Pre 1150 AD - The Woodland and Mississippian Cultures of Eastern North America
The more "modern" American culures are split into two groups, known as the
Woodland period (1000 BC – 1000 AD) or the later overlapping Mississippian culture period (800–1500 AD).
These emerging cultures stretched along the eastern coast from southeastern Canada all the way to Florida. that followed the Archaic period are generally placed in the
The Woodland period is defined by the development of technology, including the introduction of ceramics and (late in the Woodland period) the bow and arrow, the adoption of
agriculture, mound-building, and increased sedentism.
These characteristics developed and spread separately.
Sedentism and mound building appeared along the southwest coast of Florida, and in the lower Mississippi River Valley well before the end of the Archaic period.
Agriculture spread and intensified across the Woodland area throughout the Woodland and Mississippian culture periods, but appeared in north central and northeastern Florida only after about 700 AD, and had not penetrated the middle and lower Florida peninsula at the time of first contact with Europeans.
1100s AD - The Timucua Tribe of North and Central Florida
While there were many different tribal nations in Florida, those in Central and Northeast Florida were the largest, mostly united, group. There territory spanned from today's South Georgia and Jacksonville all the way down the St. Johns, Ocklawaha, and Palatlakaha Rivers to reach South Lake County.
Europeans encountered many groups of indigenous peoples in Florida.
We first became acquainted with the Timucua and Acuera tribes through the memoir of Alvar Nunez Cabeca de Vaca and the three chroniclers of de Soto's expedition.
However, much of what we know about early Timucuan culture comes not from the Spanish, but from the French.
In 1564, French Huguenots, that were seeking refuge from religious persecution in France, founded
Fort Caroline
along the St. Johns River, in present-day Jacksonville.
After an initial conflict, the Huguenots, led by Réné de Laudonniere (1564), were able to establish friendly relations with the local Timucua in the area.
Their recorded information on various groups ranges from numerous detailed reports to the mere mention of a name.
The sketches and notes made by the French Huguenot Jaques le Moyne, one of the French settlers, are one of the few primary resources about the Timicua.
The narrative and descriptive illustrations of Le Moyne shed much light on the home life, war customs, and ceremonies.
When the Spanish came back to colonize La Florida, they also provided records of the Timucua and some even lived among them in Missions and at St. Augustine.
De Bry's Brevis Narratio (1591) contains a map of their country, and engravings representing their dwellings, fights, dances and mode of living.
Two missionaries of the Franciscan order, Francisco Pareja (1612) and Gregorio de Mouilla (1635), have composed devotional books in the Timucua language.
Documented confessionals of Pareja also give us a good idea of their beliefs and religious practices.
The Timucua people are believed to be relatively new to North America.
The Timucua were probably the descendants of Arawak invaders, who arrived on the southern and eastern coasts of Florida around 1150 AD.
The Timucuan language is derived from the Wareo dialect of the Arawak language of northern South America.
By historical times, much of Florida was occupied by the Taino-speaking peoples who had migrated from the Caribbean. They like all Arawak speakers, came originally from Amazonia in South America.
Among the better known of these Taino peoples of Florida are the Tekesta peoples, in Southern Florida, and the Timucua tribe of Northern Florida.
The Timucua from Northern Florida took on some aspects of the early Southeastern American culture, but preserved distinctive aspects of their Caribbean origin.
The immigrating people retained much of their own culture, including White Drink ceremonies, human sacrifice, and canabalism, while also taking on some of the customs of the Mississippian (Muskogean) mound-builders that they displaced throughout Florida and Georgia.
The Timucua became the major group of peoples in northeastern Florida and southeastern Georgia speaking a common language.
The name Timucua (pronounced "tee-MOO-qua") was first recorded by the French as Thimogona.
This is likely a misprint for Thimogoua or Tymangoua, which came from the exonym used by the northeast Saturiwa chiefdom (of what is now Jacksonville) to refer to their enemies, the Utina peoples, on the west side of the St. Johns River.
[Saturiwa and Utina Chiefdoms in NE Florida.]
Since both peoples spoke the same language, the Spanish began to use the term more broadly for all peoples in the north and central Florida area.
Another theory, is that their name may have been derived from the Spanish pronunciation of the Timucuan word atimoqua, which means “lord” or “chief.”
The Timucua were the people living in the Northeast and North Central portions of
Florida
, including what would become Lake County.
At the time of European contact, Timucuan speakers occupied about 19,200 square miles in the present-day states of Florida and Georgia.
The territory occupied by Timucua speakers stretched from the Altamaha River and Cumberland Island in present-day Georgia as far south as Lake George in central Florida, and from the Atlantic Ocean west to the Aucilla River in the Florida Panhandle, though it reached the Gulf of Mexico at no more than a couple of points.
The Timucua territory was vast and consisted of different environments, including: coastal beaches, salt marshes, forests, rivers, lakes, and swamps.
In the 1500s, they designated the area north of the Santa Fe River, and between the St. Johns and Suwannee Rivers, as the Timucua Province, which they eventually incorporated into the mission system.
The dialect spoken in that province became known as "Timucua" (now usually known as "Timucua proper").
During the 1600s, the Province of Timucua was extended to include the area between the Suwannee River and the Aucilla River, thus extending its scope.
Eventually it became the common term for all peoples who spoke what is known as Timucuan.
Since tribal borders were often fluid and overlapping, the Timucua's southern reaches often include South Lake County, including Groveland.
