Seri people

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Seri

Comcaac
Chapito, a Seri shaman from Punta Chueca, Sonora
Total population
~1,000 (2006)[1]
Regions with significant populations
Mexico Sonora
Languages
Seri • Spanish
Religion
Traditionally animists, currently primarily Christian

The Seri or Comcaac are an indigenous group of the Mexican state of Sonora. The majority reside on the Seri communal property (Spanish, ejido), in the towns of Punta Chueca (Seri: Socaaix) and El Desemboque (Seri: Haxöl Iihom) on the mainland coast of the Gulf of California. Tiburón Island (Tahejöc) and San Esteban Island (Cofteecöl and sometimes Hast) were also part of their traditional territory. They maintain an intimate relationship with both the sea and the land. They are one of the ethnic groups of Mexico that has most strongly maintained their language and culture throughout the years after contact with Spanish and Mexican cultures.

The Seri people are not related culturally or linguistically to other groups that have lived in the area, such as the Opata, Yaqui (sg.: Yequim, pl.: Yectz), O'odham (sg.: Hapaay), or Cochimí. The Seri language is distinct from all others in the region and is considered a language isolate.^[2]

Beside the Apache (sg.: Hapats, pl.: Hapatsoj) and Yaqui, the Seri are best known as fierce warriors for their resistance against subjugation by the Spanish (sg.: Casopin) and later Mexicans (sg./pl.: Cocsar). The Seri had been living on the coast of Sonora with little outside interference for centuries, if not millennia. ^[3] But with colonization, they were displaced from their land and forced to work for others and adopt Christianity. Scholars write about a slaving raid in 1660s: "A posse of Spaniards had cut a swath through the Seri lands, killing most of the adults of one band and distributing the children in the Spanish towns of Sonora."^[4]

The name Seri is an exonym of uncertain origin. (Claims that it is from Opata or from Yaqui were nineteenth-century speculations based on similarity to words in those languages and not with clear evidence.)^[2] Their name for themselves is Comcaac (phonemically /kom'kɑːk/, phonetically [koŋˈkɑːk]); singular: Cmiique (phonemically /'kmiːkɛ/), phonetically [ˈkw̃ĩːkːɛ]).^[5]

Bands[]

Seri woman's dress on display at the Museo de Arte Popular, Mexico City

Seri basket made from the haat plant (Jatropha cuneata)

The Seri were formerly divided into six bands. They were:

• Xiica hai iicp coii or Xica hai iic coii ("those who live toward the north wind"), also known as Tepocas or Saliñeros, who inhabited a large area to the north of the other bands, along the coast between Puerto Lobos and Punta Tepopa and somewhat inland, constituting six subgroups with following camps: Zaah Hacáila, Pailc Haacöt, Xpano Hax, Haasíxp, Haxöl Ihom, Xapoyáh.
• Xiica xnaai iicp coii or Xica xnai iic coii ("those that are to the south", "those who lived toward the south wind"), also known as Tastioteños who inhabited the coast from Bahía Kino to Guaymas.
• Tahejöc comcaac or Tahéjöc comcáac ("Tiburón Island people"). The Spanish named the island Tiburón (Shark). Scholars and locals use the term Tahejöc, but with the centuries it lost its true etymology.^[6] They are also known as the Seris or Tiburones who inhabited the coasts of Tiburón Island, and the coast of Mexico opposite it, north of the Xiica xnaai iicp coii., constituting five subgroups with following camps: Hajháx, Cyazim, Sacpátix, Haanc, Hatquísa, Taij It, Inóohcö Quixaz, Xniizc, Tacáta, Heeme, Hast Hax, Soosni Itáaai, Xoxáacöl, Caail iti ctamcö, Hax Ipac.
  • Xoxáacöl (group of people within the Tiburon Island people group)
• Heeno comcaac or Heno comcáac ("desert people"), who inhabited the central valley of Tiburón Island.
• Xnaamotat or Xnaa motat ("those that came from the south"), also known as Upanguaymas or Guaymas, who inhabited a small strip south of Guaymas between the Xiica hai iic coii and the Tahejöc comcaac.
• Xiica hast ano coii or Xica hast ano coii ("those that are in San Esteban Island"), hast ano ctam (male), hast ano cmaam (female)), who inhabited San Esteban Island and the southern coast of Tiburón Island.

