294* THE SERI INDIANS [eth.ann.17 



but as the vicarious and visible exponent of an ever immanent beast- 

 god — tlie clan tutelary; ber appeals to lier brothers for administrative 

 aid are precisely parallel to her intuitive passage from zoomimiury into 

 the held of mechanical chance defined by protolithic implements; and 

 the appeal, like the execution of the law either by herself or by her 

 brothers, is controlled and regulated in absolute deference to the zoic 

 pantheon. Thus, the inchoate tribal laws, expressed in habitual lines 

 of action and modes of thought, are by no means conscious products of 

 human wisdom, but are confidently imputed to a superhuman wisdom 

 on the part of myth-maguilied beasts of a mystical olden time; and, 

 similarly, the power of executing these laws is by no means cognized 

 as conscious luiniau faculty, but is faithfully imputed to supernal 

 potencies of mythical monsters. Essentially, therefore, the tribal law 

 is putatively zoocratic; and the social organization may justly be 

 classed as a putative zoocraci/. 



To prevent possible confusion, it may be desirable to note spe- 

 cifically that the Seri government is not matriarchal in any proper 

 sense. As pointed out elsewhere, matriarchy is not (at least among 

 the American aborigines) an antecedent of patriarchy, but a correlative 

 of that form of government; and it would be especially erroneous and 

 misleading to designate as matriarchal a tribe like the Seri, whose 

 chiefs and subchiefs (i. e., appellate clan-administratives) are invariably 

 masculine. Neither would it be Just, despite the dominance of matrons 

 in legislative and judicative matters, to regard the tribal government 

 as a gyneocracy, such as have been noted in various parts of Xorth 

 America — e. g., in Sonora, according to a current tradition as to the 

 origin of the name of the province, and among the Pomo Indians of 

 California, according to Oronise as interpreted by Powers;' for the 

 actual control is exercised by the warrior brothers, while the ideal con- 

 trol is vested in that zoic pantheon of which the matrons are putative 

 moiithpieces. Physically and practically the Seri government is an 

 adclpliiarchy, as already indicated; but in the minds of the tribesmen 

 themselves it is an inchoate theocracy putatively headed by a pantheon 

 of animate monsters, whose prelates are personified in the painted clan- 

 mothers. 



Summarily, then, the Seri are zoosematic in esthetic, zoomimic in 

 technic, zootheistic in faith, and putatively zoocratic in government, 

 while even the Seri tongue is so largely mimetic or onomatopoetic in 

 form as to accord with the industries and institutions; and in view of 

 the intimate interrelations between the several lines of activity, it 

 would seem jireferable to determine the culture status from the coinci- 

 dent testimony of all the lines, but feasible to measure it in terms of 

 any one or more of these activital lines, 



Now, on comparing the characteristics of the Seri with those of other 

 known tribes of North America, many resemblances and a few differ- 



' Tribes of California, pp. 160-lHl. 



