MCGEE] TYPICAL OUTBREAKS 1«70-1894 ] 1 7 



teetli (such as that of Jesus Oiiiada) passed from mouth to mouth 

 until — incredible as it may seem — the more tiinid Soiioreiises stood in 

 greater dread of these natural weajjons of the Seri than of their brutal 

 clubs and swift-thrown missiles, or even of their ])oisone(l arrows; while 

 traditions of cannibalism came up and received such general credence 

 that the current items of Seri outrages, both in local gossip and in the 

 Jlexican and American press, custoinarilj' recounted savage butch- 

 eries ending with gruesome feastings on the raw or slightly cooked 

 flesh of the victims. The shuddering antipathy felt for the peri)etra- 

 tors of these inhumanities even a thousand miles away increased 

 toward their frontier, as light toward its source; the dread was deep- 

 ened by the failure of punitive expeditions sent out again and again 

 only to be balked by waterless sand-wastes or wrecking tiderips; and 

 in 1894 and 1S!)5, at least, the horror of the Seri was a daily and nightly 

 incubus on half the citizens of Hermosillo and the tributary pueblos 

 and ranchos, and a thorn in the flesh of the state ofdcials. 



The external history of the Seri since the spring of 1894 is fairly 

 known, both through the direct researches and through press reports, 

 and would seem to be tyi)ical. This era may be assumed to open with 

 the arrival on Tiburon's shores of the sloop Examiner, carrying two 

 San Francisco newspaper writers, Itobinson and Logan, with two assist- 

 ants, Clark and (Jowell. The to-have-been-expected happened duly, 

 save that two of the i)arty escaped, and on i-eaching Guaymas adver- 

 tised the disaster through correspondence and the press. Several of 

 the accounts indicated that the two victims were not only slain but 

 eaten, and various plans were laid in California, Arizona, and Souora 

 for the recovery of the bones' — as if, forsooth, the omniverous and 

 strong-toothed Seri s])ared anything save scattered teeth and split 

 sections of the longer shafts of skeletons the size of those of Homo 

 sapiens. While in Guaymas the two survivors set up claims for 

 iudemuity, which initiated international correspondence and inquiry 

 into the details of the affair. These details are indicated, in sutBcient 

 fulness for present i)urposes, in a formal communication incorporated in 

 the international correspondence, viz: 



Smithsonian Institution, 

 Bureau of Amekican Ethnology, 



JVashingtoii, December l-l, lS9i. 

 Sir : Early in November I visited the Seri tribe of ludians, inhabiting Tiburon 

 island in the Gulf of California and an area of several thousand square miles of the 

 adjacent mainland in gouora, Mexico. The visit was for the purpose of making 

 collections under your authority as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; but I 

 availed myself of the opportunitj' for obtaining additional information relating to 

 the customs, habits, and history of the tribe. In addition to my own party I wiis 

 accompanied by Senor Pascual Encinas, a prominent citizen of Hermosillo, and 



'A number of Californiana and Arizoniaus, especially M. M. Rice, of Phoenix, intimated a strong 

 desire to join the 1895 expedition of the Bureau of American Ethnology for the express purpo.se of 

 personally ascertaining the fate and seeking the remaius of Kobiuson, who was extensively known 

 in southern California and southwestern Arizona. 



