490 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 25, 1909. 
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for we were about to leave the desert and would 
only be encumbered with the stuff. They re¬ 
ceived it with profuse thanks. One of the men 
spoke Spanish well. He told Sonora that his 
little party had come out from the river to kill 
bighorn and deer and take back a lot of the 
dried meat. 
In the evening we had a visit with them which 
was very interesting to me. I told Sonora to 
ask if they knew the Seri Indians, the said-to-be 
cannibals of the gulf coast and islands. 
“Yes, we know them,” the good Spanish 
talker replied, and he proceeded to tell us about 
them, Sonora interpreting with aggravating 
slowness, I thought. 
“We have several names for them: People 
Eaters; Rush Boat People; People of the Sea; 
People who eat every thing. Yes, they do eat 
everything. They eat men, women and children; 
all kinds of game; everything that lives in the 
sea; also dogs, burros, snakes—they eat anything 
that walks, crawls, flies and swims. They live 
mostly on Tiburon Island. When they wish to 
they make a kind of a raft boat of rushes and 
come ashore whether there is a storm or not. 
We are not much afraid of them, for they have 
but a few guns and not often any powder. A 
hundred of them would not think of making an 
open attack on us few camped here. What they 
do is to sneak on one like the mountain lion 
does on a deer. But they do not make the 
spring, the rush. They shoot from behind with 
arrows. Of these they have two kinds—some 
just plain ones, others with such fearful poison 
on them that if one is only scratched by a point 
he swells up and quickly dies. That is why my 
people do not like to fight them; they are afraid 
of the poison. 
“Long ago, before the Spaniards came, the 
Cocopas found out that this tribe eats people. 
Down where the river flows into the sea a 
young man with his woman and their little child 
were hunting shells one day. Before long they 
got a basket full and went back into the shade 
of some trees to pick them over and keep the 
best. As they sat there at work and never look¬ 
ing around, some of the People of the Sea crept 
closer and closer, and then sprang upon them 
before the man could pick up his bow. They 
were made prisoners and their captors herded 
them down the shore of the sea as though they 
were burros. At last they came to some rush 
raft boats drawn upon the sand arid they were 
forced to help drag them into the water, and 
then to get on them, even to take extra paddles 
and use them as well as they could. All that 
day they paddled on and on over the sea, and 
it was after dark when they came to the big 
island they had headed for all the time. 
“There was a camp close to the shore. Fires 
were burning and they were led into the light 
of them, many people crowding around to look 
at the strangers, and as they looked they talked 
and laughed, many feeling of their arms and 
legs, or poking them in the ribs. Then, while 
some seized and held the man and woman otjiers 
snatched their child, stripped off its dress and 
cut its throat with a long stone knife. The 
Cocopa father tried to save it, but he could not 
break loose from the many hands that held him. 
The mother shrieked and shrieked, but not for 
long. No sooner was the child dead than those 
who killed it turned and seized her, pulled off 
her dress and cut her throat. Then the man 
could no longer stand. He fell to the ground 
and knew nothing for a long time. 
“When he came to life he was tied hands and 
feet with a grass rope and was lying on the 
ground. Around the fire in front of him the 
people were roasting meat; the meat of his 
woman and child. Pie knew that this was so, 
for the heads were stuck on long poles and were 
cooking over the hottest part of the fire. As 
the outside meat got brown and hard the people 
kept eating it, and so the feast lasted a long 
time. When they had finished they talked but 
little and soon not at all. Some went one way 
and some another to sleep. Two men came and 
stood over the Yuma. He shut his eyes, think¬ 
ing that they were going to kill him. But no. 
They had eaten enough. They felt of the ropes 
that held him and went away. 
“As soon as the fire went out the man tried 
to free his hands and in a little while he did so. 
•Then he untied the rope around his ankles and 
little by little crawled away from the place and 
back to the shore. Here were many of the 
strange raft boats. He could not see well, but 
he could feel of them, and choosing a small one 
he dragged it toward the water. Then he 
thought of a good plan. He dragged one after 
another of them out into the surf, and one by 
one the wind and the tide took them away. Last 
he dragged out the small one he had chosen, 
got on it and also drifted away. The wind was 
blowing hard from the south and the waves were 
big. Sometimes they fell over on to the man, 
but he held fast and would not let them tear 
him from the raft boat. When morning came 
he could see the island far off; it was too far 
away for him to see the people on it. All day 
he drifted on and on. 
