Four years ago (2014) I was invited by Seri (Comcaac) friends in the fishing village of Punta Chueca, Sonora, Mexico, to join them in celebrating a collection of ancestral sculptural art, small fired clay statuettes called ziix coosyat yacaam. I was shown about two dozen pinched-headed figurines 2 to 7 inches in length. They were arranged in a circle on a bed of sand inside a sea turtle shell. Most of the figurines had short rounded bodies with breasts, buttocks, and stubby legs. These resembled human females. A fewer number of larger figurines were more abstract, mantaray-like with triangular tops that tapered into long stems. I was told the figurines were discovered on Tiburón Island, that the Giants of yore, huge human-like beings, were the first to create these clay objects. The Giants blew life into the figurines to make them their slaves. Seris I talked to couldn’t say why their ancestors also made these mysterious clay figurines. No one had any idea about the age of the figurines. It appeared that Fate had determined I should be a sleuth. How could I not attend the celebration? How could I not investigate these enigmatic clay figurines? During the Punta Chueca fiesta, I handled and photographed a few of the little sculptures. I discussed them with several Seris, and a plan to research Seri figurines began to form in my mind. Back home in Tucson, I ruminated on the work of the handful of scholars who had published articles about Seri figurines. The last such article came out 50 years ago, so it seemed about time to re-assess the Seri figurine tradition. Continuing my inquiries, I uncovered a motherlode of unpublished material on Seri figurines in the archives of the University of Arizona Special Collections Library. The path of figurine clues I followed began to unfold like a detective mystery, one piece of the puzzle adding to another. The investigators who had studied Seri figurines established three

中文翻译：

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侦探斯里小雕像：Ziix Coosyat Yacaam

四年前（2014 年），我受墨西哥索诺拉州蓬塔丘埃卡渔村的 Seri (Comcaac) 朋友的邀请，与他们一起庆祝祖先雕塑艺术收藏品，小型烧制粘土小雕像，称为 ziix coosyat yacaam。我看到了大约两打 2 到 7 英寸长的捏头小雕像。它们在海龟壳内的沙床上排成一个圆圈。大多数小雕像都有短而圆的身体，有乳房、臀部和粗短的腿。这些类似于人类女性。较少数量的大型雕像更抽象，类似蝠鲼，三角形顶部逐渐变细成长茎。有人告诉我，这些小雕像是在 Tiburón 岛上发现的，昔日的巨人，巨大的类人生物，是第一个创造这些粘土物体的人。巨人为这些雕像注入了生命，使它们成为他们的奴隶。与我交谈过的塞里斯说不出为什么他们的祖先还制作了这些神秘的泥人。没有人知道这些雕像的年龄。看来命运注定我应该是个侦探。我怎么能不参加庆典呢？我怎么能不调查这些神秘的泥人呢？在 Punta Chueca 嘉年华期间，我处理并拍摄了一些小雕塑。我和几个 Seris 讨论了它们，一个研究 Seri 小雕像的计划开始在我的脑海中形成。回到图森的家中，我沉思了几位发表了关于斯里小雕像的文章的学者的工作。上一篇此类文章发表于 50 年前，因此似乎是时候重新评估丝丽雕像传统了。继续我的询问，我在亚利桑那大学特别收藏图书馆的档案中发现了大量未发表的关于 Seri 小雕像的材料。我所遵循的小雕像线索的路径开始像侦探之谜一样展开，一个谜题加在另一个谜题上。研究斯里小雕像的调查人员建立了三个