce
them to assist him in any way, even when they saw the party
in the greatest distress; while others toiled, they reclined
with the greatest serenity, nor have they shown the priests
the slightest civility during the forty years of their
acquaintance—they utterly refused to part with ollas of coarse
ware, even for a liberal exchange.[87]
[87] Ibid., p. 386.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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