[Range of the Timucuan Tribes in Florida]
Appearance
[Timucuan Man]
“They be all naked and of goodly stature, mighty, faire and as well shapen of body as any people in all the worlde, very gentill, curtious and of good nature, of tawny color, hawke nosed and of a pleasant countenance… the women be well favored and modest…”
—
Jean Ribault, French Explorer (1560s)
The Timucua were dark-skinned with black hair.
In appearance the Timucuan people were described as tall and well made.
Spanish explorers were shocked at the height of the Timucua,
being well built and standing four to six inches or more above the Spanish men who topped at 5'6" tall.
Perhaps adding to their perceived height was the practice of Timucuan men of wearing their hair in a bun on top of their heads.
Measurement of skeletons exhumed from beneath the floor of a presumed Northern Utina mission church (tentatively identified as San Martín de Timucua) at the Fig Springs mission site yielded a mean height of 5'4" for nine adult males and 5'2" for five adult women.
However, the conditions of the bones and teeth indicated that the population of the mission had been chronically stressed, thus likely malnourished.
"...for adornment they have their skin tattooed in a bizarre pattern that they have no clothing, the men no more than the women, but that the woman gird themselves with a little covering from the skin of a deer or other animal, the knot being tied over the thigh on the left side in order to cover the more private part of their natural endowment...”
- Nicolas Le Challeux, Protestant lay minister (1564)
The French explorer René Laudonniére reported that most Timucua had dark hair and light brown skin from spending a lot of time in the sun.
He said that they were taller than the average Frenchman, although the average Frenchman would have been shorter than the average person today.
They went almost entirely naked except for the breechcloth, woven from moss or crafted from various animal skins, but covered their bodies with an elaborate tattooing, which were gained by deeds, usually in hunting or war. The elaborate tattoos were created by poking holes in the skin then rubbing ash or pigments into the holes.
“Most of them are painted on the body and on the arms and thighs in beautiful patterns.
The pigments cannot be removed because they are pricked into the flesh.”
- Nicolas le Challeux (1566)
John Spark, chronicler of Hawkins’s second voyage, adds the following testimony:
"They do not omit to paint their bodies also with curious knots, or antike worke, as every man in his own fancy deuiseth, which painting, to make it continue the better, they se with a thorne to pricke their flesh, and dent in the same, whereby the painting may have better hold.
They supplemented this with temporary face paintings, particularly upon state occasions or when they went to war.
In their warres they vse a sleighter colour of painting their faces, thereby to make themselves shew the more fierce; which after their warres ended, they wash away againe."
“The forepart of their bodies and arms they also paint with pretty devices in azure, red, and black, so well and properly, that the best painters of Europe could not improve upon it”
- Captain Jean Ribault (1564)
Laudonnière also claimed that, like their Creek neighbors, the Timucua kept their bodies covered with bear grease, for some ceremonial reason and also to protect them from the sun’s heat.
"All these chiefs and their wives paint the skin around their mouths blue and are tattooed on the arms and thighs with a certain herb which leaves an indelible color.
This process is so severe that it sometimes makes them sick for 7 or 8 days.”
Jacques le Moyne (1564)
Timucua tribes who lived inland from the sea painted their faces red, while those on the coast used black to paint their faces.
The people first seen by De Soto and his men at Tampa Bay were painted red.
The tattoos were gained by deeds.
Children began to acquire tattoos as they took on more responsibility.
The people of higher social class had more elaborate decorations.
Chief Outina was described, in 1564 by the French artist Jacques le Moyne, as being painted red and walking alone in solitary grandeur in the middle of his warriors.
Le Moyne also wrote that they would let their nails grow long both on fingers and toes, cutting (or scraping) away their finger nails at the sides (with a certain shell), so as to leave them very sharp, the men especially; and when they take one of the enemy they sink their nails deep in his forehead, and tear down the skin, so as to wound and blind him.
There was a marked sexual distinction typical of Southeastern American culture, as they had a division of labor between males and females that affected many aspects of daily life.
In their dress, men wore a woven fiber loincloth or breechcloth, sashes, and deerskin moccasins for travel, while Timucuan women instead wore skirts of Spanish moss.
In cold weather, both women and men put on feather or skin matchcoats, although worn differently.
In warm weather, young boys and girls generally wore nothing.
Laudonnière first encountered the Timucua during the summer.
The men wore a loincloth that wrapped around their waist, which let them go in and out of the water quickly.
Women wore skirts of Spanish moss, and sometimes another covering on their top usually made of deerskin or spanish moss.
During the winter, the Timucua added layers to their clothing instead of replacing it.
To protect their legs, they wore ‘leggings’, which were the legs of the pants without the seat, something like very long leg warmers.
To protect their arms, they wore matchcoats, which were animals skins or feathers worn as a type of shawl, wrapped around the shoulders to keep out wind and rain.
Both genders had tattoos, which were a status symbol.
The more tattoos a person had, the more status they had.
Men also would decorate their faces with a black paint that changed daily.
Men and women kept their hair long. Men wore their long black hair tied in topknots, while women let their long hair hang loose down their backs. Colored bird feathers might be placed in their hair during special events.
The Timucua also wore jewelry. Necklaces and bracelets were made from animal bone, teeth, and shells and pebbles. Men and women pierced their ears and used fish bladders as earrings. Warriors could decorate themselves with feathers, belts, anklets, and bracelets. They also hung metal plates from their waists as a decorative type of belt.
[Gastropod Shell Necklace Found at Kaufman Island, Lake Kerr]
Chiefs and their wives dressed differently than everyone else.
They would have more intricate clothes with ornate designs painted on them.
Many chiefs wore their own distinct face paint designs, and their wives often painted the skin around their mouths blue.
An extensively decorated deerskin worn by Chief Saturiwa caught the eye of Laudonniére.
