76 
FOREST AND STREAM 
American Cannibals 
The Animal-Like Seri Indians of Sonora, Mexico and Their Feats of Strength and Speed. 
HE Seris began early to assault 
the Spaniards and doubtless 
they killed many before they 
made long raids into the in¬ 
terior, attacked their victims, at 
night, and retreated to the 
Sierras of their island. The 
victims generally died from the 
poisoned arrows, and the Seris became known by 
this and were hated and feared by all tribes. 
In reading old Spanish books the Seris and 
their ferocity is an ever recurring subject, and 
while it seems incredible that a handful of 
savages could for two hundred years or more 
defy a great nation, it is essentially understood 
by those who have visited their country. The 
approach is the Ensinas’ desert, a most arid and 
forbidden region, death to those who do not 
know the exact locations of water. The island, 
equally a desert, is separated from the land by 
a dangerous channel infected, at high tide, by 
sharks. The Seri, when followed, dash over this 
awful desert with the fleetness of deer, reach the 
coast where they board their hidden balsas of 
reed, and put for the island where they separate 
and hide in the mountains; their followers as 
has often been the case, almost perishing for 
want of water, and being shot down or picked 
off with poisoned arrows until they become de¬ 
moralized and retreat. 
The Jesuits in 1700 probably were the first to 
trail the Seris to Tiburon. Paore Melchor Esca¬ 
lante after one of their raids, followed them to 
their mountains and took a number prisoners, 
while Salvatierra and Kino tried to convert 
some of them; but there is no evidence to show 
that the Seris experienced a change of heart. 
When a powerful force appeared they cringed 
like dogs, when defenseless persons came their 
v ay they were brutally killed, and it was sug¬ 
gested that such victims always disappeared; 
there was nothing left after the Seris had com¬ 
pleted their raid. As Dr. Magee the ethnologist 
says: 
"Weaker parties venturing into the purlieus of 
Seri land never returned; they disappeared and 
left no sign. The Padres claim to have made 
converts of some Seris, but it is a question 
whether they did not make a pretense of con¬ 
fession that they might loot the country more 
easily, as according to Rudo Ensayo, the Seris 
m six years previous to 1763 stole from the 
Mexicans four thousand horses and mules all of 
which they devoured.” 
This, despite the fact that the Padres founded 
the mission of San Pedro de la Conquiesta de 
Seris for the conversion and imprisonment of 
the Seris, at what is now Hermosillo in the Rio 
Sonora, Tiburon being near the mouth of this 
river. 
The Governor of Sonora in 1749 was Colonel 
Diego Or!iz Porilla. When the Seris objected to 
his orders, he promptly sent part of them to 
(Continued from the January Forest and Stream.) 
By Charles Frederick Holder 
Guatamala and to various parts of Central 
America—exactly what Governor Diaz was oblig¬ 
ed to do in 1908 with the Yaquis who were 
shipped to Yucatan. Some of the Seri objected 
to this, and they declared war on every one, 
raided Sonora and committed many brutal 
crimes, killing so many Spaniards that the 
Governor, believing them cannibals, determined 
to exterminate the entire race. He proceeded to 
Seriland with five hundred men and after two 
months returned with twenty-eight women and 
children. Most of the men escaped to the moun¬ 
tains and before long the raids were continued. 
The ferocity of these people depleted by con¬ 
stant attacks, is one of the extraordinary fea¬ 
tures of the race- Orders were repeatedly given 
out to exterminate them by various Spanish 
officials, but in almost every instance they would 
ambush the Spaniards and, as in one instance, 
the “Spaniards were found half eaten by 
animals,” and there was a question in the minds 
of many whether coyotes or Seris were the ani¬ 
mals. In 1760 an extraordinary effort to ex¬ 
terminate them was made by Governor Mendoza 
at Cerro Prieto. The Seri chief, El Becerro, 
fell wounded but shot Mendoza with an arrow 
as he went down. A year later Governor Guerro 
led four hundred and fifty men against the Seri 
at Tiburon, killed forty-nine and captured sixty- 
nine, but in 1763 the then Governor, Don Juan 
de Pineda, having his army worn out by the 
Seris who separated, distributing themselves all 
over the country in towns and manchierrias, 
endeavored to make peace with them thus con¬ 
fessing his inability to conquor them. 
