Senor Encinas was the pioneer in that region.  He found good grazing country in the territory claimed by the Seris, and so established his stock farm there.  He brought priests with him to convert the savages, and caught a couple of the latter to educate as interpreters.  The plan for civilizing the Indians proved a failure.  They did not care to become Christians, and they killed the Senor’s stock.  So, finally, the Senor decided to adopt a new course of procedure.  He summoned the Indians to a council, as many of them as would come, and informed them that from that time on he and his vaqueros would slay an Indian for every head of cattle that was killed.  At the same time he sent away the priests and engaged an additional number of vaqueros.

The Indians paid no attention to the warning, and a few days later they killed several head of cattle.  Without delay the Senor and his men coralled and killed a corresponding number of the Seris.  Then there was war.  The savages made ambushes, but they had only bows and arrows, and the vaqueros fought bravely with their guns.  Every ambush turned out disastrously for the Indians.  Finally, the Seris made a great ambush, and there was a battle which resulted in the killing of sixty-five savages.  The lesson proved sufficient, and the Indians were glad to conclude a permanent peace, agreeing that no further depredations against the Senor or his property should be attempted.  From beginning to end the fighting lasted ten years.

After the killing of the two Americans, the Seris were very much afraid of reprisals.  For a good while they did not dare to come to the ranch of Senor Encinas, but at length one old woman came for the philosophical purpose of seeing if she would be killed.  She was well treated and went away.  Eventually confidence was restored, and about sixty of the savages were visiting on the premises.

No other people in North America have so few conceptions of civilization as the Seris.  They have absolutely no agriculture.  As well as can be ascertained they never put a seed into the ground or cultivate a plant.  They live almost wholly on fish, water fowl, and such game as they kill on the main land.  The game includes large deer, like black tails, and exquisite species of dwarf deer, about the size of a three months’ fawn, pecarries, wild turkeys, prairie dogs, rabbits and quail.  They take very large green turtles in the Gulf of California.  Mesquite beans they eat both cooked and raw.  The mesquite is a small tree that bears seeds in pods.

The snake dance is another evidence of the comparative failure of civilization to civilize.  This is seen chiefly in the vicinity of the Grand Canon of the Colorado.  Venomous rattlesnakes are used in the dance, which is an annual affair.  Hundreds of snakes are caught for the occasion, and when the great day arrives the devotees rush into the corral and each seizes a rattler for his purpose.  Reliable authorities, who have witnessed this dance, vouch