MCGEE] TYPES OF CHEIKIZATION \')7* 



all are at least fairly compatible with the inference that the tribe is 

 exceptionally (if not iucoinjjarably) low in the scale of general hnniau 

 development, yet at the same time highly' specialized along certain lines; 

 and the inference in turn is corroborated by the coincidence between 

 the si)ecial lines of development and the peculiar conditions of environ- 

 ment characterizing the habitat of the tribe. 



A striking correspondence between Seri physique and Seri habitat is 

 revealed in the pedal development, with the attendant development of 

 muscle and bone, lung capacity, and heart power, together with other 

 faculties involved iu the i)edestrian habit. Seriland is a hard and 

 inhospitable home; .sea-food is indeed abundant and easily taken, but 

 water is terribly — often fatally — .scarce, and obtainable only by distant 

 journeying from the places of easy food supply; moreover, the monot- 

 ony of the diet is alleviable only by extensive wandering for the collec- 

 tion of vegetal products or severe cha.se after land animals; while the 

 warlike spirit, apparently inherited from a still less humane ancestry 

 and fostered by the geographic isolation, combines to keep the tribe 

 afoot, avoiding waters, conducting raids, and moving constantly from 

 l)lace to place in the endless search for safety. There is a widesj)read 

 Sonoran tradition that the Seri systenuitically exterminate weaklings 

 and oldsters; and it is beyond doubt that the tradition has a partial 

 foundation in the elimination of the weak and helpless through the 

 literal race for life in which the bands ])articipate on occasion. A par- 

 allel eliminative process is common among many American aborigines; 

 the wandering bands frequently undergo hard marches under the lead- 

 ership of athletic warriors with whom all are expected to keep pace, 

 and this leads both to desertion of the aged and feeble and to increased 

 strength and endurance on the part of the strong and enduring; yet it 

 would appear that this merciless mechanism for improving the fit and 

 eliminating the unlit attains unusual, if not unefpialed, j)erfection among 

 the Seri. Now pedal development is one of the special processes of 

 peripheral (or centrifugal) functioning and growth involved in the gen- 

 eral j)rocess of cheirizatlon, which, coordinately with cephalizatiou, 

 defiiies human progress;' and this development il process explains the 

 specialization of the Seri along one or more lines, and connects the 

 special development directly with environing conditions. 



A notable correspondence between structure and function, of such 

 .sort as to reflect the habit and habitat, api)ears iu the conspicuous 

 manual development of the Seri. Enjoying a climate too mild to make 

 houses necessary, finding animal food too plentiful to necessitate elabo- 

 rate contrivances for the chase or milling or other devices for reducing 

 vegetal food, provided by nature with material (in the form of carrizal) 

 for an ideally suitable water craft, barred by geographic boundaries from 

 neighboring tribes, and having neither material for nor interest iu com- 

 merce, the denizens of Seriland were never forced into the way of 

 mechanical development; yet their simple industries, involving as they 



• The Trend of HiiTii.in Pro-^resa, American Anthropologist, new serios, vol. 1, 1899, p. 401. 