The chief eventually did give the explorer the deerskin.
The Timucua probably numbered between 200,000 and 300,000 people that were organized into various chiefdoms, which all spoke a common language.
The Timucua were not a single tribe, but rather separate groups, who spoke dialects or types of the Timucua language.
For example, the Mocama dialect was spoken by the coastal Timucua near Jacksonville, while the Potano dialect was spoken by the inland Timucua near Gainesville.
The Western Timucua lived in the interior of the upper Florida peninsula, extending to the Aucilla River on the west and into Georgia to the north.
They usually lived in villages in forests, and participated in the Alachua, Suwannee Valley, or other unknown cultures.
Because of their environment, they were more oriented to exploiting the resources of the forests.
In 1492 AD, it is estimated that there were about 100,000 - 350,000
Native Americans
living in the area now known as Florida.
Accepting the conservative estimate of 100,000, the distribution was thought as this:
Timucuans in the northeast, 40,000;
Apalachee and Pensacola in the northwest, 25,000;
Tocobaga in the west-central, 8,000;
Calusa in the southwest, 20,000;
Tequesta in the southeast, 5,000;
Jeaga, Jobe, and Ais (pronounced 'ice') in the east-central, 2,000.
There were others, as well as sub-groups, i.e., Saturiwa, Santaluces, Boca Ratones, Tocobaga, etc.
An archaeological dig in St. Augustine in 2006 revealed a Timucuan site dating back to between 1100 and 1300 AD, predating the European founding of the city by more than two centuries. Included in the discovery were pottery, with pieces from the Macon, Georgia, area, indicating an expansive trade network; and two human skeletons. It is the oldest archaeological site in the city.
Their village Nocoroco is preserved todY in Tomoka State Park, just north of Ormond Beach.
At the time of European contact, there were two major chiefdoms among the Mocama (Northeastern Timucua), the Saturiwa and the Tacatacuru, each of which had a number of smaller villages subject to them.
From St. Augustine up to the south bank of the St. Mary’s River (north of Jacksonville) were the coastal Timucuan tribe known as the Saturiwa, and their dialect is known as Agua Salada (Salt Water). The Saturiwa were concentrated around the mouth of the St. Johns in what is now Jacksonville, and had their main village on the river's south bank.
European contact with the Eastern Timucua began in 1564 when the French
Huguenots, fleeing religious persecution, under the leadership of
René Goulaine de Laudonnière established Fort Caroline in Saturiwa territory. The Huguenots were able to create an alliance with the Saturiwa, who at first opposed the Spanish when they later arrived.
Over time, however, they were forced to submit to the Spanish and were incorporated into their mission system.
The important Mission San Juan del Puerto was established at their main village; it was here that
Francisco Pareja undertook his studies and preservation of the Timucua language.
South of the Saturiwa, along the St. Johns River, were the
Utina [Outina], later known as the Agua Dulce (Sweet Water) or Agua Fresca (Fresh Water) tribe.
They lived along the river from roughly the
Palatka area south to
Lake George.
They participated in the St. Johns culture and spoke the Agua Dulce dialect.
The area between Palatka and downtown Jacksonville was relatively less populated, and may have served as a barrier between the Utina and Saturiwa, who were frequently at war.
In the 1560s the Utina were a powerful chiefdom of over 40 villages.
However, by the end of the century the confederacy had crumbled, with most of the diminished population withdrawing to six towns further south on the St. Johns.
There were also other tribes in the Central Florida regions: Ocala (the Ocale), Gainesville (the Potano), and Lake County (the Acuera).
Since most of the European contact took place around the Eastern coasts, less is known about these tribes.
However, they likely shared many of the aspects of the St. John's River culture of the nearby Utina.
The Potano lived in north central Florida, in an area covering Alachua County and possibly extending west to Cofa at the mouth of the
Suwannee River.
They participated in the
Alachua culture and spoke the Potano dialect.
They were among the first Timucua peoples to encounter Europeans when the Spanish exploreres and slave traders invaded Western Florida.
They were frequently at war with the
Utina tribe, who managed to convince first the French and later the Spanish to join them in combined assaults against the Potano.
The Potano received missionaries in the 1590s and five missions were built in their territory by 1633.
Like other Western Timucua groups they participated in the Timucua Rebellion of 1656.
The Potano were incorporated into the Spanish mission system by the late 1600s.
The Timucua of Lake County
The Acuera ("Timekeepers") was the name of both a town and a province or region in central Florida during the 1500s.
The territory of the Acuera people was part of the St. Johns culture.
It is characterized by the people's creating shell middens from their refuse, and burial mounds for their dead.
They made a "chalky" pottery based on the use of freshwater sponge spicules as a temper, sometimes decorated with check-stamping.
The Acuera people spoke a dialect of the Timucua language.
The province of Acuera may have consisted of several small chiefdoms, including Acuera, along with Avino and Eloquale.
Piliuco, and possibly Mocoso, were towns under the chief of Acuera.
Tucuru and Utiaca may have been under the chief of Avino.
Eloquale, a town on the Oklawaha River, may have been a new location for the town of Ocale, which was near the Withlacoochee River when the de Soto expedition stopped there for two weeks in 1539.
Ocale was also referred to as Cale and Etocale by Spanish chroniclers of the de Soto expedition.
After the de Soto expedition stayed in 1539 at the town of Mocoso on Tampa Bay, it may have been relocated to the province of Acuera.
The capital town of the chiefdom was also known as Acuera.
It was located along the Ocklawaha River, north of Lake Griffin in today's Leesburg.
You can read more about its connection with the Spanish Mission System, along with its recent rediscovery and excavations later.
