782 
unparalleled clearness’ (p. 253). Their imple- 
ments of stone reflect the conditions of their 
habitat remarkably well. 
Seri warfares, like the hunting customs of the 
tribe, is ‘largely sortilegic,’ and the warfare of 
the tribe (devoid of military tactics in the strict 
sense of the term) is ‘merely an intensified 
counterpart of their chase’ (p. 261). To the 
‘plood-craze’ of the hunters corresponds the 
‘war-frenzy’ of the fighters. Poor in offensive 
and in defensive devices, the Seri Indians, 
apart from the natural conditions of their 
habitat, find their effective protection in ‘ their 
fleetness coupled with their habitual and con- 
stitutional timidity.’ The famous ‘poison 
arrows’ of the Seris are discussed at pages 
255-261, and a description given of the loath- 
some mess compounded by the medicine-man 
for tipping them. 
The most interesting fact in Seri sociology is 
‘prominence of the females, especially the 
elderwomen, in the management of every-day 
affairs’ (house building, transportation of 
family property, regulation of personal conduct, 
productive labor, shamanism, proprietary af- 
fairs, legislative and judicative functions, etc.). 
The social unit appears to be the maternal clan, 
with certain modifications and additions due to 
the general feeling of the tribe, the clan-mother 
being the central figure of the group, but the 
executive power residing in her brothers in the 
order of seniority. In other words, ‘ while the 
personal arrangement of the group is maternal, 
the appellate administration is fraternal’ (p. 
275). The contests for the chiefship are some- 
times very protracted, but ‘the choice really 
reflects physical force.’ The process of adop- 
tion, so important generally with primitive 
peoples, seems ‘ entirely foreign to the thoughts 
of the tribe,’ only a few sporadic and uncertain 
cases being on record. Since there is a surplus 
of women among the Seris, polygamy naturally 
prevails, although the practice is perhaps inci- 
dental and of comparatively recent origin. Of 
the sexual unions of these Indians the author 
remarks (p. 279): ‘The primary mating of the 
Seri is attended by observances so elaborate as 
to show that marriage is one of the profoundest 
sacraments of the tribe, penetrating the inner- 
most recesses of tribal thought, and interwoven 
SCIENCE. 
(N.S. Von. XIII. No. 333. 
with the essential fibers of tribal existence. 
Few, if any, other peoples devote such anxious 
care to their mating as do the Seri [the author 
compares them with the Australian aborigines] ; 
and among no other known tribe or folk is the 
moral aspect of conjugal union so rigorously 
guarded by collective action and individual de- 
votion.’ The premarital tests are severe, and 
the conditions of the probationary period are 
such as to demand indubitable proof of control 
of sexual passion. Of the mortuary customs of 
the Seris, the most remarkable feature is ‘the 
special dignification of females in respect to 
funerary rites,’ something without exact par- 
allel among other American aborigines. Traces 
of at least an inchoate belief in a future life, 
and of strong veneration for, or fear of, the spirits 
of the departed (matrons in particular), were 
noted, as indeed is indicated by certain funeral 
customs. 
The Seri linguistic material was submitted to 
Mr. Hewitt, of the Bureau of American Ethnol- 
ogy, whose thorough-going comparative study 
(rather too decided, perhaps, in some respects) 
occupies pages 299-344. The result is to settle 
the status of Seri speech as an independent 
tongue, and not a Yuman dialect, as some have 
thought. Taken altogether, the Seri mind 
shows itself to be ‘local, chance-dominated, ex- 
ceeding lowly, and especially autochthonal in 
its contents and workings.’ The author’s 
views as to the meanings of the correlation of 
race-sense and stirpiculture are of great interest 
to all students of racial and individual develop- 
ment (p. 162): ‘ Hven if the measure of the in- 
carnation of ideals be reduced to the lowest 
maximum consistent with human knowledge it 
remains true that the progeny of successive 
generations are not the offspring of average 
parents, but of pairs at the perfection and con- 
jugal culmination of their virile and muliebrile 
excellencies ; so that the generations must run 
in courses of cumulatively increasing racial (or 
human) perfection, under a general Jaw of con- 
jugal conation.’ Well, indeed, do the Seri In- 
dians illustrate the incarnation of primitive 
ideals, as indeed the Greeks once did, and with 
not such moral descent as the latter sustained. 
Another general fact concerning the Seris, 
of great importance to the psychologist, and 
