122 THE SERI INDIANS [eth.an.n. 17 



gun, slaying five of tlie Seri before lie was himself transfixed; that the 

 vessel was then looted, and that Mendez and his crew were prevented 

 from lauding and apparently driven off by the Seri force. In the course 

 of the parley the state officials "demanded the surrender of the ring- 

 leaders in the massacre", with tlie alternative of "regarding the whole 

 tribe as guilty and punishing them accordingly"; but El Mudo, evi- 

 dently holding the invasion of the island as the initial transgression 

 and deeming the loss of the tribe under Porter's marksmanship as 

 more than commensurate with the Caucasian loss, i)eremptorily ended 

 the conference and returned to the island. Vigorous efJbrts were made 

 to i)ursue the tribesmen beyond their jiractically impassable frontier, 

 with the usual product of ruined horses and famished riders. Then the 

 episode died away in an armed neutrality strained somewhat beyond 

 the normal. Meantime the Papago guards renmined at Costa Eica. 

 "They are continuously on the lookout for these Seris, and once or twice 

 have killed a stray one or two." ' 



Both before and after the Porter-Johnson episode schemes were 

 devised by various parties, chietiy Californians, for obtaining conces- 

 sions covering Tiburon and its resources, most of these schemes involv- 

 ing idans for the extermination of the Seri; and press accounts indicate 

 that a concession covering the islands of the gulf above the latitude of 

 29° (i. e., iuclnding about half of Isla Tiburon) was granted to an 

 American company of much distinction. It would appear from numer- 

 ous news items that representatives of the company sought to land on 

 Tiburon, where they were first cajoled with offerings of food, afterward 

 found to be poisonous, and later driven off by an enlarged force of 

 naked archers. A recent publication bearing some official sanction 

 announces that " Mr W. J. Lyons, of Hermosillo, Sonora, has secured 

 a concession for the exploration of the island and in November of this 

 year will fit out an expedition for that purpose."^ The various move- 

 ments are significant as indices of current opinion and official policy 

 with respect to the tribe. 



On the whole, the later episodes are natural sequels of the eventful 

 and striking earlier history of the Seri ; and they can only be interpreted 

 as pointing to early extinction of one of the most strongly marked and 

 distinctive of aboriginal tribes. 



' The quotations are from the account of T. H. Silsbee, of San Diego, prepared on bis retarn from 

 a visit to Costa Rica. 



2E1 Estado (le Sonora, Mexico. Sus Industriaa, Comerciales, Mineras y Manufacturas. Obra Publi- 

 cada Itajo loa Auspicio.^ del Gobierno del Estado. Obra Iluatrada, Octubre de 1897. By J. K. South- 

 worth, Nogales; p. 73. 