[Ocklawaha River Basin, Lake County]
Timucua Language
A lot has been learned from studying the Timucua language and comparing it to other languages.
Historians have been able to trace the Timucua people to a place in the Amazon where ancestors of the groups probably lived over 4,000 years.
Researchers propose that the Timucuan language is a Caribbean creole.
A creole language develops from the process of different languages mixing into a new simpler form, and then that form eventually expands into a full-fledged language.
Timucua is thought to be derived from the Arawak language group of Amazonia that is spoken by the Warao people.
When they invaded Florida, their language was mixed with the language of the Woodland peoples already living there.
They took on some of the linguistics of the native Muskogean tribes in southeast of North America, whom they mixed with and replaced.
The “creolization process” was greatest in the Alachua Prairies (around modern Gainesville).
The Timucuan language resembles other Taino languages, but it seems to have emerged at a somewhat earlier point in Caribbean Arawak linguistic history.
The separation of Taino and Carib languages had occurred even earlier.
The Timucua groups, never unified culturally or politically, but the Spanish defined them as a single group, because of their shared use of the
Timucua language.
The language is relatively well attested compared to other North American languages of the period.
This is largely due to the work of Francisco Pareja, a Franciscan missionary at San Juan del Puerto, who in the 1600s produced a grammar of the language and four
catechisms written in both Timucua and Spanish.
The other sources for the language are two catechisms by another Franciscan, Gregorio de Movilla, two letters from Timucua chiefs, and bits and pieces in other European sources.
The incoming Timucuans gradually changed the customs and language of the Woodland cultures until Timucua eventually became the language spoken all the way from the Okefenokee Swamp in southeastern Georgia down the Atlantic coast of Florida to Daytona Beach.
Pareja noted that there were ten dialects of Timucua, which were usually divided along tribal lines.
Timucua was also spoken across central Florida as far west as the Aucilla River (east of Tallahassee) and throughout central Florida from the Withlacoochee River (Polk County) to Cape Canaveral.
These are Timucua proper, Potano, Itafi, Yufera, Mocama, Agua Salada, Tucururu, Agua Fresca, Acuera (spoken in today's Lake County), and Oconi.
According to Julian Granberry, an expert in the Tumucua language, linguists know very little about all but two of the Timucuan dialects.
One of these was the Mocama dialect of the Northeastern tribes near the St. John's River (which includes Sanford, DeLand, Astor, Palatka, and Jacksonville).
Since they were the tribes that had the most direct European contact, it was the dialect used by Pareja and Movilla, when they wrote the religious tracts for the Timucua.
"Santa Lucia de Acuera" was the dialect of the Acuera people, named by Francisco Pareja.
Pareja regarded the Santa Lucia de Acuera and Tucururu (which may have adjoined Acuera) dialects as the most divergent from what he considered the standard Timucua dialect of the Mocama.
Like most North American cultures, the Timucua had no known written language, so the various Europeans who heard them speak attempted to write the words phonetically in their own languages.
Today we have detailed records of the language from the Spanish and French missionaries, who needed to know the language in order to convert the Timucua to Christianity.
The fact that knowledge of the Timucua language persists is quite remarkable, since most early American languages were lost.
Other aspects of the Timucuan culture emerged from the study of their language.
We can learn which concepts were considered immportant enough to have more detailed words to describe them.
Some words are:
Mother: Isa
Father: Ite
Sun: Ela
Moon: Acu
River: Ibi
Fish: Cuyu
Societal Culture
[Northern Florida's Timucuan tribe are depicted near their village.]
[Timucuan Man]
A Timucua man's daily tasks would have consisted of making weapons for hunting and fighting, hunting large animals like deer, growing crops, participating in games, and fighting in tribal conflicts.
A Timucua woman would spent their days helping with crops, hunting small game, preparing meals, tending to the huts, and taking care of children.
According to Laudonnière, “the women do all the business at home”.
While they had more daily tasks than men, their work was less intensive and dangerous.
Women also participated in ritual dances.
[Agricultural Duties of Timucuan Men and Women]
Both men and women shared in the agricultural duties. Le Moyne wrote that the men prepared the ground for planting, while the women made holes and dropped in the seed.
The social demands on men were so great that some chose to have an easier life and accept responsibilities associated with the female role, to care for the household and cultivate the fields.
Likewise, some women would adopt a man's role, fight in war and sit on the governing council.
The Timucua used them to perform less desirable responsibilities.
"Hermaphrodites, partaking of the nature of each sex, are quite common in these parts, and are considered odious by the Indians themselves, who, however, employ them, as they are strong, instead of beasts of burden.
When a chief goes out to war the hermaphrodites carry the provisions."
"When any Indian is dead of wounds or disease, two hermaphrodites take a couple of stout poles, fasten cross-pieces on them, and attach to these a mat woven of reeds.
On this they ... carry the deceased to the place of burial.
Persons having contagious diseases are also carried to places appointed for the purpose on the shoulders of the hermaphrodites, who supply them with food, and take care of them until they get quite well again."
- Le Moyne
The Timucua were monogamous, except for chiefs who would have two or three wives.
When a couple married, they would join the wife’s clan.
Timucua culture was matrilineal, meaning that they traced their ancestry through the family of their mother’s side. Even the heirs of a chief would be his nephews and nieces through his sister.
According to Le Challeux, the men “each has his own wife, and they protect marriage indeed very rigorously”.
Also, Laudonnière wrote:
"They marry, and every one hath his wife, and it is lawful for the king to have two or three, yet none but the first is honored and acknowledged for queen, and none but the children of the first wife inherit the goods and authority of the father."
