Seri people

“ I have asked about their [Pg 193] happiness, and they have told me, ‘In this region there is no one to hurt or to destroy:—we do not teach every man his neighbour, for from the least to the greatest we all know God.’ Such have been my revelations; and I have been called, and chosen by name, to join that sacred band, which is to awaken a slumbering and captive people, and lead them forward to prepare the way for that monarchy of truth and universal love which is even now about to descend and bless mankind. ”

“ In tracing these stages in technologic growth, it is to be remembered that the Seri are so primitive as to betray some of the very beginnings of activital concepts; that to them zoic potencies are the paramount powers of the cosmos; that in their simple thought fire is a bestial rather than a physical phenomenon; that in their naive philosophy the production of devouring flame is of a kind with vital birth and a similitude of sexual reproduction ”

“ So the observer of the Seri is impressed by the intensity of functioning along lines defined by their characteristic traits, and equally by the capriciousness of the functioning and the remarkably wide range between activity and inactivity which render them aggregations of extremes—the Seri are at once the swiftest and the laziest, the strongest and the most inert, the most warlike and the most docile of tribesmen ”

“ Physically and practically the Seri government is an adelphiarchy, as already indicated; but in the minds of the tribesmen themselves it is an inchoate theocracy putatively headed by a pantheon of animate monsters, whose prelates are personified in the painted clanmothers.
Summarily, then, the Seri are zoosematic in esthetic, zoomimic in technic, zootheistic in faith, and putatively zoocratic in government, while even the Seri tongue is so largely mimetic or onomatopoetic in form as to accord with the industries and institutions ”

“ The demotic characters of the Seri, like those of other peoples, may be classed as (1) esthetic, (2) industrial, (3) institutional, (4) linguistic, and (5) sophic; and in this order the essentially human attributes of the tribe (except the last named) may be described. It is a matter of deep regret that the data concerning the demotic characters of the tribe are too meager to afford more than a mere outline of their activities, and that their suggestive mythology must be passed over for the present. ”

“ Summarily, the Seri are characterized by noble physique, by peculiarly swift and lightsome movements, by great endurance coupled with capacity for vigorous action, by animal-like symmetry and slowness of maturation, and by various minor attributes combining with the major features to form a distinctive race-type; and they are still more conspicuously characterized by an acute race-sense which holds them apart from all aliens. ”

“ Solicitude for the common weal, although still felt by the great mass of the people, had among the rulers given place to extreme egoism, and that association and combination of interests, which since the dawn of organized society had characterized the gens, was rapidly giving way before the love of dominion, the thirst for power, and the greed of gain—characters which in process of time came to represent the mainspring of human action. ”

“ The Seri are distinguished by another trait hardly less striking than the pedestrian habit, and even more conspicuous than the tooth-and-nail habit with the correlative absence of tool-sense; the trait is not tangible enough for ready definition or description in terms (of course because so unusual as not to have bred words for its expression) , but is akin to—or, more properly, an exceeding intensification of—race-pride in all its protean manifestations; it may be called race-sense. ”

“ You cry out, he would say, we are a ruined, undone people. Why? he would ask, making use of the sorites or syllogism of Zeno and Chrysippus, without knowing it belonged to them.—Why? why are we a ruined people?—Because we are corrupted.—Whence is it, dear Sir, that we are corrupted?——Because we are needy;——our poverty, and not our wills, consent.——And wherefore, he would add, are we needy?—From the neglect, he would answer, of our pence and our halfpence:—Our bank notes, Sir, our guineas,—nay our shillings take care of themselves. ”

“ Seers, ancient, mediæval, and modern, alike, inform the world that the supernal country is peopled by all grades of persons from the low and brutal barbarian to the high and polished civilizee; which, if true, proves that intellectual power and capacity is not a passport thither, nor a perquisite of immortality; for there are myriads—not merely of people—but of armies of savage races, tribes, and nations dwelling in that starry land. ”

“ You are a reformer, a lover of truth—a hater of shams—and in the days when the people loved truth,—and wanted justice,—and fought for both, you would have been great! But greatness is nowadays judged as ‘madness’—truth as ‘want of tact’—desire for justice is ‘clamour for notoriety.’ Shame? There is no shame in anything, Sergius, but honesty! That is a disgrace to the century; for an honest man is always poor, and poverty is the worst of crimes.” He threw up his arms with a wild gesture,—“The worst of crimes! ”

“ The people, then,—mankind or the family,—have hitherto, as it seems, played history: no egoistic interest was to come up in these societies, but solely general ones, national or popular interests, class interests, family interests, and "general human interests." ”

“ The case, however, is not desperate, till we have formed our system of politics, as well as manners; till we have sold our freedom for titles, equipage, and distinctions; till we see no merit but prosperity and power, no disgrace but poverty and neglect. What charm of instruction can cure the mind that is stained with this disorder? What syren voice can awaken a desire of freedom, that is held to be meanness and a want of ambition? Or what persuasion can turn the grimace of politeness into real sentiments of humanity and candour? ”

“ There is a lamentable lack of data concerning the alleged anthropophagy of the Seri; on the one hand there is the deep-seated local opinion, generally growing stronger as the tribal territory is approached, and agreeing so well with the hunting customs, the thaumaturgic arrow-poisoning, the zoomimic handicraft, and zootheistic faith, and especially with the pervading fetish-piracy of the folk, that its validity would seem inherently probable ”

“ 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. ”

