MCGEE] WILDNESS OF THE TKIBE 1870-1894 115 



even (luring this halcyon term no Seri save Kolusio and the Altar 

 outhiw ever learned to live iu a house; none but these and Mashi'm 

 ■wore hats habitually; and, despite the fact that they often witnessed 

 and sometimes playfully or perforce iiarticipated in the processes, 

 no Seri ever really encompassed the idea of house-bnilding or even of 

 making adobe. Though surrounded by horses when near the ran- 

 cbo, they never learned to ride nor to use the animals otherwise than 

 for immediate slaughter and consumption; though in fre<iuent sight 

 of skillul ropers, they never fully grasped the idea of the riata, pre- 

 ferring to seize their prey with hands and teeth; though familiar with 

 the agricultural operations of the rancho, they never turned a sod 

 nor planted a seed on their own account; though in frequent sight of 

 cooking, they seldom began and never finished the process with their 

 own food; though acquainted with firearms, they continued to regard 

 them as thaumaturgic devices, and chose the bow and arrow for a(!tual 

 use; though submitting to apparel on the frontier, they commonly cast 

 away the incumbrances on returning to their lairs; and no Mexican 

 or other Caucasian ever saw within their esoteric life — their names 

 remained unrevealed, their hair remained sa(;red, their mourning for 

 the dead was unheard save at a distance, and no alien, even unto today, 

 has ever seen the birth of their babes, the christening of their children, 

 the burial of their dead, or the ceremonies of their shrines. The Seri 

 and the whites were, indeed, mutually tolerant; but, so far as concerns 

 mutual sympathy, the toleration was almost precisely on a par with 

 that between the ranchero and the vulture-flock that scavengers his 

 corrals — and when depredation began the toleration was of a piece 

 with that between householders and their unwillingly domiciled 

 rodents. It is not too much to say that the interracial mistrust and 

 hatred of the Western Hemisphere culminates on the borders of Seri- 

 land; though the antipathy is commonly regarded by the alien tribes- 

 men and the Mexicans as other than racial, since the Seri are felt to be 

 hardly human — a feeling fully shared by the Seri, who undoubtedly 

 deem themselves more closely akin to their deified bestial tutelaries 

 than to the hated humans haunting their borders. 



Even during the Encinas regime the Seri came in occasional contact 

 with aliens on other parts of the frontier: on Hacienda Serna, the 

 somewhat rentoter borderland outpost on the north, the relations 

 between the landholders and the Seri were analogous to those on the 

 Encinas plains, though less acute iu the ratio of relative distance. 

 Occasicmally small parties of warriors journeyed to Guaymas ' on balsas 

 or on loot to barter pelican-skin robes for Caucasian commodities, 

 chiefly aguardiente and manta; still more rarely similar pilgrimages 

 were made to the outskirts of Hermosillo; a few marauding raids were 

 made to the ranchos lying near Cieneguilla and Caborca; and a num- 



' The accompanying plate xil is reproduced from a photograph of a small group of Seri traders taken 

 near Guaymas, probably during the eighties. It was kindly furnished by F. A. Ober, who purchased 

 it in Guaymas. 