The Seris pretended to acquiesce, but they 
never gave up and were really the cause of dis¬ 
putes which resulted in the expulsion of the 
Jesuits from Mexico in 1767. The church could 
not convert nor could the army subdue them, and 
the raids, punishments and shootings continued 
through two centuries down to to-day, depletion 
not having quelled the barbaric spirit of these 
people, who intimidated the whole state and 
nation, and made their name a synonym of 
terror and horror. 
The Jesuits having failed, the Franciscans 
now attempted the conversion of the Seri, and 
in 1772 Fray Juan Crisostomo Gil de Bernabe 
took charge of the Rancheria de Los Seris. From 
here the wily Seris lured him nearer to Seriland 
and finally accomplished their purpose. 
Bernabe disappeared one day, and it was 
found later that he had been stoned to death. 
It seemed impossible to crush this hydra head¬ 
ed race, and at least fifty wars with them and 
the Mexicans followed. In one as late as 1844 
the Mexican army and navy proceeded con¬ 
jointly against them, killed a number, burnt 
their balsas and jackals and captured the entire 
tribe. Some authorities express the belief that 
the Mexicans made the mistake here of not 
shooting them down—men, women and children 
—like rats. Instead of this three hundred and 
eighty-four were marched overland to Hermo¬ 
sillo and for the first time in a thousand years 
at least Tiburon was safe to those who wished 
to land. As the troops approached the city with 
the Seris, a scene was enacted similar to that 
when the Yaquis were rounded up at Guaymas 
last year. The entire populace turned out. Hun¬ 
dreds of Mexicans came into town to kill a few 
in revenge for the loss or “disappearance” of 
friends, bells were rung, and the beautiful city 
was given over to a fiesta in honor of the end¬ 
ing of a two century war with the Seris. The 
children were distributed about the city in Mexi¬ 
can families, the men and women placed in the 
jail of the Pueblo Seri. 
All went well for a few weeks, then they 
were set to work gathering fuel and before the 
authorities knew it they had rounded up their 
children and were retreating to Tiburon down 
the Rio Sonora murdering everyone they met on 
the way. The authorities were now in despair 
again, as the country about the city was in a 
panic and in danger of their raids. Cavalry 
troops were sent against them, and a few Seris 
brought in, and from that time until to-day their 
number has gradually decreased. But they have 
in no sense lost their savage nature and during 
the last half century there have been many dis¬ 
appearances on and about Tiburon. In a word, 
the resentment these people have always had 
against all other people has not abated. They 
do not make such exhaustive raids, and do not 
kill so many people as of yore, merely because 
their own numbers have been decimated. 
A modern German writer, Pajeken thus de¬ 
scribed the Seris as he found them: 
“The state could not restrain these Indians or 
prevent their murders. The Seris appear not to 
grasp the idea that they are human. Like beasts 
of prey of the wilderness they go out to slay 
men and animals. They slay to satisfy a lust 
for slaughter.” 
That their methods were those of hyenas is 
well illustrated by the experience of Don Pas- 
qual on the Encinas ranch on the borders of 
Seriland where a band of Seri squaws killed 
one of his horses by breaking its neck, sucked 
its blood, gorged its intestines and buried other 
parts that they might “ripen” for a feast. Don 
Pasqual declared war against them in i860; a 
Seri head was taken for every horse or steer 
they killed and it soon became a war to the 
death. His vaqueros were ambushed, his horse 
was shot but not before he had laid out over 
seventy of the “demons of Seri.” So terrible 
was the warfare Don Pasqual Encinas carried 
on against them, that they sued for peace to 
save themselves from extermination and the old 
Spaniard who had made a most commendable 
philanthropic effort to civilize them, consented 
to call off his vaqueros and try them again, as 
he had many times before. 
Don Pasqual testified to the United States 
