246* 



THE SERI INDIANS 



1 ETH. ANN. 17 



bles utilized iu emergency, and commouly discarded after a single use, 

 are too numerous and too various for convenient or useful grouping. 



There is a distinctive type of Seri stone artifacts represented by a 

 single category of objects, viz, chipped arrowpoints. Several of the 

 literary descriptions of the folk — particularly those based on second- 

 hand information and far-traveled rumor — credit the Seri with habitual 

 use of stone-tipped arrows,' and it is the current fashion among both 

 Mexican and Indian residents of Sonora to ascribe to the Seri any 

 shapely arrowpoiut picked up from plain or valley; yet the observa- 

 tions among the tribesmen and iu their haunts disclose but slight basis 

 for classing the Seri with the aboriginal arrow-makers of America. 



Among the CO Seri (including 17 or IS warriors) atOosta Rica in 1S94, 

 three bows and four (luivers of arrows were observed, besides a number 

 of stray arrows, chiefly in the hands of striplings. The arrows seen 

 numbered some 60 or 70, including perhaps 20 "poisoned" specimens; 



nearly half of them were tipped with 

 hoop-iron, as illustrated in plate xxx, 

 while about as many more were fitted 

 only with the customary foreshafts 

 (usually sharpened and hardened by 

 charring), and the small remainder had 

 evidently lost iron tips in use; there was 

 not a single stone-tipped arrow in the 

 rancheria. Moreover, when the usually 

 incisive and confident Mashem was 

 asked for the Seri term for stone arrow- 

 point he was taken aback, and was 

 unable to answer until after lengthy 

 conference with other members of the tribe — his manner and that of 

 his mates clearly indicating ignorance of such a term rather than the 

 desire to conceal information so frequently manifested in connection 

 with esoteric matters; and the term finally obtained (ahst-ahk, conno- 

 ting stone and arrow) is the same as that used to denote the arrowpoiut 

 of hoop-iron. The most reasonable inference from the various facts is 

 that whatsoever might have been the customs of their ancestors, the 

 modern Seri are not accustomed to stone arrow-making. 



The 1895 expedition was slightly more successful in the search for 

 Seri arrows. About midway between the abandoned Ranclio Libertad 

 and Barranca Saliua, an ancient Seri site was found to yield hundreds 

 of typical potsherds, half a dozen shells such as those used for utensils, 

 the fragments of a hupf evidently shattered by use as a fire-stone, and 

 the small rudely chipped arrowpoiut shown in figure 37rt; and among 

 the numerous relics found on a knoll overlooking Pozo Escalante 

 (including two jacal frames, two or three graves, an ahst, several shells 



1 The most specific reference is that of Hardy : " The men nse bows and stone-pointed arrows ; but 

 whether they are poisoned, I do not know." Travels, p. 290. 



Fig. [il — Seri .irrowpoints. 



