154* THE SERI INDIANS (eth.ann.i? 



rubbing fiice-piiint, for bruising woody tissue to aid in breaking okatilla 

 poles for house-frames or mesquite roots for harpoons (both afterward 

 finished by firing), and on occasion for weapons; and this many-func- 

 tioned tool is initially but a wave-worn pebble, is artificially shaped 

 only by the wear of use, and is incontinently discarded whfen sharp 

 edges are produced by use or fortuitous fracture. The hupf is sup- 

 plemented chiefly by the simple iierforator of mandible or bone or fire- 

 hardened wood; and these two primitive imjilements, together with 

 molluscan shells in natural condition, apparently serve as the i>rimary 

 tools for all the mechanical operations of the tribe. 



The dearth of tools and the absence not only of knives but of knife- 

 sense among the Seri illumine those traditions of Seri fighting made 

 tangible by the teeth-torn arm of Jesus Om'ada; for they exi)lain the 

 alleged recourse of the Seri warriors to nature's weapons, used in the 

 centripetal fashion characteristic of nascent intelligence. 



The Seri are distinguished by another trait hardly less striking than 

 the pedestrian habit, and even more conspicuous than the tooth-and- 

 nail habit with the correlative absence of tool-sense; the trait is not 

 tangible enough for ready definition or descrijition in terms (of course 

 because so unusual as not to have bred words for its expression), but 

 is akin to — or, more properly, an exceeding iutensiflcation of — I'ace- 

 pride in all its protean manifestations; it may be called race-sense. 

 Like other primitive folk, the Seri are self-centered (or egocentric) in 

 individual thought, i. e., they habitually think of the extraneous phe- 

 nomena of their little universe with reference to self, as in the labyrinth 

 ofconsanguineal relationship extending and ramifying from the speaker; 

 furthermore, they typify primitive culture in their collective thinking, 

 which is tribe-centered (or ethnocentric), i. e., they view extraneous 

 things, esxjecially those of animate nature, with reference to the tribe, 

 like all those lowly folk who denote themselves by the most dignified 

 terms in their vocabulary and designate aliens by opprobrious epi- 

 thets; but the Seri outpass most, if not all, other tribes in dignify- 

 ing themselves and derogating contemi)orary aliens. Concordantly 

 with this habitual sentiment, they glory in their strength and swift- 

 ness, and are inordinately proud of their fine figures and excessively 

 vain of their luxuriant locks — indeed, they seem to exalt their own 

 bodies and their own kind well toward, if not beyond, the verge of 

 inchoate deification. The obverse of the same sentiment appears in 

 the hereditary hate and horror of aliens attested by their history, by 

 their persistent blood-thirst, and by the rigorous marriage regulations 

 adapted to the maintenance of tribal purity; for just as their highest 

 virtue is the shedding of alien blood, so is their blackest crime the 

 transmission of their own blood into alien channels. The potency of 

 the sentiment is established by the unparalleled isolation of the tribe 

 after centuries of contact with Caucasians, by their irreducible love of 

 native soil, by their implacable animosity toward invaders, and by 



