MCQEE] STATURE AND COLOR 137* 



6 feet 3 inches (1. 00 meters); while for centuries the folk have been 

 reputed a tribe of giants. 



The estimation of Seri stature is difflcilitated by tlie iinjwssibility of 

 defining maturity; and the effort to determine whether jjarticuhir indi- 

 viduals were adult brought out clear indications of slowness in reach- 

 ing complete maturity, i. e., of the continuation of somatic growth 

 throughout an exceptionally long term in proportion to other stages in 

 the life of the individual. Thus, with scarcely an exception, the polyp- 

 arous matrons were taller than the mean of 5 feet 9 inches, while the 

 apparently adult maidens (with one exception) and the younger wives 

 were below this mean; and in like manner the stature of the warriors 

 varied approximately with appearance of age, all of the younger men 

 falling below the mean, and all of the older (except Mashem) rising 

 above it. Tlie difficulty of estimation is further increased by the absence 

 of age records and the im])racticability of ascertaining and standardiz- 

 ing the habitually guarded expressions for relative age implied in the 

 kinship terminology; so that the age determinations were roughlj- rela- 

 tive merely, and there was no means of fixing the absolute age of 

 maturity, of puberty, of marriage, or of the assumption of manhood 

 and womanhood howsoever defined. 



Under the conditions, the determination of stature-range in the Seri 

 rancheria at Costa Rica in 1804 was not only difficult but uncertain; 

 yet in general terms it maybe said that the women having two or more 

 children — about twenty in number — were notably uniform in stature, 

 ranging from about ."> feet 71 inches (in the case of an aged and shrunken 

 elderwoman) to 5 feet 11 inches; that the younger women were moie 

 variable; and that the warriors (seventeen in number), of whom only a 

 part were apparently heads of families, were more variable still, though 

 tlie variation, apart from that apparently correlated with age, was less 

 than is customarily found among the exceptionally uniform Papago, 

 and decidedly less than that seen among the Yaqui or the local 

 Mexicans. 



The Seri skin-tint is of the usual Amerindian bronze, save that it is 

 exceptionally dark, with a decided tone of black. Essayed representa- 

 tions of the characteristic color appear in plates xvm and xxiv; but 

 the essays are little more satisfactory than the innumerable attempts 

 at depicting the skin-color of the American aborigines that have gone 

 before. Kxperieuced observers of the native tribes may form an impres- 

 sion of the Seri color from the explanation that they are as much darker 

 than the neighboring Papago as the Papago aie darker than the aver- 

 age tribesmen about the Great lalces; the Papago themselves being 

 as much darker than the southern plains or Pueblo folk as these are 

 darker than those of the Lake region. The range in color seems to be 

 slight; the variation among the CO individuals of both sexes and all 

 ages seen at Costa Pica was hardly i)erceptible, being less than that 

 usually observed in a single family of any neighboring tribe; while the 



