McsEE] OBLIGATIONS OF THE CHIEF 277* 



bolic weapon, the counterfeit cartridge, tlie imitation machete, orotlier 

 charm against alien power; it is usually he who wears the white man's 

 hat or random garment in lieu of the deer or lion mask of earlier days; 

 and during recent years his most-prized fetish, and one which practi- 

 cally insures the support of his fellows, is a written certificate of his 

 chiefship from Senor Pincinas, or, still better, fiom El Gobernador at 

 Hermosillo. Yet he is a throneless and even homeless potentate, 

 sojourning, like the rest of his fellows, in such jacales as Lis two or 

 three or four wives may erect, wandering with season and sisterly 

 whim, chased often by rumors of invasion or by fearsome dreams, and 

 restrained by convention even from chiding his owii children in his 

 wives' jacales save through the intercession of female relatives. 



In 1804 the head chief was reported to be on Tiburon; the putative 

 chief of the rancheria at Costa Rica was the taciturn giant known as 

 El Mudo (plate six); while Mashem (or Juau Estorga) was the head 

 of one of the Pelican clans. 



ADOPTION 



One of the more important factors in demotic development among 

 primitive peoples (probably second only to interclan marriage in 

 extending sympathy and unifying law) is adoption; and special eftbrts 

 were made to obtain data relating to the subject. Direct inquiries 

 were futile, the responses indicating that the entire subject is foreign 

 to the thought of the tribe; but three sporadi(! and measurably incon- 

 gruous examples of (juasi adoption are worthy of record. 



The most specific case is that of Lieutenant flardy, who visited Isla 

 Tiburon in 1826, and was fortunate in gaining the confidence of the 

 tribe through successful medical ti-e.atment of the wife of the chief. On 

 his second landing he was greeted with many expressions of gratitude, 

 which were especially exuberant on the part of the daughter of the 

 family (always a personage in Seri custom), who insisted on i)ainting 

 his face. He specifies: 



Not wishiug to deny lier the indulgence of this innocent frolic, I quietly suffered 

 her to proceed. She mixed up part of a cake of blue color, ■which resembles ultra- 

 marine (and of which I have a specimen), iu a small shell ; in another, a white color, 

 obtained by ground talc, and in a third was mixed a color obtained from the red 

 flint-stone of the class which I before stated was to be found on Seal Island, and 

 resembled cinnabar. With the assistance of a pointed stick the tender artist formed 

 perpendicular narrow stripes down my cheeks and nose, at such distances apart as 

 to admit of an equally narrow white line between them. With equal delicacy and 

 skill tlie tops and bottoms of the white lines were finished otf with a white .spot. If 

 the cartilage of my nose at the nostrils bad been perforated so as to admit a small, 

 round, white bone, ftve inches in length, tapering olf at both ends and rigged some- 

 thing like a cross-jack yard, I might have been mistaken for a native of the island. 

 As soon as the operation was finished, the whole party set up a roar of merry laugh- 

 ter, and called me "Hermano, C'apitan Tiburow," being the very limited extent 

 of their knowledge of Spanish.' 



1 U'raTels. p. 286. 



