EXPLORATIONS BY THE BUREAU OF AMERICAN 
ETHNOLOGY IN 1895 
By W J McGee 
The most extended exploratory work of the year was that of 
an expedition in charge of the writer through the territory occu- 
pied by the Papago Indians in Arizona and Sonora, and by tlie 
Seri Indians in western Sonora and on Tibnron and Alcatraz 
islands, in the gulf of California. During 1894 an expedition 
was carried through Papagueria and into the borderland of the 
Seri country for the ])urpose of making collections among the 
Indians of both tril)es, and the object of the expedition of 1895 
was to obtain supplemental information concerning the social 
organization of the Papago Indians, but especially to explore the 
territoiy of the Seri and to make studies of and collections repre- 
senting the maritime habits of these Indians. The part}" out- 
fitted in Tucson early in November, cro.ssed the frontier at Sasahe, 
and spent three weeks in visiting the villages of Papagueria and 
in surveying extensive prehistoric works left by a people of some- 
what advanced culture, probably the ancestors of the modern 
Papago. Mr Millard D. Johnson, who formed one of the party, 
carried forward a planetable survey, which will yield the first 
trirstworthy map of the region. Entering the Seri territory early 
in December, the party explored the area lying west of Bacuachi 
river and the delta of Sonora river, making a station on the 
highe.st point (about 5,000 feet) in the range provisionally desig- 
nated the Seri mountains, and afterward embarked in a small 
boat in that ])ortion of the gulf of California commonly map])ed 
as Kino bay, coasted to the strait El Infiernillo, and crossed over 
to an<l ex|)l(^red and surveyed Tiburon island, ddie country of 
the Seri Indians was found to be clearly set apart by natural 
features from the body of Sonora. Tiburon island is separated 
by a turbulent strait from the mainland, while the mountainous 
maiidand area contiguous to the strait is still more elh'ctively 
barred fnjin interior Sonora by a broad desert zone of saline 
playas and sand dunes something like the Mojave desert of Cali- 
fornia; indeed, some of the obs(‘rvations indicate that this zone 
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