Practically no chipped implements occurred. McGee searched patiently but found only two, both of which were arrow-points. The water-worn stones were used in the hand and not hafted, the aim serving as the handle. “The Seri are wonderfully quick in using these stones”—the motions being faster than if one held the end of the handle in which the stone was fashioned. The social organization of these people is very peculiar. The oldest women are matrons who seem to dominate each community. In the case of the best-looking young woman of the tribe, who would not be photographed, the matron commanded that she permit a picture to be taken, and she, who had strenuously objected, at once consented. When any of these people marry with aliens, they are outlawed or driven away from the other Seri. The graves of the Seri are simple pits in which the body is placed with accompaniment of objects belonging to the deceased in life. If such burials—near the surface—were made in very ancient times in more moist or humid climates, it is certain that all bone and other perishable objects would have disappeared and only the stone things remained. We would then be unable to determine that a grave once there existed, and it is possible—I do not say probable—that such graves may have been made in times of extreme antiquity in the North or South, and that all of the softer substances and bones have disappeared. In that event, these graves of an early culture would not appear to us as graves, but as a small cache of rude implements. Aside from these two references I have found a few others, but because of limited space, I am unable to present them here. Dr. Charles Peabody kindly furnished me with an interesting statement regarding the use of the bicaves or discoidals, which is herewith submitted:— “At the Village of the Houmas. There are eighty cabins, and in the middle of the village a fine level square, where from morning to night there are young men who exercise themselves in running after a flat stone which they throw in the air from one end of the square to the other, and which they try to have fall on two cylinders that they roll where they think that the stone will fall.”[33] THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AMERICA We should consider quite briefly this subject. As was remarked on pages 32–4, man may have occupied America in times of great antiquity. Personally, I cannot understand how all the different Indian dialects developed in comparatively recent times. It would seem that several thousand years at least were required for so many and diversified tongues to have developed among our aborigines.