“ Custom, law, and all the paraphernalia of civilization, had set the division and marked the boundary between them,—had forbidden the lesser in world’s rank to speak to the greater, unless the greater began conversation,—had equally forbidden the greater to speak to the lesser lest such condescension should inflate the lesser’s vanity so much as to make him obnoxious to his fellows. ”

“ Society for you will become a great confederation to deprive you of self-complacency. And rightly. Will you not be a traitor to the cause? No, no, kind friend, for such I'll call you. Your opinion of me, too good and great as I feel it, touches me deeply. ”

“ When we have not a very fine sense the convention appears in a manner to have it on our behalf. And how frequent to-day, in the hurrying herd of brothers and sisters of the pen, is a fine sense—of any side of their affair? Do we not approach the truth in divining that only an eminent individual here and there may be trusted for it? Here—for the case is our very lesson—is this robust and wonderful Serao who is yet not to be trusted at all. ”

“ On the whole, it would appear that the Seri are not only lower in esthetic development than the contemporary tribes thus far studied, but also that they stand at the bottom of the scale in the ratio of esthetic to industrial motives. ”

“ The occasional emergence of an Equilateral from the ranks of his serf-born ancestors is welcomed, not only by the poor serfs themselves, as a gleam of light and hope shed upon the monotonous squalor of their existence, but also by the Aristocracy at large; for all the higher classes are well aware that these rare phenomena, while they do little or nothing to vulgarize their own privileges, serve as almost useful barrier against revolution from below. ”

“ Immediately and always, at this point, there arises an intermediate figure or group, the sophisticated “advocates of the people,” “tribunes of the people,{83}” individuals less powerful than the giants, though shrewder than the pygmies, their employers, many of whom are sincere enough in their conviction of unselfishness; others self-seekers and charlatans purely, yet each and every one crying that he will deliver the mass from its bondage, and actually attempting, or pretending, to adjust the impossible demands of the people with the almost impossible individualism of the egoist. ”

“ Besides, the community exacted it as a paramount duty. It is human to be attached to whatever it protects and controls; out of this feeling grows the spirit of true chivalry and of lofty intent—that magnanimity, manliness, and ennobling pride which has so long characterized the gentlemen of the Southern States.
Caste, in society, may degrade, but, at the same time, it elevates. ”

“ He was, thank God, incapable now of reason or justice or sanity—unconscious of himself and his position, oblivious of an enemy point of view. Just English for all he was worth. One man for one land. A patriot ... and—in it!... He forgot that he was alone; the rending chaos all about him gave him the illusion of being a central participant; so his solitary figure jigged and capered on the flat sea-wall with incoherent vocal splutter of encouragement and fury and a very delirium of pleasure. ”

“ There are not merely differences, peculiarities, varying gifts, but higher and lower among men—some should rule, others be ruled. Every elevation of the human type has been hitherto the work of an aristocracy, and so it will always be—that is, of a society that believes in a long scale of gradations of rank and differences of value among human beings and has need of slavery in some form or other. [2] The idea of a Rangordnung is a general one,* and in the social realm has only a particular application. ”

“ A king in Zarathustra says that he would rather live among hermits and goat-herds than with our gilded, false, painted populace (Pöbel) , though it call itself "good society," or "nobility"—healthy, hard-necked peasants are better. [12] "Populace below, populace above! what is today 'poor' and 'rich'?" ”

“ He supposed the existence of a middle class of serious moral habits, imbued with the feelings of its own dignity, and having the energy necessary to govern the country without recourse to the old traditional bureaucracy. To those men, who held riches and power in their hands, he professed to teach their social duty towards their subjects. ”

“ Society! I seemed to see old Strauss with his puffy, ashen face, and his broad hands that hooked in the dollars, dirty or clean, and Vitzer, who kept our honorable council on his pay-roll for convenience, and the man who had been with Lou Pierson that night, and many others. Were they better men before the eyes of God these eight misguided fools whom we were about to punish? Who did the most harm to society, they or that pale-faced Fielden, who might have been a saint instead of an anarchist?... ”

“ In the one case we recognise the man, born into the equal relations of an aristocratic Republic, who knows of no social superior in the world, and is attracted to him whom he honours by his dedication solely by the charm of friendship. In the other case, though the affection may not be less sincere, there is the unmistakeable note of deference to a social superior. ”

“ The gods must seat themselves without seneschal in our Olympus, and as they can instal themselves by seniority divine. Society is spoiled if pains are taken, if the associates are brought a mile to meet. And if it be not society, it is a mischievous, low, degrading jangle, though made up of the best. ”

“ As already noted, the Seri seem to be practically devoid of knife-sense; they are still more completely devoid of fort-sense, although (and evidently because) they rely so fully on natural things, including tutelaries and their own fleetness, for safety.
Although devoid of even the germ of fortification-sense, so far as can be discovered, the Seri are not without a sort of shield-sense, which is of much significance partly by reason of its inchoate character. ”

“ It is necessary to distinguish between what upholds a group, and what advances the species, raises the type. [34] The social virtues—mutual consideration and friendliness, respect for authority, reverence for law and custom—strengthen and solidify an existing group, but they do not change its character; and if there is to be change, either the group must be refashioned, or the new type be reached through its disintegration or destruction. ”

“ Thus in all extensive and highly civilized societies groups come into existence founded upon what is called sympathy, and shut out the real world more sharply than the gates of a monastery. There is nothing really narrow about the clan; the thing which is really narrow is the clique. ”