A Royal Wedding
The king's marriage was a great ceremony, as described by Le Moyne:
"When a king chooses to take a wife, he directs the tallest and handsomest of the daughters of the chief men to be selected.
"Then a seat is made on two stout poles and covered with the skin of some rare sort of animal, while it is set off with a structure of boughs, bending over forward so as to shade the head of the sitter.
"The queen elect having been placed on this, four strong men take up the poles and support them on their shoulders, each carrying in one hand a forked wooden stick to support the pole at halting.
"Two more walk at the sides, each carrying on a staff a round screen elegantly made, to protect the queen from the sun’s rays.
"Others go before, blowing upon trumpets made of bark, which are smaller above and larger at the farther end and having only the two orifices, one at each end.
"They are hung with small oval balls of gold, silver, and brass, for the sake of a finer combination of sounds.
"Behind follow the most beautiful girls that can be found, elegantly decorated with necklaces and armlets of pearls, each carrying in her hand a basket full of choice fruits and belted below the navel and down to the thighs with the moss of certain trees, to cover their nakedness.
"After them come the bodyguards.
"With this display the queen is brought to the king in a place arranged for the purpose, where a good-sized platform is built up of round logs, having on either side a long bench where the chief men are seated.
"The king sits on the platform on the right-hand side.
The queen, who is placed on the left, is congratulated by him on her accession and told why he chose her for his first wife.
"She, with a certain modest majesty, and holding her fan in her hand, answers with as good a grace as she can.
"Then the young women form a circle without joining hands and with a costume differing from the usual one, for their hair is tied at the back of the neck and then left to flow over the shoulders and back; and they wear a broad girdle below the navel, having in front something like a purse, which hangs down so as to cover their nudity.
"To the rest of this girdle are hung ovals of gold and silver, coming down upon the thighs, so as to tinkle when they dance, while at the same time they chant the praises of the king and queen.
"In this dance they all raise and lower their hands together."
Children
The ancient Floridians observed taboos duriing a woman's menstruation, as well as childbirth. At the time of her monthly period and for sometime after her confinement a woman did not eat fish or venison. Several huts in a Timucua village were dedicated to women who had just given birth. Men were forbidden from making contact with women during these times nor eating food that was touched by a menstruant woman. While confined to these huts, women had to use a different fire and could not eat meat nor seafood. It was also considered wrong for her to annoint herself with bear grease or eat fish for a number of moons after having given birth. Both at that time and at the menstrual period she must not make a new fire or approach one.
To be sure Le Challeux remarks, “they never teach their children and do not correct them in any way;” but he is referring to the training of young children in matters connected with morals and manners.
Mothers cared for their children until they reached an age when they were old enough to start performing tasks themselves. When children reached the age of 11 or 12, they participated in typical adult tasks like pottery making or fishing. By the age of 15 or 16, they were considered adult members of society.
Society was based on the clan system, and Pareja (1612) gives an interesting account of the intricate system of kinship relations.
Villages were divided into family clans, usually bearing animal names.
Children always belonged to their mother's clan.
Because of population decline associated with European contact, Timucua lineages segmented into a large number of clan settlements consisting of people considered to be in-laws.
If a young couple within a settlement wished to marry, to avoid incest their clan would segment, so that the two parties came to represent different clans and therefore became marriageable.
This social segmentation led to a large number of small lineages and clans, which greatly weakened the Timucua.
To achieve the solidarity needed for defense against the Spanish invaders, lineages would consolidate into larger lineages by means of exogenous marriage bonds.
The clans were grouped into phratries (several clans or tribes that share common ancestry), usually bearing animal names, and certain chiefships or functions seem to have been hereditary in certain clans.
This system was retained even by the eventual mission converts.
Chiefdoms
The Timucua were divided between a limited number of head chiefs, under each of whom were a very much greater number of local chiefs.
These little confederacies consisted of a head town and a number of outsettlements.
The cacique, or upper chiefs, to whom other chiefs are subject, are called ano parucusi holata ico, olato aco, or utinama.
The chiefs, chiefs’ wives, and other principal persons were, on occasions of state, carried in litters, borne on the shoulders of several men. All early Spanish travelers among the southern peoples speak of these, and Le Moyne illustrates one in which a woman is being borne on the shoulders of four men. She is placed on a raised seat covered with a decorated skin, and protected from the sun by a structure of green boughs. Each of the bearers carries a crotched stick in one hand. The opposite end of each of these was stuck into the ground when they made a halt and the handles of the litter were allowed to rest in the crotches.
Timucua Villages
[Le Moyne Print of a Timucuan Fortified Village]
The Timucua were semi-nomadic, so during the mild Fall and Winter months, the Timucua lived in the inland forests.
The Timucua were known to have more permanent villages than the other tribes.
It is thought that a Timucua settlement would have consisted of a small number of round timber houses with reed or palmetto palm thatched roofs arranged in a semi-circle around a central plaza equiped with a large post for the traditional Timucua games.
On some larger settlements, there would have been an artificial mound for a temple, another for the chief's residence, and a large “townhouse” (sometimes incorrectly described as a communal dwelling) for tribal gatherings in the center of the public square.
These towns were compactly built with a stockade of tall wooden poles around their villages for protection against attack.
The Timucua of northeast Florida (the Saturiwa and Agua Dulce tribes) at the time of first contact with Europeans lived in villages that typically contained about 30 houses, and 200 to 300 people.
A village would also have a council house which would usually hold all of the villagers.
Europeans described some council houses as being large enough to hold 3,000 people.
If a village grew too large, some of the families would start a new village nearby, so that clusters of related villages formed.
