MCGEEl TRIBAL ORGANIZATION 276* 



CHIEFSHIP 



The unformulated tribal laws of the Seri are iutimately couuected 

 with leadership, which is, in turn, largely a reflection of personal char- 

 acteristics: so that the ti'ibal organization is about as variable as that 

 of the practically autonomous herds of cattle ranging the Sonoran 

 plains adjacent to Seriland. Indeed, just as the stock-clans enjoy a 

 precedence on pasturage and at waterholes, determined by the valor 

 and strength of the bulls by which they are led, so the Seri clans ajjpear 

 to be graded by the prowess of their masculine leaders, combined with the 

 sortilegic su(;cess of the leaders' consorts ; while, just ns the leadershii) of 

 the cattle shifts from band to band as the years go by, according to the 

 fairly equal hazard of natural selection, so the clan dynasties of the 

 human group rise, flourish, and decline iu an endless succession shaped 

 by the chances of birth and survival under a capricious environment, 

 by the fate of battles internecine and external, and by various other 

 factors. The instability of the Seri organization is demonstrated by 

 the tribal changes recorded in history, as well as by the vicissitudes 

 within the memory of Seiior Eu(;inas and others. At the beginning of 

 the records the Upanguayma were already exiled from Seriland proper 

 and api)arently sutt'eriug from raids of their collinguals; within a cen- 

 tury the Guayma, also, were expatriated and nearly annihilated; then, 

 in the early part of the present century, the Tepoka were extruded 

 and (after a series of wars in active progress in Hardy's time) forced 

 far up the coast to one of the poorest habitats ever occupied by any 

 folk. So, too, throughout the Encinas regime the internal dissensions 

 continued whenever the clans were not combined against aliens; and 

 the veteran pioneer has seen much intratribal strife, attended by the 

 rise and passing of many chiefs, both acknowledged and ])retended, 

 and often exercising chiefly prerogatives two or three at a time. This 

 instability grows largely out of the fact that the essential unit is the 

 clan, and that the tribe is nothing more than a lax aggregati(jn ; and it 

 is measurably explained by the crude customs accomi)anying the choice 

 of leaders. 



As already noted, the clan organization is maternal, and the clan- 

 mother is the central tigure of" the group; but the executive power 

 resides in her brothers in the order of seniority — 1, e., while the i)ersonal 

 arrangement of the group is maternal, the appellate administration is 

 fraternal. So far as could be ascertained, the form of government is 

 clearly discriminable from that commonly styled avuncular; for, in the 

 Urst place, the minor administration accompanying the control of prop- 

 erty invests the elderwomen with exceptional legislative and judicative 

 powers, while, in the second place, there are no old men (by reason of 

 the militant habit), so that the reverence for age so assiduously culti- 

 vated in primitive life extends to matrons much more than to men. 



