344* THE SERI INDIANS [eth.ann.17 



"l>ositivo affinities" uot one has any pliDuetic accordance with the term with which 

 it is compared. This, it would seem, sliould have sutticed to eliminate the Wai'curi 

 irom the Ynmnn .stock. Pending further research, this language should stand 

 independently. 



Of the conjectured glottologic kinship of the Seri to the Yuman stock Dr Briuton 

 says: ' "The relationship of the dialect to the Yuman stock is evident." Yet out of 

 twenty-one terms which he chose to exhihit the grounds of his faith only sis (tho.se 

 for "tongue", "eye", "head", "water", "man", and "teeth") show any definite 

 phonetic resemblance. This number, however, can certainly bo reduced by carel'ul 

 scrutiny. Thus, ho cites the Laymou and Cochimi tam/t as a cognate of the Seri 

 ekeiam. The Laymon and Cochimi term, it nnist be remembered, does not occur in 

 this form in a single other tongno admittedly Yuman. Now, before this vague 

 resemblance can establish relationship it must first be shown that the terms compared 

 have a common linguistic tradition and that a form of tamd is or has been an element 

 common to the other dialects of the Yuman group. But an analysis of the Cochimi 

 term shows no trustworthy ground for considering these terms related. So this 

 certainly reduces the number of conjectured accordances to five. 



Comparison is made by DrBrintou between the Serian ata'st (Hast, hitast), " tooth" 

 and "teeth" (collectively), and the vocable eliiloh (Lieutenant Bergland's)," tooth", 

 variants of which are common to only three of the twenty-odd Y'uman dialects. He 

 made this comparison evidently under the impression that the first part of the Seri 

 term ata'st (Hast, hitast) signifies "tooth". But such is not the fact. The first part 

 of this Seri vocable signifies "mouth" (as may be seen in the discussion of the com- 

 parative list of names for "tooth") and the latter part "stone". The term (/as(, 

 "tooth", is, therefore, literally "stone of the mouth". This is certainly not the 

 signification of the Yuman terms, and so the comparison is invalid, and the number 

 of apparent accordances is reduced to four. By some oversight it seems Dr Brinton 

 omitted from this comparison the Cochimi hastaii, "tooth"; but this collocation has 

 been made by others. Now, this term liaslaii belongs exclusively to the Cochimi 

 dialect, and before becoming a means of coiiij)arison would have to be shown to be a 

 vocable common to the body of Y'uman terms having a common linguistic tradition, 

 which has not been done. Moreover, the phonetic obstacles barring a way to a 

 fruitful comparison of this term with the Serian are quite insuperable — the assumed 

 loss of the first half of the Seri term, the acquirement by the Cochimi of the initial 

 /( sound and of the final accented syllables -ad, or the converse process. This, it 

 seems safe to say, renders this comparison likewise invalid. 



The Seri term intlash, "hand", has certainly no phonetic accordance with the 

 peculiar Y'uman israhl, which is from the Y'uma or Kutchau record of Lieutenant Eric 

 Bergland, nor, indeed, has it any accordance with any other Y'uman term for hand. 

 The presence of the r sound in it siiijplies the peculiar feature of the term; but it 

 may be used only to lengthen the following vowel (though this is only an assump- 

 tion). This form is peculiar because there is none like it in al)out thirty Y'linia 

 vocabularies, representing about twenty dialects, in the archives of the Bureau of 

 American Kthnology. A careful inspection of the comparative list of the Seri and 

 the Y'uniau names for "arm", "hand", "finger", "thumb", and "fingernail" will 

 demonstrate the utter futility of the comparison under consideration, for there is no 

 accordance between the Seri and the Y'uman terms. 



Elsewhere herein, in discussing the terms for "head" and "hair", "eye", "tongue", 

 and "water", it is shown that there is no apparent linguistic relationship between 

 the Serian terms on the one hand and the Yuman on the other, and those explana- 

 tions dissipate entirely the suspected accordances of Dr Brinton. 



1 Loc. cit. 