Le Moyne described a fortified town:
"A position is selected near the channel of some swift stream.
They level it as even as possible, and then dig a ditch in a circle around the site, in which they set thick round pales, close together, to twice the height of a man; and they carry this paling some ways past the beginning of it, spiralwise, to make a narrow entrance admitting not more than two persons abreast.
The course of the stream is also diverted to this entrance; and at each end of it they are accustomed to erect a small round building, each full of cracks and holes, and built, considering their means, with much elegance.
In these they station as sentinels men who can scent the traces of an enemy at a great distance, and who, as soon as they perceive such traces, set off to discover them.
As soon as they find them, they set up a cry which summons those within the town to the defence, armed with bows and arrows and clubs.
The chief’s dwelling stands in the middle of the town, and is partly underground, in consequence of the sun’s heat.
Around this are the houses of the principal men, all lightly roofed with palm branches, as they are occupied only nine months in the year; the other three, as has been related, being spent in the woods.
When they come back, they occupy their houses again, and if they find that the enemy has burned them down, they build others of similar materials.
Thus magnificent are the palaces of the Indians."
Evidence that the Timucua built religious temples doesn’t exist, but certain groups might have. Ceremonial mounds might be in or associated with a village, but the mounds belonged to clans rather than villages
[Replica House at Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve and Fort Caroline, Jacksonville, Florida]
In Timucuan villages, there were usually two kinds of houses.
One type of home, referred to as a long house, was built using poles for the frame, bark for the walls, and branches from palmetto palm trees for the roof.
The other type of home was small, made of upright poles and circular in shape.
The houses were covered made from palm fronds and compacted mud.
Palm leaf thatching covered the pole frame, with a hole at the top for ventilation and smoke escape.
The houses were 15 to 20 feet (4.5 to 6 m) across and were used primarily just for sleeping.
The chief had a larger house than the other commoners in his village.
Other important buildings in the average Timucua village were the community house where important community meets were held, the storehouse where food was kept, and the huts where women stayed right after childbirth when they couldn’t come into contact with men.
There are not many special descriptions of Timucua houses.
Ribault says, in speaking of the dwellings of those whom he met at the mouth of the river which he called the Seine and which was probably what is now known as the St. Marys:
"Their houses are made of wood, fitly and closely set up, and covered with reeds, the most part after the fashion of a pavilion.
But there was one house among the rest very long and wide, with seats around about made of reeds nicely put together, which serve both for beds and seats, two feet high from the ground, set upon round pillars painted red, yellow, and blue, and neatly polished."
The houses at the mouth of the St. Marys were covered with reeds, while on those which were farther south palmetto was employed.
It is probable that the frames and the rest of the construction were practically identical.
Le Challeux describes them thus:
"Their dwellings are of a round shape and in style almost like the pigeon houses of this country, the foundation and main structure being of great trees, covered over with palmetto leaves, and not fearing either wind or tempest."
The description of Timucua houses given by Spark contains details not noted by the others:
"Their houses are not many together, for in one house an hundred of them do lodge; they being made much like a great barne, and in strength not inferiour to ours, for they haue stanchions and rafters of whole trees, and are covered with palmito-leaues, hauing no place diuided, but one small roome for their king and queene."
Each family had their own home but the cooking took place in the village and meals were held daily in a central location.
The greater part of the common houses figured by Le Moyne are circular, but there is another type square or squarish in ground plan and with a pronounced gable, although the gable ends are sloping, not perpendicular.
Besides these, two houses are figured square or oblong in outline, with a dome-shaped roof, and the door in one end very similar to some of the houses on the North Carolina coast.
The town house, the one described at most length by Ribault, is also figured by Le Moyne in one place. It is represented as a long, quadrilateral building with a regular gable and perpendicular ends. This specimen appears to be thatched with palmetto like the rest.
Food
Unlike earlier peoples in Florida, the Timucua stayed in relatively the same places from year to year, except during the three winter months.
During the winter, the Timucua left their villages to go live further into the woods.
This increase in sedentism allowed them to adopt the agricultural practices of the tribes outside of Florida.
Although some groups of Timucua might have remained entirely hunter gatherers.
An early Spanish writer says that the natives of San Pedro (Cumberland Island) “sustained themselves the greater part of the year on shellfish (marisco), acorns, and roots.”
While inland, their diet consisted of the nearby game and edible plants from around them.
The Timucua primarily gathered hickory nuts, berries, and acorns, which grew plentifully on vines and trees.
The French account of Timucua food is somewhat incomplete, as the French did not recognize some of the different foods that the Timucua grew and gathered.
The women cooked the meals and gathered roots, nuts and wild berries to eat.
The women also made pottery to use for cooking.
Fires were started by means of the rubbing together of two sticks.
Le Moyne depicted several different kinds of pots and baskets.
Some pots were of a size and shape suggestive of Creek sofki pots.
In one picture a large pot with a round bottom is seen placed over a fire.
There are also two or three earthen pots, some with short handles, a few flat dishes or pans, and in one place are two large gourds or earthen jugs which seem to be provided with strap handles and to be closed by means of small earthen jars placed over them, mouth down.
Laudonnière saw in the house of one of the chiefs “a great vessel of earth made after a strange fashion, full of fountain water, clear, and very excellent.”
A little vessel of wood, used as a cup, is spoken of in the same way, and Le Moyne mentions round bottles or wooden vessels in which they carried cassine tea.
It appears from Pareja that shells were ordinarily used as drinking cups.
Among baskets we find the common southern carrying basket with a strap passing over the forehead of the bearer.
In addition, there is a basket with two handles like a bushel basket.
