One of the first foreign visitors to follow Baron Humboldt in systematic inquiries concerning the aborigines of northwestern Mexico was Henri Ternaux-Compans; his information, too, was secondhand and remote, yet he correctly recognized Isla Tiburon as “inhabited by the Seris, who have some huts also on the mainland”.[170]
[170] Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, tome iii, 1842, p. 320 (cited by Buschmann, Die Spuren der aztekischen Sprache im nördlichen Mexico und höheren amerikanischen Norden, in Abhandlungen der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, aus dem Jahre 1854, zweiter Supplement, Band; Berlin, 1859, p. 219).
Later came Eduard Mühlenpfordt, an attaché of a German commercial company and later a Mexican state official, who traveled extensively and wrote partly at first hand, though there is little indication of personal acquaintance with Seriland or the Seri: he described “Bahia de San Juan Bautista”, with “the small island San Augustin” lying before it (in such manner as to identify this islet with Isla Tassne), and located “the large island Tiburon farther northward, opposite a mountainous coast”.[171] He added:
[171] Versuch einer getreuen Schilderung der Republik Mejico besonders in Beziehung auf Geographie, Ethnographie, und Statistik: Hannover, 1844, Band I, p. 441; Band II, p. 415.
The waterless but cattle-stocked plains between the place Pitic and the coast, and thence up to the river Ascension, are inhabited by a meager remnant of the Seri tribe, while on Tiburon island, opposite this coast, the Tiburones dwell. The Seris were formerly very numerous, by far the fiercest of all the Indian tribes of northern Mexico, and very warlike. Through ceaseless war with the Tiburones and the troops from the Spanish presidios they are now nearly extinct.[172]
Elsewhere the Tiburones were characterized as enemies of the Seri,[173] while the “Heris” tribe was enumerated as a branch of the “Pimas Bajas” people. Herr Mühlenpfordt’s characterization of the Seri and the Tiburon islanders as enemies would appear to be groundless, yet not wholly incomprehensible; in the first place, the earlier literature indicates that the term Seri (Seris, Ceris, Heris, etc.) was an alien designation of lax application,[174] doubtless extended occasionally or habitually to marauding nomads, regardless of affinity; again there is conclusive evidence that in many instances Seri convert-captives attached to the missions and pueblos were often regarded as tribal apostates and outlaws whose lives were forfeit; and, moreover, the region in which Herr Mühlenpfordt gained his information was and still is one of abounding tale, whose frequent exaggeration and not infrequent invention conceal and distort the simple facts.