MCGEE] 



TAKING OF LARGER GAME 



205* 



Strong wrench on tlie bonis or stunned with a blow of war-club or liupf, 

 as conditions may demand. Straggling- swine and wandering dogs are 

 occasionally ambushed or stalked and transfixed with arrows, torn 

 hurriedly into fragments, or shouldered aud carried off struggling, as 

 exigency may require; while sheep and goats are practically barred 

 from the entire Seri frontier because of their utter helplessness in the 

 face of so hardy huntsmen. 



The quantity of stock consunied by the Seri varies greatly with the 

 policy of rancheros and vaqueros. At different times during the last 

 two and a half centuries it has been estimated that the chief portion 

 of the subsistence of the tribe was derived from stolen stock, and it 

 is probable that during the early period of the Encinas regime this 



liil iioik. 



estimate was fair; but under the Draconian rule of a Seri head for each 

 head of slaughteretl stock, the consumption is I'educed to a few dozen 

 head annually, including superannuated, crippled, and diseased ani- 

 mals unable fo keep up with the herds, those bogged in Playa Xoriega 

 and other basins during freshets, the stallions aud bulls slain in strife 

 for leadership of their bauds, and the festering or semimummied car- 

 casses gladly turned over by idle rancheros on the chance visits of 

 Seri bands to the frontier (such as the specimen in the protograph 

 reproduced in tigure 23). 



No special devices have been developed in connection with the chase 

 for stock, nor has material progress been made in acquiring Cau- 

 casian devices. There are, indeed, indications of a disposition to use 



