MCGEE] THE SERI SKELETON Résumé of the Peculiarities of the Skeleton 147* The nerve and blood-vessel foramina are generally large. This character and the platycnemic tibiæ indicate an ample musculature of the subject. The height is above the general average for a woman, which, according to Topinard, is 1.53. The petro-basilar fissures are large and visibly pervious. This condition is found occasionally; significance doubtful; it is more frequent in young subjects. Platyenemic tibia-This is considered a simian character. It was found first by Broca in 1868 on bones from Eyzies; it is associated with relative strength of the muscles of the leg; is very frequent among the characters found on bones from the epoch of polished stone in Europe. J. Wyman found this character more accentuated than at Cro-Magnon or at Gibraltar on a third of the tibias from the mounds of the United States.3 Perforated humerus-Noticed first by Desmoulins, 1826, on the humeri of Guanches and Hottentots;' occurs with greatest frequency in the following peoples: 156 neolithic humeri from around Paris.. 97 humeri of African negroes.. 122 humeri of Guanches. Per cent. 21.8 21.7 25.6 80 humeri from the mounds of United States (J. Wyman).. 31.2 30 humeri of altaic and American races.. 34.3 36.2 Summarily, Dr Hrdlička's special determinations conform with the external observations on the Seri body; they indicate an exceptionally large stature, together with a notably well-developed and well-propor tioned osseous framework, of the native American type, yet significantly approaching the Caucasian in several respects. It is especially noteworthy that the cranium is well formed and capacious, the precise measurements corroborating the external observation that the Seri head is of good absolute size, though relatively smaller (in comparison with height and weight) than that of some neighboring tribes of less stature-e. g., the Papago. It may be noted, too, that the imperfect ankylosis of the epiphyses, and various other skeletal features, are in accord with the inferences from the living body as to the slowness of attaining maturity. It may be noted further that the extraordinary development of the muscular attachments, especially in the masculine cranium, is quite in harmony with the habits of the tribe. The remaining somatic characteristics of the Seri are for the greater part of such sort as to be described by generalities and negatives. In general they correspond with those of typical American tribesmen and other peoples; and they do not exhibit striking peculiarities in proportion or structure. In the opposability of the thumb, the nonopposability of the hallux, and the independence of fingers and toes, the Seri hands and feet are developed quite up to, if not somewhat beyond, the Hovelacque et Hervé, Précis d'Anthropologie, 1887, pp. 112, 2937. 3 Hovelacque et Hervé, op. cit., p. 113. 4 Histoire Naturelle des Races Humaines, 1826, p. 304. 5 Hovelacque et Hervé, op. cit., p. 291. Amerindian' average; the feet are set straight in walking, as befits the pedestrian habit; the arms are not elongated, and the thighs seem no longer in proportion to other elements of the stature than are those of the highest human types. In like manner the bodies are notably free from artificial deformation; the skulls are not flattened or otherwise distorted; there is no scarification, or even tattooing; neither ears nor lips are pierced for pendants or labrets; the teeth are not filed or drilled, though in some cases at least the first incisors of females are extracted; and while there are trustworthy records of the piercing of the nasal septum for the insertion of pendants, no examples were found at Costa Rica in 1894. The food habits and other customs of the tribe indicate, or at least suggest, more or less specialized and perhaps distinctive internal characters; but, without actual examination of the organs, these inferred characters demand little more than passing notice. On reviewing the more prominent somatic characters of the Seri, it is found that the greater number are either functional or presumptively correlated with function, and that only a few-chiefly stature and color-are simply structural; accordingly a comparison of the peculiar somatic features and the peculiar individual habits of the tribe would seem to be instructive in more than ordinary degree. The most striking trait of the Seri is the pedestrian habit. The warriors and women and children alike are habitual rovers; their jacales and even their largest rancherias are only temporary domiciles, evidently vacant oftener than occupied; the principal rancherias are separated by a hard day's journey or more; and none of the known rancherias or jacales of more persistent use are nearer than 4 to 10 miles from the fresh water by which their occupants are supplied. Probably the most persistently occupied rancherias of the last half century have been those located from time to time near Costa Rica, yet even these were seldom occupied by the same group for more than a fortnight or possibly a month, and were often vacated within a day or two after erection. Still more temporary camps intervene between jacales, and their sites may be seen in numbers in the neighborhood of the better-beaten paths, or along the shores, or even over the trackless spall-strewn plains; they may be merely trampled spots, sparsely strewn with oyster shells and large bones gnawed at the ends, usually in the lea of a shrub or rock; in places of small shrubbery or excep tionally abundant grass there may be two or three or perhaps half a dozen "forms" (suggesting the temporary resting places of rabbits), in which robust bodies nestled and shrugged themselves into the warm earth and under the meager vegetation. Rarely there are ashes and cinders hard by, to mark the site of a tiny fire, and more frequently battered and stained or greasy bowlders record their own use as meat The term Amerind (with the self-explanatory mutations Amerindian, Amerindize, etc.) has been established by the Anthropological Society of Washington as a convenient collective designation for the aboriginal American tribes (American Anthropologist, new series, vol. 1, 1899, p. 582). MCGEE] THE PEDESTRIAN