In 1562, one of the Florida chiefs presented Ribault with “a basket made of palm boughs, after the Indian fashion, and wrought very artificially.”
Three years later one of his lieutenants received “little panniers skillfully made of palm leaves, full of gourds, red and blue.”
The Timucua relied heavily on fresh and salt water marine animals.
Many tribes would migrate to the cooler seashores during the hot summers.
Here they would fish and collect oysters and shellfish.
Fish and seafood, as a primary source of protein, were incredibly important to the Timucua diet.
Fish were filleted and dried or boiled.
Fat from the fish was also used as an oil in sauces or as a kind of butter.
The evidence of their culture still exists today, as oyster shells and other kinds of food trash were stacked generation after generation in the same mounds, known as shell middens, still found around Florida’s coastal areas.
They offer archaeologists important information about the diet of the Timucua.
The spears written of and illustrated by Le Moyne were probably used in killing fish; probably fishhooks were also in use.
However, the only method of fishing about which we have direct information was by means of fish traps or weirs.
The Timucua used a fishing trap called a weir.
This trap was a wood fence that stretched across a stream or river to catch fish.
Once the fish swam over the fence in high tide, the weir caught them as the tide went out.
Ribault says that they were “built in the water with great reeds, so well and cunningly set together after the fashion of a labyrinth, with many turns and crooks, which it was impossible to construct without much skill and industry.”
Among the fish given to the French were “trout, great mullets, plaice, turbots, and marvelous store of other sorts of fishes, altogether different from ours.” Ribault also mentioned crabs, lobsters, and crawfish among the articles of the Timucuan diet. (French, Hist. Colls. La., 1875, p. 178) However, the “lobster” was perhaps the “langosta” mentioned by Fontaneda."
The Timucua were skilled at building canoes that were used for fishing.
Canoes were used as transportation and in fishing and setting nets.
Le Moyne mentions “green and blue stones, which some thought to be emeralds and sapphires, in the form of wedges, which they used, instead of axes, for cutting wood.”
From this it appears that they probably felled trees, cleared their land, and manufactured canoes in the same manner as the other southern peoples, using stone axes and fire.
They made their canoes out of single trunks of trees.
Ribault says that these would hold 15 or 20 men, and they paddled them, while standing up.
[Timucuan Canoe]
They also hunted aligators, sea cows (manatees), and occasional nearby whales. Whether they actually hunted manatees is disputed, since temperatures would have been too cold for them to have left the Caribbean before the end of The Little Ice Age in the 1800s. The first recorded manatee siting in Florida was not until the 1700s. Archaeological evidence of them is only in bone tools, but these were likely traded from the Caribbean.
[Killing Alligators - Le Moyne]
Alligators also formed a good part of the Floridian bill of fare, and Le Moyne thus describes how they were hunted:
"They put up, near a river, a little hut full of cracks and holes, and in this they station a watchman, so that they can see the crocodiles [or alligators] and hear them a good way off;
for, when driven by hunger, they come out of the rivers and crawl about on the islands after prey, and, if they find none, they make such a Rightful noise that it can be heard for half a mile.
Then the watchman calls the rest of the watch, who are in readiness; and taking a portion, ten or twelve feet long, of the stem of a tree, they go out to find the monster, who is crawling along with his mouth wide open, all ready to catch one of them if he can;
and with the greatest quickness they push the pole, small end first, as deep as possible down his throat, so that the roughness and irregularity of the bark may hold it from being got out again.
Then they turn the crocodile over on his back, and with clubs and arrows pound and pierce his belly, which is softer;
for his back, especially if he is an old one, is impenetrable, being protected by hard scales."
Timucuans also hunted game, including deer, bear, turkey, small mammels, snakes, lizards, and possibly even eastern bison.
The Timucua used spears, clubs, bows and arrows, and blowguns, to kill their game.
The women would clean and prepare the animal hides and use them for clothing.
Hunting was a dangerous task, but was worth it as the animal yielded a lot of meat and their pelts were highly valued.
Animal bones were also used as weapons or other types of tools, so that every part of the animal was used in some way.
"They make the string of their bow of the gut of the stag, or of a stag’s skin, which they know how to dress as well as any man in France, and with as different sorts of colors.
They head their arrows with the teeth of fishes, which they work very finely and handsomely."
- Laudonnière, op. cit., p. 7; French, Hist. Colls. La., 1860, pp. 170-171
Ribault also states that the shafts of their arrows were of reed.
Deer were stalked, as we know from the following description accompanying it:
"The Indians have a way of hunting deer which we never saw before.
They manage to put on the skins of the largest which have been taken, in such a manner, with the heads on their own heads, so that they can see out through the eyes as through a mask.
Thus accoutered they can approach close to the deer without frightening them.
They take advantage of the time when the animals come to drink at the river, and, having their bow and arrows all ready, easily shoot them, as they are very plentiful in those regions."
Laudonnière received presents of “fish, deer, turkey cocks, leopards [panthers], and little brown bears.” (Laudonnière, La Floride, p. 130; French, Hist. Colls. La., 1869, p. 279)
Skins, painted and unpainted, were presented to the French as gifts or trade.
Regarding their skin dressing, Le Moyne says:
"They know how to prepare deerskin, not with iron instruments, but with shells, in a surprisingly excellent manner; indeed I do not believe that any European could do it as well.
According to Ribault, they were “painted and drawn throughout with pictures of divers wild beasts; so lively drawn and portrayed that nothing lacked but life.”
Meat was either boiled in a broth with nuts or cooked and dried on a wooden rack over a fire, called a barbacoa, from which derives the English word "barbecue".
