244* THE SERI INDIANS [kth.ann.17 



who was observed to use it for various industrial purposes, and who 

 refused to part with it for any consideration. 



A still more beautiful example of Seri stone art is depicted in itlate 

 LV. It is of the same homogeneous and coarse-grained granite as the 

 last specimen, and closely approaches it in dimensions; it is slightly 

 longer and broader, but somewhat thinner, and weighs 1 pound 11 

 ounces (0.77 kilogram); and, except for the absence of the accidental 

 notch, its artificial features are still more closely similar. The ends 

 are slightly battered, as illustrated in the end view at the right of the 

 plate; the edges are similarly worn, but to a less extent; while both 

 sides have been symmetrically faceted by use in grinding, the facets 

 being straight in the longitudinal direction but slightly curved in the 

 transverse direction, in the shape of the Mexican mauo. The specimen 

 disi)lays well-marked color distinctions between the artificially worn 

 and the natural surfaces, the former being gray and the latter weathered 

 to yellowish or pinkish-brown ; these colors show that something like 

 two-thirds of the surface is artificial and the intervening third natural; 

 and the natural portion corresponds in every respect, not only in form 

 but in condition of surface, with the granite cobbles of Seriland's stormy 

 shores. Unfortunately the color distinctions, with tlie limits of facet- 

 ing and other artificial modifications, are obscure in the photomechan- 

 ical reproduction ; they are indicated more clearly in the outline draw- 

 ing oversheet. The specimen is partially saturated with fat, and bears 

 an ocher stain attesting use in the preparation of face-paint. It was 

 found carefully wrapped in a parcel with the shell paint-cup illustrated 

 in plate xxvii, a curlew mandible, two or three hawk feathers, and a 

 tuft of pelican down (the whole evidently forming the fetish or medicine- 

 bag of a shamanistic elderwomau), in an out-of-the-way nook in the 

 wall of an abandoned jacal at Punta Narragansett. 



A somewhat asymmetric though otherwise typical hupf is illustrated 

 in natural colors in plate Lvr. It is of andesite, and may have come 

 originally either from the extensive volcanics of southern Sierra Seri 

 or central Sierra Kuukaak; it weighs 1 pound 15 ounces (0.88 kilo- 

 gram). The general form is that of a wave- worn cobble, and fully one- 

 third of the surface retains the natural character save for slight 

 smoothing through hand friction in use. The chief artificial modifica- 

 tion is the faceting of both sides in nearly plain and approximately 

 parallel faces, the maximum tliickness of material removed from each 

 side, estimated from the curvature of the adjacent natural surface, 

 being perhaps three-sixteenths of an inch (5 millimeters); in addition, 

 both euds are battered in the usual fashion, while the thinner and more 

 projecting edge is battered still more extensively, in a way at once sub- 

 serving convenient use and tending to increase the symmetry of form. 

 One of the facets is quite smooth; the other (that on the right in the 

 plate) is slightly pitted, as if by use in metal-working. The specimen 

 is somewhat greasy — the normal condition of the hupf — and bears 



