MCGEE] INTOLEKA.NCE OF ALIENS 15o* 



their rigoroixslv maintained purity of blood ; it is manifested in tlieir 

 commonplace conduct by a singular combination of hauteur and ser- 

 vility, forbidding association with aliens on terms of equality. The 

 entire group at Costa Rica in 1894 were on good behavior, partly, no 

 doubt, for profit, partly because they were at peace bought by blood- 

 shed; yet they kept an impassable gulf between themselves and the 

 Caucasians, and a still wider chasm against the Papago and Yatpii. 

 They came to the tanque, usually in groups, rarely alone, always alert; 

 especially when alone or in twos or tlirees, they moved slowly and 

 stealthily in their peculiar collected and up-stepping gait, often stop- 

 ping, always glancing furtively with roving eyes, and bearing a curi- 

 ous air of self-repression— as of the camp-prowling coyote who seems to 

 hold down his instinctively bristling mane by voluntary ettbrt. And 

 the visitor to their rancheria sent a wave of influence before as his 

 approach was noted; laughter ceased, languor disappeared, and a 

 forced, yet sullen, amiability took their place, though the children and 

 females edged away; if he appeared unexpectedly or came too close, 

 the children and younger adults simply flitted like young partridges, 

 while the elders stiffened rigidly, with bristling brows and everting 

 lips and purpling eyes, perhaps accompanied by harsh guttnrization — 

 indeed the curiously canine snarl and growl, often evoked by the 

 stranger unintentionally, betrayed the bitterness of Seri antipathy 

 toward even the most tolerable aliens. Every human is ])aiioplied in a 

 personality, perhaps intangible but none the less real, which repels 

 undue approach and fixes limits to familiarity on the part of strangers, 

 friends, kinsmen, and mates, according to their respective degrees of 

 mutually elective attinity; but the Seri are so close to each other and 

 so far from all others that they are collectively panoplied against extra- 

 tribal personalties even as are antipathetic animals against each other 

 —and the Seri can no more control the involuntary snarl and growl at 

 the approach of the alien tiian can the hunting-dog at sight or smell of 



the timber-wolf. 



While the highly developed traits represented by pedestrian habit 

 and hand-and-tooth habit and segregative habit expressing race sense 

 are conspicuous during exercise, each carries an equally well-marked 

 obverse. Thus, while the Seri are known as runners par excellence in 

 a region of runners, and were named by aboriginal neighbors from their 

 spryness of movement, they have been no less notorious among the Cau- 

 casian settlers of two generations for unparalleled laziness— for a lethar- 

 gic sloth beyond that of sluggish ox and somnolent swine, which was 

 an irritating marvel to the patient padres of the eighteenth century, 

 and is today a byword in the even-tempered Land of Manana; concord- 

 antly the sinewy hands and muscular Jaws are noticeably inert during 

 the intervals between intense fuuctionings, are practically free from the 

 spontaneous or nervous movements of habitually busy persons, and 

 contribute by their immobility to the air of indolence or languor which 



