128 THE SERI INDIANS [eth.anx.i- 



Seri tongue is distinct save for two or three Cocliimi or other Yuinau 

 elements, wbicli may be loan words such as might readily have been 

 obtained through the largely iuimiciil interchange of earlier centuries 

 described by Padre Juan Maria de Sonora and other pioneer observers — 

 certainly the slight and superficial similarities with other tongues of 

 the region seem iusuflflcient to meet the classiflc requirement of sup- 

 posititious descent from "a common ancestral speech".' Accordingly 

 the group may be defined (at least provisionally) as a linguistic family 

 or stock, and may be distinguished by the family name long ago applied 

 by Pimeutel and Orozco, with the termination prescribed in Powell's 

 fifth rule,^ viz, Serian. Conformably, the classification of the group 

 would become — 

 Serian stock, comprising — 



Seri tribe, including Tiburones and (certain) Salineros; 



Tepoka tribe; 



Guayma tribe; 



Upanguayma tribe. 

 Naturally this classification is provisional in certain respects. It is 

 little more than tentative in so far as the Tepoka are concerned, since 

 no word of the Tepoka tongue has ever been recorded, so far as is 

 known, and since the tribe is still extant and within reach of research ; 

 it must be held provisional also in respect to the separateness of the 

 stock, which may be found in the future to be afliliated with neighboring 

 stocks, though the effect of the more recent and more critical researches 

 in eliminating supposed evidences of affiliation points in the opposite 

 direction. Tlie arrangement is in some measure provisional also with 

 respect to the relations between the long-extinct Guayma and Upan- 

 guayma and the type tribe, especially since contrary suggestion has been 

 ottered in terms implying the existence of unpublished data; yet the 

 presumption in favor of the critical work by Ramirez, Pimentel, and 

 Orozco is so strong that practically this feature of the classification 

 maybe deemed final. 



No attempt has been made to render the tribal synonymy exhaustive, 

 though search of the records has incidentally brought out the more 

 important synonyms, as follows : 



Seri Tribe 



Ceres— 1826; Hardy, Travels, p. 95. 



Ceui — 1875; Pimentel, Lengiias Iiidigenas, tomo ii, p. 229. 



C'ERis — 1745; Villa-Sefior, Theatre Americano, p. 391. 



C'EUis Tepocas — 18,n0; Velasco, Noticias Estach'sticas, p. 132. 



Heri — 1854; liusclimanu, Die Spuren der aztekischen SpracLe, p. 221. 



Heuis — 1645; Ribas, Triumphos de Nuestra Santa Fee, p. 358. 



Herises — 1690 (?); Van der Aa, map. 



■Indian linguistic families, by J.W.Powell, in Seventh Annual Eeport, Bureau of Ethnology, 

 1885-86 (1801), p. 11. 

 «Ibid., p. 10. 



