MCOEE] 



THE TYPICAL HUPF 



245* 



con.spicuous records of its latest uses; both faces (more especially the 

 pitted one) are stained with sap from green vegetal substance (probably- 

 immature mesquite pods), while one face is brilliantly marked with 

 ocher in sucli manner as to indicjite that a lump of face-paint was 

 partially pulverized by grinding on the slightly rough surface. It was 

 found, together with the ahst illustrated in ])late xxxviii, in the rear 

 of a recently occupied jacal midway between Punta Antigualla and 

 Punta Ygnacio, cached beneath a thorny cholla cactus uprooted and 

 dragged thither for the purpose. The trail and other signs indicated 

 that the jacal had been occupied for a few days and up to within 

 twenty-four hours by a family group of six or seven persons; that it 

 was vacated suddenly at or about the time of arrival of the party 

 of five whose trail was followed by the 181)5 expedition from Punta 

 Antigualla to Punta Miguel (where they were interrupted in the midst 

 of a meal and frightened to Tiburon) ; and that the larger party fled 

 toward the rocky fastnesses of southern Sierra Seri. 



Of the foregoing hupfs several are aberrant, and serve merely to 

 illustrate the prevailing directions of departure from the optimum 

 form and size of implements. Six of the specimens may be deemed 

 typical ; they are as follows : 



From these specimens a type of Seri hand implement may easily be 

 formulated: it is a wave-worn pebble or cobble of (1) granite, quartz- 

 ite, or other tough and hard rock, (2) tuff, or other light and pulverulent 

 rock, or (3) vesicular lava; it is of flattened ovoid form, or of biscuit 

 shape; it weighs a trifle under 2 pounds (about 0.85 kilogram); 

 originally the form and surface are wholly natural, but through the 

 chance of use it is modified («) by a battering of the ends and more 

 projecting edges, and {h) by grinding and consequent truncation of 

 the sides; though initially a natural pebble, chosen nearly at random 

 from the beach, it eventually becomes personal property, acquires 

 fetishistic import, and is buried with the owner at her death. 



The ahsts and the heavier cobbles used alternatively as ahsts and 

 hupfs are too fortuitous for reduction to type; while the protean peb- 



