274* THE SERI INDIANS [kth.ann.17 



iug Held; thougli by far the greater i)art of tbeir time is siieiit in listless 

 lounging" or heedless slumber under the incidental guard of roamiug 

 youths and toiling women. The matrons are the real workers in the 

 tribal hive; tiiey are normally alert and at-tive, passing from oue sim- 

 l)le task to another, gathering flotsam food along the beach or preparing 

 edibles in the shadow of the jacal, with an eye ever on material pos- 

 sessions and children; they freciueutly join in hunting excursions of 

 considerable extent; they are the chief manufacturers of apparel, uten- 

 sils, and tools: and the scions of Castilian caballeros are not infre- 

 quently staggered at the sightof half a dozen Seri women "milling" a 

 band of horses, and at intervals leaping on one to kill it with their 

 hupfs. The masi-uline drones are the more petted and courted by rea- 

 son of their fewness, for during a century or two, at least, the women 

 have far outnumbered their consorts — a disproportion doubtless tending 

 in some respects toward the disintegration of the (dan system and, 

 reciprocally, toward the firmer union of the tribe. 



Oue of the most noteworthj' extensions of feminine functions among 

 the Seri is toward shamanism. So far as could be ascertained from 

 Mashem and the associated matrons at Gosta Rica, it is such beldams 

 as Juana Maria who conc(ict the arrow '-poison'', (^om])Ound both nec-ro- 

 mantic medicines and curative simples, cast spells on men and things, 

 and even fabricate the stone arrowpoiuts and counterfeit cartridges; 

 though unhapi)ilythe data are neither so full nor so decisive as desirable.' 



Conformably with their pi'ominence in proprietary affairs, the Seri 

 matrons seem to exercise formal legislative and judicative functions; for 

 not only do they hold their own couucils for the arrangement of the 

 domestic business of the rancherias, but they also participate i)rominently 

 in the tribal councils (as explained by Mashem), and play important 

 roles in carrying out the decisions of such councils — as when they coop- 

 erate with war ]>arties as decoys, or journey across their bounding 

 desert to spy out the laiul of the enemy. 



On the whole, it would appear that the clan organization of the Seri 

 conforms closely with that characteristic of savagery elsewhere, espe- 

 cially among the American aborigines. The social unit is the maternal 

 clan, organized in theory and faith iu homage of a beast-god, though 

 defined practically by the ocular consanguinity of birth from a common 

 line of mothers; yet the several units are pretty definitely welded into 

 a tribal aggregate by common feelings, identical interests, and conjugal 

 ties. The most distinctive features brought out by the incomplete 

 investigation are the somewhat exceptional manifestation of proi)erty- 

 right in the females, the singularly strong sense of maternal relation, 

 and the apparent prominence of females in shamanistic practices as 

 well as in the tribal councils. 



* The agency of the women in applyiugthe arrow "poison" was noted byHardy;cf. p. 258. 



