THE 
Yol. VII APRIL, T896 No. 4 
SERILAND 
By \V J McGee arid Willard D. Johnson 
After tliree weeks of seasoning in the saddle, we pushed through 
the water-gap trenching the chief range of central Sonora and 
descended the sand-wash (commonly dry, locally wet) for a hard 
day to the adobe hamlet of Bacuache, and next morning one of 
us climbed a near-by butte to make a planetable station and inci- 
dentally to realize the peculiar isolation of the long-promised 
land of the Seri Indians, still fifty miles away. On the same 
afternoon of November 29, 1895, we left sand-wash for butte- 
dotted plain in time to see the setting sun shadow a jagged 
mountain crest far out on the broad barrier desert; and the grim 
fatherland of a fierce tribe, the terror of explorers since Coronado, 
the dread of Sonora today, tlie nightmare of the few local set- 
tlers, the cynosure of all eyes of the party, was spontaneously, and 
so uncon.sciously that no one could remember the sponsor, chris- 
tened Seriland. Later, in traversing the hard desert and climb- 
ing the rugged Sierra Seri, and about the guarded camj) lire on 
Isla Tihuron, alternative names for the territory were sought and 
temporarily used, hut they soon slijiped away, while the simple 
appellation clung. 
So Seriland was named, and for present purposes, at least, the 
informal christening may he made formal. 
The little party of the Bureau of American Ethnology pushed 
on from Ifacuache, making stations by the way, to Rancho San 
Francisco de Costa Rica, wheri; they were met hy the owner, 
Senor I’ascual Encinas, the now aged hut always intrepid Seri 
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