LXVI BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



It is significant that tlie Seri Indians make little use of stone 

 in their industries; shell, tooth, bone, wood, cane, and other 

 less refractory substances are freely used, but the employ- 

 ment of stone is subordinate and largely incidental, despite 

 the abundance of this material. This industrial characteristic 

 is in line with the other charactei'istics of these tribesmen, and 

 appears merely to measure their slight advance in conquest of 

 environment. 



It is equally significant that the stone art of the Seri is 

 largely inchoate, as indicated by the absence or feebleness of 

 design on the part of the artisans. In large part the industrial 

 use of stone is fortuitous and temporary, or of such sort as 

 merely to meet emergency; when the use is repeated, the 

 emergency implement gradually assumes a fairly definite form 

 determined by the wear of use; but the users have evidently 

 not risen to the plane of preconceived pattern for their common 

 industrial implements, or indeed for any .stone artifact save the 

 little-used arrowpoint. It is particularly noteworthy that, except 

 in the case of the arrowpoint, fracture is not onlj- not employed 

 in the manufacture of implements, but is regarded as destructive 

 of the utility of the implement to such an extent that acci- 

 dentally fractured pieces are cast aside and abandoned. The 

 distinctive features of Seri stonework have led to a redefini- 

 tion of primitive stone art as (1) protolitkic and (2) technolithic. 

 The essential feature of protolithic art is absence of design — 

 while the artifacts of the class shaped merely by use are often 

 polished, they are seldom if ever shaped by fracture; the essen- 

 tial feature of technolithic art is antecedent design or pattern, 

 to which the implements are conformed by fracture, battering, 

 grinding, and other purposive processes. The sequence of the 

 types, although brought out clearly for the first time by the 

 researches among the Seri, is evidently a natural one, marking 

 normal advance in that conquest of environment in which all 

 known peoples are engaged. 



Although less complete than would be desirable, the obser- 

 vations on face-painting among the Seri Indians are of 

 interest. The researches of recent years have shown that the 

 decorative devices of primitive peoples are largely symbolic. 



