o murder everybody, white, red or Mexican, who ventures to
enter the territory they call their own."

In many respects the Seris are the most interesting tribe of savages in
North America. They are decidedly more primitive in their way than any
other Indians, having scarcely any arts worth mentioning. In fact, they
have not yet advanced as far as the stone age. The only stone implement
in common use among them is a rude hammer of that material, which they
employ for beating clay to make a fragile and peculiar kind of pottery.
When one of the squaws wishes to make meal of mesquite beans, and she
has no utensil for the purpose, she looks about until she finds a rock
with an upper surface, conveniently hollow, and on this she places the
beans, pounding them with an ordinary stone.

The Seris live on the Island of Tiburon, in the Gulf of California. They
also claim 5,000 square miles of the mainland in Sonora. Their dwellings
are the rudest imaginable. A chance rock commonly serves for one wall of
the habitation; stones are piled up so as to make a small enclosure, and
the shell of a single great turtle does for a roof. The house is always
open on one side, and is not intended as a shelter from storms, but
chiefly to keep off the sun. The men and women wear a single garment
like a petticoat, made of pelican skin; the children are naked. Not far
from Tiburon, which is about thirty miles long by fifteen miles wide,
there is a smaller island where pelicans roost in vast numbers. The
Seris go at night and with sticks knock over as many birds as they
require.

These Indians are fond of carrion. It makes no difference to them
whether a horse has died a natural death a week or a month ago, they
devour the flesh greedily. The feet of the animal they boil until those
parts are tender enough to bite. The Seris are among the very dirtiest
of savages. Their habits in all respects are filthy. They seem to have
almost no amusements, though the children play with the very rudest
dolls. Before the whites came they used pieces of shells for cutting
instruments. They are accustomed to killing deer by running and
surrounding the animals. No traditions of sufficient interest to justify
recording in print appear to exist among these people. The most
interesting ornament seen on any member of the tribe was a necklace of
human hair, adorned with the rattles of rattlesnakes, which abound in
the territory infested with these remnants of all that