HABIT 149* blocks or metates, though it is manifest that most of the camps were fireless and many foodless. It is particularly noteworthy that even the more temporary resting-places are seldom if ever less than a mile or two from the nearest fresh water. In short, the Seri are not a domiciliary folk, but rather homeless wanderers, customarily roving from place to place, frequently if not commonly sleeping where overtaken by exhaustion or storm, ordinarily slumbering through a part of the day and watching by night, habitually avoiding fresh waters save in hurried and stealthy visits, and apparently gathering in their flimsy huts only on special occasions. In conformity with their rovingness the Seri are notable burdenbearers. They habitually carry their entire stock of personal belongings (arms, implements, utensils, and bedding), as well as their stock of food and-weightiest burden of all-the water requisite for prolonged sustenance amid scorching deserts, in all their wanderings, the water being borne chiefly by women, in ollas, either balanced on the head singly or slung in pairs on rude yokes like those of Chinese coolies. And they have never grasped the idea of imposing their burdens on their bestial associates; their coyote-curs are not harnessed or even led; when they surround and capture horses, burros, and kine they make no use of ropes, never think of mounting even when pursued by vaqueros, but immediately break the necks or club out the brains of the beasts, perchance to tear the writhing body into quarters and flee for their lives with the reeking flesh still quivering on their sturdy heads and brawny shoulders-and scores of vaqueros agree in the affirmation (wholly incredible as it would be if supported by fewer witnesses) that even when so burdened the Seri skim the sand wastes of Desierto Encinas more rapidly than avenging horsemen can follow. The hardly conceivable fleetness of the Seri is conformable with their habitual rovingness and their ability as burden-bearers; and this faculty is established by cumulative evidence so voluminous and consistent as to outweigh the presumption arising from the standards attained among other peoples. A few minutes after they were photographed, the group of boys shown in plate XVI, with several others of about the same size, provided themselves with a stock of their favorite human-hair cords, "rounded up" a dozen mongrel coyote-dogs haunting the rancheria at Costa Rica, and herded the unwilling animals toward a shrubbery-free space a quarter of a mile away, in order to rope them in imitation of the work of the Mexican cowboys earlier in the morning. From time to time as they went a frightened cur sneaked or broke through the cordon of boys, and made for distant shrub-tufts at top speed; yet in every case a boy darted from the ring, headed off the animal within one or two hundred yards, and lashed it back to its place. On arriving at their miniature rodeo the boys widened their ring, and at a signal scattered and frightened the dogs; then, when the fleeing animals had a fair start, each selected his victim and fol lowed it, yelling and swinging his light lasso, until, after much doubling and dodging and many unsuccessful casts, he caught and dragged the howling beast back to the open; and it was only after half a dozen repetitions that enough dogs had escaped to spoil the sport. As the boys lounged chattering back toward the rancheria their course lay between two clumps of the usual desert shrubbery, so placed that when the first was obliquely left and 40 or 50 feet distant from them, the other was obliquely right and 100 feet away. At this point a bevy of small birds (perhaps black birds-at any rate corresponding to blackbirds in size and flight) fluttered suddenly out of the nearer clump toward the more distant one, when, too instantaneously for the untrained eye to catch exchange of signal or beginning of movement, the boys lunged forward in a common effort to seize the birds; and though none were entirely successful, one exultantly displayed a tuft of feathers clutched by his fingers as the bird darted into and through the thorny harbor. When the distances were paced it was found that, although the birds had the advantage of the start, the boys covered at least 90 per cent of their distance in the same time; while the spontaneity of the impulse demonstrated habitual chase of flying game under fit conditions. While obtaining the Seri vocabulary with Mashém's aid, advantage was taken of every opportunity to secure collateral information concerning the actual use of the terms, and thereby of gaining insight into the tribal habits. Through his naive explanations, usually repeated and corroborated by the elderwoman of the Turtle clan (Juana Maria) and others of the tribe, it was learned that half-grown Seri boys are fond of hunting hares (jack-rabbits); that they usually go out for this purpose in threes or fours; that when a hare is started they scatter, one following it slowly while the others set off obliquely in such manner as to head it off and keep it in a zigzag or doubling course until it tires; and that they then close in and take the animal in their hands, frequently bringing it in alive to show that it was fairly caught-for it is deemed discreditable, if not actually wrong, to take game animals without giving them opportunity for escape or defense by exercise of their natural powers. Similarly, Mashém described the chase of the bura and other deer as ordinarily conducted by five persons (of whom one or two may be youths), who scatter at sight of the quarry, gradually surround it, bewilder it by confronting it at all points, and finally close in either to seize it with their hands, or perhaps to brain it with a stone or short club; the former being held the proper way and the latter a partial failure. This hunting custom, described as a commonplace by Mashém, is established by the vaqueros who had frequently witnessed it from a distance; and the same extra-tribal observers described still more striking feats of individual Seri hunters: Don Manuel, son of Señor Encinas, and Don Ygnacio Lozania were endeavoring to train to work a robust Seri (one of a band sojourning temporarily at Costa |