MCGEE] INCONSPICUOUSNESS OF WEAPONS 255* 



alone once overawed and routed an attackingparty of 30 Seri warriors, 

 she duly mentioned the carbine ready for use in his hands and the 

 six-shooter and machete in his belt; but nothing was said of the Seri 

 weapons. When a distinguished sportsman citizen of Caborca, the 

 h)cal authority on the Seri, sought to dissuade the 1805 expedition from 

 visiting Tiburon, he was repetitively and cumulatively emphatic in his 

 oracular forecast, "lis vont vous tuer! lis ront vous tuerU Ils vont 

 voustuerI!!" — yet he made but passingreference to "poisoned "arrows, 

 and none to other weapons, in the general implication that invaders of 

 the tribal territory were torn limb from limb and strewn over the rocks 

 and deserts of Seriland. When Jesus Omada, of Bacuachito, boasted 

 his Seri scars, he indeed emphasized the arrow-mark on his breast, but 

 only as a prelude and foil to the far ghastlier record of his teeth-torn 

 arm. When Itobinson and his companion were butchered on Tiburon 

 in 1S94, the bloody work was effected chiefly by means of a borrowed 

 Winchester; and neither the account of the survivors nor that of the 

 actors made mention of native weapons — save the stones with which the 

 second victim was finished according to the local version. In short, 

 most of the casual expressions and fuller recitals alike indicate that 

 while the Seri are famous fighters their weapons — except the much- 

 dreaded "poisoned" arrows — are incidents rather than essentials to 

 savage assaults, and that their prowess rests primarily on bodily the 

 strength and swiftness. 



The stones used in battle, as described by the survivors and as inti- 

 mated by Mashem, are cobbles as large as a fist, i. e., hupfs of typical 

 form and size. So far as is known thej* are never hurled, slung, nor pro- 

 jected in any other manner, nor are they hafted or attached to cords 

 after widespread aboriginal customs; they are merely held in the hand, 

 as in the slaughter of quarry. Hardy made note of a war-club — "They 

 use likewise a sort of wooden mallet called ^Macana, for close quarters 

 in war"; ' but nothing of the kind was found at Costa Rica in 1894, and 

 no woodwork suggesting such use was found in the depths of Seriland 

 in 1895. 



The most conspicuous and doubtless the most effective war weapon 

 is the arrow projected from the bow in the unusual if not unique fashion 

 already noted (ante, p. L'Ol). There is nothing to indicate that the Seri 

 are especially effective archers; the facts (1) that a large part of the 

 arrows are pointless, save for the hard-wood foreshafts; (2) that stone 

 arrowpoiuts are not habitually used; and (3) that comparatively slight 

 reference is made to the use of arrows in records and recitals of Seri 

 battles, tend on the contrary to indicate inferior ability in archery. 

 And in the course of the explorations by the 1895 expedition it was 

 noted that the feral fowls and animals of Seriland — pelican, gull, snipe, 

 curlew, cormorant, coyote, hare, bura, mountain sheep, peccary, etc — 

 displayed little fear of human figures at distances exceeding 75 yards, 



' Travels, p. 290. 



