MciiEE] MEANING OP ARCHERY POSTURE 201* 



ally shattered, aud no prints are known to have been made from it; 

 but the fragments were carefully joined, and were kindly transferred 

 to the Bureau by Mr Von Bayer in 1897, and from them plate xxix 

 was carefully drawn. The posture (partly concealed by the drapery) is 

 extraordinary, being quite beyond the reach of the average human, and 

 impossible of maintenance for any considerable interval even by the 

 well-wonted Seri. The posture itself partly explains the difflculty of 

 inducing the warrioi's at Costa Rica to assume it, since it is essentially a 

 fleeting one, aud indeed but a part of a continuous and stressful action — 

 it is no less dillicult to assume, or to catch in the camera, than the typical 

 attitude of a baseball pitcher in action. The posture tims fortunately 

 caught is quite in accord with the accounts of Seri archery from the 

 esoteric side given by Mashem, and with the exoteric observations of 

 Senor Knciuas, Don Andres, and others; for all accounts agree in indi- 

 cating that the archer commonly rests inert aud moveless as the watch- 

 ing feline up to a critical instant, then springs into movement as swiftly 

 as the leaping jaguar, and hurls, rather than shoots, one, two, or three 

 arrows before rushing in to the death or skulking to cover as the issue 

 may require. 



The Seri ai'chery habit is in every way consistent with the general 

 habits of the tribe, alike in the chase and in warfare, in which the tribes 

 men, actuated by the fierce blood-craze common to carnivores, either 

 leap on their prey with purpling eyes and gnashing teeth, or beat 

 quick and stealthy retreat; and it is especially significant in the light 

 thrown on the bow as a device for swift and vigorous rather than accu- 

 rate offense, an apparatus for lengthening the arm still more than does 

 the harpoon, and at the same time strengthening and intensifying its 

 stroke. The quick-changing attitudes of half hurling are equally sug- 

 gestive of the use of the atlatl, and support Oushing's hypothesis' 

 that the bow was derived from the corded throwing-stick. While the 

 critical posture of Seri archery is unique in degree if not in kind in 

 the western hemisphere, so far as is known, an approximation to it 

 (illustrated in fig. 22) has been observed in Central Africa.^ On the 

 whole the Seri mode of using the bow, like its crude form and rude 

 finish, indicates that it is a relatively new and ill-developed artifact, 

 possibly accultural though more probably joined indigenously with the 

 archaic arrow to beget a highly eft'ective device for food-getting as 

 well as for warfare; while the genetic stages are still displayed not oiily 

 in the homologies between arrow and harpoon, but by the common 

 functions of both arrow and bow with the fire-sticks. 



Concordantly, as indicated by the use of the archery apparatus, the 

 individual taking of large game is effected either by stealthy stalking 

 or by patient ambuscade ended by a sudden rush ; when, if the chase is 

 successful, the quarry is rent and consumed as at the finish of the 



' The Arrow; Proceedings Am. Ass. Adv. Sci., vol. xliv, 1895, pp. 232-240. 



*■' Glave'8 Jouroey to the Livingston Tree, The Century Mcigazine, vol. Lir, 1896, p. 768. 