“All day he watched the sea, fearing to see 
some of them coming in new raft boats to take 
him back and make roasts of his flesh, but none 
came. He was nearly crazy from thirst and 
hungry, too. Night came again; his paddle was 
gone; all he could do was to hang on and pray; 
he was getting very weak, but just when he 
thought that he would have to let go and drown, 
the big waves began to roar, and then they picked 
him up and threw him on the sands. Morning 
came; he was close to the mouth of the great 
river. He found a few clams and ate them, went 
on up the river and drank, and then home to 
tell what had happened to his woman and child 
and to mourn for them. At first the people 
could hardly believe that he spoke the truth. 
Then they did believe and nearly all of the men 
got ready and went away down the seashore to 
watch for the coming of the People Eaters. 
They watched a long time. At last there came 
thirty of them on their raft boats, and the Yumas 
killed them all; not one got back to tell his 
people what had happened.” 
I thought this so interesting that I told Sonora 
to ask for more tales of the cannibals, and pres¬ 
ently, after a couple of cigarettes had been con¬ 
sumed, we did get one. It will be noticed that 
in writing them I have somewhat smoothed 
over Sonora’s characteristic English. Good- 
Spanish-talker continued: 
“After that first eating of our people the 
Cocopas killed all of the People of the Sea they 
could. And often some of them died, too, for 
no medicine can cure one wounded by their 
poisoned arrows. Once in a big fight that took 
place a Cocopa chief captured a young woman 
who was very handsome. ‘I will keep her,’ he 
said. ‘She shall help my mother, who is getting 
old. My women have so many children that they 
can’t do much besides taking care of them. Yes, 
I will keep this People Eater; she will be an¬ 
other woman for me and she shall work for us 
all.’ 
“So he kept her. She was a good worker, 
always ready to do anything she was asked. At 
first the chief had her watched, thinking that 
she would try to go back to her people; but no, 
she was happy enough and never once tried to 
escape, and so after a time no one paid any at¬ 
tention to her and she went about the camp as 
she pleased. 
“One evening a poor widow woman missed her 
little daughter, a child four or five years old. 
She thought that it had been playing all day with 
her sister’s little children at the other end of 
camp, but when night came and she went up 
there she was told that it had not been there 
that day. No one in the camp remembered to 
have seen it. For two or three days people: 
searched the river bottom and the desert back 
of it, and then they made up their minds that 
the child had fallen into the river and drowned. 
“Not long after that another child was missed 
and never found. Then another, and still an¬ 
other. After that the chiefs got together and 
had a talk. Said they: ‘If it were only one or 
two children that disappeared it would probably 
be that they had fallen in the river or wandered 
away and died for want of food and water. 
But too many have vanished in these summer 
moons for that to be the way of it. They are 
being stolen by some enemy; the People Eaters 
must be getting them.’ 
“They talked a long time trying to plan the 
best thing to do, and then said a chief: ‘Our 
young men shall watch the camp. One day ten 
of them, the next day another ten, and so on. 
Before long some of them .will learn how the 
little ones go from us.’ 
“Everyone thought this a good plan and the 
watching began. One day a young man saw the 
People Eater woman of the Cocopa chief going 
up through camp with the little son of another 
of his w®men. At first he paid no attention to 
them, but after they had gone he began to think.. 
Maybe it was this woman who took the chil¬ 
dren; perhaps she got them away from camp 
and gave them to some of her people who were 
hiding nearby and waiting for her to bring them 
to her. Then he thought that she would not 
do such a bad thing. He was all mixed up, but 
at last, after long thinking, he made up his mind 
to follow her and see what she did. By that 
time she had been out of sight for some time. 
He started up through the timber and tried to 
find her trail. There were many trails and he 
could not tell which was hers. 
“It was such a big place to look for her in; 
so many long, wide groves of cottonwoods and 
thick, tall willow's. He wandered around a long 
time and could see nothing of her. Then he 
thought to climb a tall tree and have a look 
from its top. He did so and saw a little smoke 
rising from a willow covered island, and he 
knew at once that she had built it. It made him 
sick to think what she might be doing there. 
He descended the tree and ran to camp; ran so 
fast that when he got there he could hardly 
breathe. ‘Come quick! I think your People 
Eater woman is eating your son,’ he told the chief. 
