The Seris, also known as the Comcaác, inhabit the Sonoran desert; in the past, they also inhabited the island of San Sebastián, also known as Cofteecöl, and Shark Island, also known as Taheöjc. They were a nomadic group prior to 1950 and currently reside in two locations on the state of Sonora’s desert coast: Desemboque (municipality of Pitiquito) and Punta Chueca (municipality of Hermosillo) on the state’s north coast.

It is assumed that they were arranged into six bands prior to the arrival of the Spanish, which were then further subdivided into clans. The Comcaac were nearly completely eradicated as a result of the Spanish and Mexicans’ initial and subsequent extermination policies, which were not ones of conquest and colonization.

In response to his requests for assistance, General Lázaro Cárdenas, the President of the Republic, organized his group into fishermen’s cooperatives, gave them the tools they needed, and gathered them in the village of Bahía Kino in 1936. The Seris, however, relocated to Desemboque and Punta Chueca as this village became more and more populated by non-native fishermen, occasionally setting up camp in some of the intermediate fields. When President Luis Echeverría gave them a 91,000 hectare coastal strip in 1970, which makes up 0.5% of the state’s total area, their territory was officially recognized. The same president issued a number of additional decrees in 1975, designating the Canal del Infiernillo as an exclusive fishing area Seri and granting them symbolic communal possession of the island Tiburón, which was subsequently designated as an ecological reserve zone.

The cmiique itom, the language of the Comcaac, belongs to the Hokano or filum lineage. Nonetheless, the Seri language belongs to the Seriyumana language family. In addition to the CMI, the majority of people speak Spanish and English, making them bilingual or even trilingual in some situations.

A highly intricate religious-festive system of governance was not developed by the Comcaac. Their worldview, customs, celebrations, and other cultural expressions are strongly tied to the natural world and the biological and social facets of the group’s reproduction.

His songs and stories center on the sea, sharks, foxes, deer, and the legendary exploits of warriors and heroes from antiquity; their primary rituals are associated with birth, puberty, and death. They lack the Catholic components of other indigenous communities since they have not been officially evangelized.

They use tinplate rattles, wooden buzzers, omichihuatli (a scraper or striated stick that is scraped with another to sound on the inverted pot), and percussion instruments made from inverted jícaras held on water for their ceremonies.