McfiEK) THE TABU SQUIRREL 203* 



smaller rodents, especially tbe loug-tail nocturnal squirrel, are 

 excluded from the Seri menu by a rigidly observed tabu of undiscov- 

 ered meaning. A general consequence of this tabu is readily observed 

 on entering Serilaiid; there is a notable rarity of the serpents, the 

 high-colored and swift efts, and the logy lizards and dull phrynosoiiias 

 so abundant in neighboring deserts, as well as of song birds and their 

 nests; and this dearth is coupled with a still more notable abundance 

 of the rodents, which have increased and multiplied throughout Seri- 

 land so abundantly that their burrows honeycomb hundreds of square 

 miles of territory. A special consequence of the tabu is found in the 

 fact that the myriad squirrel tunnels have rendered much of the terri- 

 tory impassable for horses and nearly so for pedestrians, and have 

 thereby served to repel invaders and enable the jealous tribesmen to 

 protect their principality against the hated alien. Seriland and the 

 Seri are remarkable for illustrations of the interdependence between a 

 primitive folk and their environment; but none of the relations are 

 more striking than that exemplified by the timid nocturnal rodent 

 which, protected by a faith, has not only risen to the leading place in 

 the local fauna, but has reVvarded its protectors by protecting their ter- 

 ritory for centuries. 



In both the collective and the strategic chase, constant advantage is 

 taken of weakness and incapacity, whether temporary or permanent, 

 of the prospective quarry; so that diseased and wounded as well as 

 sluggish and stupid animals are eliminated. The effect of this policy 

 on the fauna is undoubtedly to extinguish the less capable species and 

 to stimulate and imi)rove the more capable; i. e.j the presence of the 

 human factor merely intensifies the bitter struggle for existeace in 

 which the subhuman things of this desert province are engaged. At 

 the same time, the entrance of the human folk into the struggle char- 

 acteristic of subhuman species serves to bar them from one of the most 

 helpful ways to the advancement of their kind — i. e., the way leading 

 through cotoleration with animals to perfected zooculture. The most 

 avidly sought weaklings in the Seri chase are the helpless young, and 

 the heavily gravid dams which are pursued and rent to fragments with 

 a horrid fury doubtless reflecting the practical certainty of capture 

 and the exceptionally succulent tidbits aftbrded by the fetal flesh; 

 naturally the cruel custom reacts on habitual thought in such wise that 

 the very sight of pregnancy or travail or newborn helplessness awakens 

 slumbering blood-thirst and impels to ferocious slaughter. To such 

 custom and deei)-planted mental habit may be ascribed some of the 

 most shocking barbarities in the history of Seri rapine, tragedies too 

 terrible for repetition save in bated breath of survivors, yet explaining 

 the utter horror in which the Seri marauder is held on his own frontier. 

 At the same time the hunting custom and the mental habit explain the 

 blindness of the Seri to the rudiments of zooculture, and clarify their 

 intolerance of all animal associates, save the sly coyote that habitually 



