288* THE SEKI INDIANS lEnrAN.N.lT 



Seri at various points; witness the following passage from tlie Onon- 

 daga mourning ritual, as collected and translated by Hewitt: 



Now, moreover, a^aiu, auother tiling, inilei'd, our voices oouie forth to nttiT; and 

 .is it not tbat that we say, that far yonder the Iloyaner [chief of highest grade] 

 ■who laboreil for us so well is falling away as falls a tree? .So, moreover, it is these 

 things that he hears away with hiai — this tile of mat-carriers, warriors all, visible 

 and present here; also this lilc of those wlio customarily dance the corn-dances 

 [the women] — they go prosperously. And alas! How utterly calamitous is that 

 thing that occurs when the hody of this woman falls! For, verily, far yonder in 

 the length of the file will the file of our grandchildren he removed! These our 

 grandchildren who run hither and thither in sport, these onr grandchildren who 

 by creeping drag themselves about in the dust, these our grandchildren whose 

 bodies are slung to cradle-boards, and even those of them whose faces are looking 

 hitherward as they come under the ground.' 



The identifiable cemeteries of Seriland are few and small — much less 

 populous than might be expected of a tribe numbering several hun- 

 dreds for centuries, and able to maintain well-worn trails threading all 

 parts of their rugged domain. Three graves ^Tere noted near the aban- 

 doned rancheria at Pozo Escalante; one was observed near a jacal 

 skeleton at Barranca Salina; five or six were made out doubtfully on a 

 low spur adjacent to Punta Antigualla; another Mas found near the 

 rancheria midway thence to Punta Yguacio; still an<jther was doubt- 

 fully identified hard by a ruinous jacal just where the foothills of Sierra 

 Seri descend to the plain stretching toward Punta Jliguel; and this dis- 

 tribution may be deemed representative. A scant half-dozen percepti- 

 ble graves were observed near the considerable rancheria of Punta Jfar- 

 ragansett, which was numerously inhabited during the Dewey survej^s 

 of 187.5; one was found adjoining the old jacal near Campo Navidad; 

 but none were discovered in connection with the extensive rancheria ou 

 Rada Balleua. The largest known cemetery occupies the triangular 

 point of shrub dotted plain ])nshing out towaid the site of the old ran- 

 cheria at the base of Punta Tormenta; it corai)rises perhaps a score of 

 evidently ancient graves, while two newer ones were found on the peb- 

 ,ble bar beyond the jacales. When near the i)ebbly beaches the graves 

 are marked by heaps of pebbles and small cobbles, commoidy about 

 the size of those used as hupfs, these cairns being •> or 4 feet loTig, 

 two-thirds as wide, and seldom over 12 or 15 inches in height: and 

 most of the cairns are accompanied and enlarged by piles (ranging from 

 a peck to a bushel) of the scatophagic shells already noted. The graves 

 remote from pebbly beaches are marked by heaps of cholla stems and 

 branches, rudely thatched with miscellaneous brambles roughly pinned 



^ MS in the nrcliives of the Bureau of American Ethnology. A somcvrhat more obscure version was 

 recorded by Hale in "The Iroquois Book Kites": "Now. there is another thinj; -wo say, we younger 

 brothers. He who has worked for us has gone afar otf ; and ho also will iu time take with him all 

 these — the whole body of warriors and also the whole boily of women — they will go with him. But 

 it is still harder when the womjin shall die. because with her the line is lost. And also the grand- 

 children and the little ones who are running around — lliese he will take .away; and also those that 

 are creeping on the ground, and also those thatare ou the cradle-boards: all these he w-ill take away 

 with him." (Urinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature, number ll, 1883, pp. 141-143.) 



