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
Although the padres knew little of the habits and customs of the “wild”
Seri save through hearsay, some of their notes are of ethnologic value:
Villa-Señor located them on the deserts extending from Pitic and
Angeles to Tepopa bay, and added:
They hold and occupy various rancherias, and subsist by the
chase of deer, bura [mule-deer], rabbits, hares, and other
animals, and also on the cattle they are able to steal from the
Spaniards, and on fish which they harpoon with darts in the
sea, and on the roots in which the land abounds.[120]
[120] Theatro Americano, p. 401.
Villa-Señor distinguished the “Tepocas”, whom he combined with the
“Gueimas” and “Jupangueimas”. Alegre located the Seri on the coast of
the gulf from a few leagues north of the mouth of Rio Yaqui to Bahia
San Juan de Bautista (Bahia Kino), adding, “with them may be classed
the Guaimas, few in number and of the same language”.[121] Writing
about the same time, José Gallardo observed: “The distinction is slight
between the Seri and Upanguaima, the one and the other having the
same idiom” (“Poco es la distincion que hay entre seri y upanguaima,
... y unos y otros casi hablan un mismo idioma”).[122] The author of
“Rudo Ensayo” wrote: “The Guaimas speak the same language, with but
little difference, as the Seris.”[123] He mistook Cerro Prieto as
their principal retreat; mentioned the mountains of Bacoatzi Grande,
Las Espuelas, and others as other haunts; noted Tiburon and San Juan
Bautista (San Esteban?) islands as less-known shelters, and gave
extended attention to “the poison they use for their arrows” as “the
most virulent known in these parts”; for “even in cases where the skin
only is wounded, the injured part begins to swell, and the swelling
extends all over the body to such a size that the flesh bursts and
falls to pieces, causing death in twenty-four hours.” To test this
poison, the Seri “bandage tightly the thigh or arm of one of their
robust young men; then make an incision with a flint and let the blood
flow away from the wound. When the blood is some distance from the
incision, they apply the point of an arrow to it, steeped in the deadly
poison. If at the approach of the point of the arrow the blood begins
to boil and recedes, the poison is of the right strength, and the man
who lends his blood for the experiment brushes it out with his hand to
prevent the poison from being introduced into his veins.” He was unable
“to find out with certainty of what deadly materials the deadly poison
is composed. Many a thing is spoken of, such as heads of irritated
vipers cut at the very moment of biting into a piece of lung; also half
putrefied human flesh and other filth with which I am unwilling to
provoke the nausea of the reader.” He added the opinion that “the main
ingredient is some root.”[124] Padre Joseph Och, who, with other German
evangels including padres Mittendorf, Pfefferkorn, and Ruen (or Rohen),
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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