Three of the bands were further subdivided. Relations between bands were not always friendly, and internal conflict sometimes occurred.

Some bands were also living on the Baja California Peninsula (Hant Ihiin), they were called Hant Ihiini comcaac.^[7]

It has been said that these groups spoke three distinct but mutually intelligible dialects. It is thought that the first dialect was spoken by the Xiica hai iic coii, Xiica xnaai iic coii, Tahejöc comcaac and Heeno comcaac Bands and presently this variant is the only dialect spoken and is the ancestor of modern-day Seri. The second dialect was spoken by the Xnaamotat Band, but it is currently extinct and there was very little data collected regarding this dialect. The third dialect is also extinct and was spoken by the Xiica hast ano coii Band; it was described as sounding musical, as if speakers were singing instead of speaking (Moser 1963). Speakers sometimes make remarks regarding certain expressions being characteristic of particular Bands, especially of the Xiica hast ano coii Band. These communication differences were thought to have kept the groups from having much social interaction with each other.^[8]

After the Seri population was greatly reduced by conflicts with the Mexican government and the O'odham, and epidemics of smallpox and measles, the remaining Seris grouped together and the band divisions were lost.

Ethnonym[]

Mashem, a Seri interpreter. Picture from a 1895 report from the Bureau of American Ethnology

The autoethnonym of the Seri people, Comcaac, was first recorded by United States Boundary Commissioner John Russell Bartlett, who was in the area for a short visit in early 1852.^[9] The word was included in the list of approximately 180 words that Bartlett archived in the Bureau of American Ethnology (now part of the National Anthropological Archive, housed at the Smithsonian). He recorded the word as "komkak", which reflected the pronunciation of the word at that time (although he missed the vowel length and did not indicate stress). Other word lists, obtained by other people during the last half of the nineteenth century, confirm that pronunciation. The phonetic rule by which the consonant /m/ is pronounced as a velar nasal in this context (after an unstressed vowel and preceding a velar consonant) may not have come about until sometime in the early twentieth century or researchers may have encountered slow-speech deliberate pronunciations for which the assimilation was held in abeyance. The singular form, Cmiique, was first recorded by French explorer and philologist Alphonse Pinart in 1879.^[10] He recorded the word as "kmike", which must have reflected the pronunciation of the word at that time (although he also missed the vowel length). The phonetic rule by which the consonant /m/ is pronounced as a nasalized velar approximant in this context (after a velar stop) may not have come about until sometime in the mid twentieth century.

In media[]

• A 1940 documentary film, part of John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series, recorded scenes from the life of the Seri on Tiburón Island, under the title "Utopia of Death." It uses film from the Harold Austin expedition, claiming that this was the first motion picture footage of the tribe.[1]
• The ethnologist and writer Francisco Rojas González published his novel Lola Casanova in 1947. Based on this work, the film director Matilde Landeta shot in 1948 the homonymous film. The argument is about the fact that at the end of the 19th century, the protagonist Lola and her companions are assaulted on a road by a band of Seris Indians commanded by the chief Coyote Iguana. The young woman, a descendant of Catalans, is the only survivor of the attack; she remains in the care of the women of the tribe, and she will spend the rest of her life in that community in the Sonoran Desert. The character did exist in real life.
• The Seri figure in the plot of the Louis L'Amour novel Catlow (1963), made into a (1971) movie by the same name.
• A Seri family is featured in the final episode of La fuerza del destino (TV series) (2011).
• The Seri people are mentioned in the novel “The Savage Detectives” by Roberto Bolaño on page 621. They are seen as a group of fishermen in the back of a pickup truck singing their song.

Curiosity[]

The Seri are the only people known to have harvested the maritime Zostera marina grass species for its grain, before its nutritional value was discovered in recent times.^[11]

Notes[]

Bibliography[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Seri people.

• Essay by Edward W. Moser, The Seris
• A study of Seri place names
• The Seri Indians of Sonora Mexico
• Lengamer site
• Bibliography of Seri language and culture