_Estimated annual dietary of the Seri tribe_
Constituents Per Quantity Units cent Aggregate Apiece Aggregate Apiece
_Pounds_ _Pounds_ Turtles 25 75,000 250 750 2½ Pelicans 5 15,000 50 1,200 4 Other water-fowl and eggs 8 24,000 80 Fish 15 45,000 150 Shellfish (except turtles) 10 30,000 100 Large land game 7 21,000 70 200 ⅔ Other land game 8 24,000 80 Stock 6 18,000 60 40 2/15 Tunas 9 27,000 90 216,000 720 Other vegetals 5 15,000 50 Miscellaneous 2 6,000 20 Total 100 300,000 1,000
Of course the constituents vary with temporary conditions; during “The Time of the Big Fish”, practically all other sources of food were neglected until the providential supply was exhausted; during the decades of main subsistence on stolen stock it is probable that the consumption of other constituents, perhaps excepting the tunas, was proportionately reduced; and it is not improbable that during the warfare between Seri and Tepoka, described by Hardy, the consumption of turtles was materially diminished. Judging from the direct and indirect data and from general analogies, the least variable constituent is the cactus fruit, which probably fails but rarely and is so easily harvested as practically to supplant all other supplies during its season of a month or more. At the best, too, the quantitative estimates are nothing more than necessarily arbitrary approximations, based on incomplete inquiries and observations;[285] yet they are better than no estimates at all, and appear to form a fairly trustworthy basis for consideration of the Seri food habits.
[285] About 200 turtle-shells were noticed about the rancherias at Punta Tormenta and Rada Ballena alone in 1895, all being less than two years old, as judged from the degree of weathering.
On reviewing the constituents it would appear that the Seri must be regarded as essentially a maritime people, in that about two-thirds of their food is derived from the sea; also that they must be deemed essentially carnivorous, since fully five-sixths of their diet (84 per cent plus a share of the miscellaneous—chiefly scatophagous—category) is animal. The tabulation does not show the relative proportions of the several constituents cooked and eaten raw, but the best available data indicate that fully three-fourths of the ordinary dietary, both animal and vegetal, is ingested in raw condition, and that the greater part of the remaining fourth is imperfectly cooked.