Le Challeux says that they used fish grease in place of butter “or any other sauce.”
[Drying Meat, Fish, and Other Food - Le Moyne]
(This picture is likely drawn as to show the types of meat being dried, rather than from direct observation, for it is improbable that such animals were dried without being skinned and cut.)
Le Moyne described their methods of preserving game and fish:
"In order to keep these animals longer they are in the habit of preparing them as follows:
They set up in the earth four stout forked stakes; and on these they lay others, so as to form a sort of grating.
On this they lay their game, and then build a fire underneath, so as to harden them in the smoke.
In this process they use a great deal of care to have the drying perfectly performed, to prevent the meat from spoiling, as the picture shows.
I suppose this stock to be laid in for their winter’s supply in the woods, as at that time we could never obtain the least provision from them."
(Ibid., pp. 9-10)
Due to a later dependency on European trade, much of Florida's deer population was destroyed by the tribes for the deerskin used to exchange for tools, cloth, and ammunition.
Timucuans hunted deer and other game which they later traded with the Spanish, and the produce of the Timucuans plantings, especially of maize (corn), sustained St. Augustine.
After the establishment of Spanish missions between 1595–1620, the Timucua were introduced to cattle, chickens, and hogs that were brought over by early Spanish exlporers.
Timucuans, however, had lived for centuries without contact with livestock and the diseases that livestock shared with their Europeans owners, so the Timucuans had no immunity to European diseases, especially measles, which killed many Timucuans.
The early pre-Timucua Floridians were mostly hunter gatherers as agricultural practices did not make their way deep into the peninsula. The men would huntr and fish. The women would also gather wild fruits, palm berries, acorns, and nuts.
After arriving in Florida from Cuba, the Timucua began to adopt and spread agriculture through north and central Florida, though they depended more on game, fish, oysters, and wild fruits, then other northern cultures.
Every year during the growing season, the Timucua would only grow enough food for about six months of the year.
Cultigens were probably brought into Florida from the North to supplement or displace the traditional Taino dependence on marine resources in the South.
These early American farmers used "slash and burn" techniques, which is a common method of clearing the land by burning the trees and brush to add nutrients back into the soil.
The soil would be toiled thus mixing in the nitrates from the wood ash, which makes an effective fertilizer.
Then they prepared the soil with hoes and the women planted seeds with dibble sticks.
[Agricultural Duties of Timucuan Men and Women]
Guards stood in wooden watchtowers to protect the crops from birds and foraging animals.
Apparently, two crops were planted annually, and they practiced field and crop rotation.
A common practice in Eastern North America was to grow what were known as the three sisters: maize (corn), beans, and squash or gourds.
The corn stalk would provide a support structure for the vines of the bean plants, and the squash would provide ground cover to deter weed growth.
Corn was ground into flour and used to make corn fritters.
The people of Florida also cultivated a small low growing palm, known as the
Zamia or Koonti plant and harvesting the root for grinding into bread flour.
They also cultivated the tobacco that they needed for religious ceremonies .
The harvest was dried and stored in stone warehouses to protect it from spoilage and insects.
The Timicua were known to utilize a communal food storage system, which suggests crop surpluses were common.
Their crops were stored in granaries to protect them from vermin and the elements.
Archaeological evidence suggests a quite mature agricultural trade economy among the Apalachee and Timucua of northern Florida based on Indian corn, beans, squash, and vegetables.
Some towns had such vast storehouses, that de Soto's four-year expedition through "La Florida" could not have taken place without their raiding of enormous amounts of food from one such storehouse in Acuera.
Maize (corn) was native to the Americas.
While it began as a small stalk with loose kernals, South and Central American farmers selectively bred it to create the tall stalks with "ears" of densely packed kernals that we know of today.
Corn became a popularly traded item and was exported to other Spanish colonies.
The statement of one observer thus speaks of corn:
“They do not have wheat, but they have corn in abundance, and it grows to the height of 7 feet; its stem is as big as that of a cane and its grain is as large as a pea, the ear a foot in length; its color is like that of fresh wax.”
(Gaffarel, Hist. Floride française, p. 462)
Laudonnière gave the best account of the method of cultivation and economic life:
“They sow their maize twice a year – to wit in March and in June – and all in one and the same soil.
The said maize, from the time that it is sowed until the time that it be ready to be gathered, is but three months on the ground; the other six months, they let the earth rest.
They have also fine pumpkins, and very good beans.
They never dung their land, only when they would sow they set weeds on fire, which grow up the six months, and burn them all.
They dig their ground with an instrument of wood, which is fashioned like a broad mattock, wherewith they dig their vines in France; they put two grains of maize together.
When the land is to be sowed, the king commandeth one of his men to assemble his subjects every day to labor, during which labor the king causeth store of that drink [cassine] to be made for them whereof we have spoken.
At the time when the maize is gathered, it is all carried into a common house, where it is distributed to every man, according to his quality.
They sow no more but that which they think will serve their turn for six months, and that very scarcely.
For, during the winter, they retire themselves for three or four months in the year, into the woods, where they make little cottages of palm boughs for their retreat, and live there of maste, of fish which they take, of disters [oysters], of stags, of turkey cocks, and other beasts which they take."
Le Moyne, however, asserts that they planted toward the end of the year, allowing their seed to lie in the ground nearly all winter.
"The Indians cultivate the earth diligently; and the men know how to make a kind of hoe from fish bones, which they fit to wooden handles, and with these they prepare the land well enough, as the soil is light.
When the ground is sufficiently broken up and levelled, the women come with beans and millet, or maize.
Some go first with a stick, and make holes, in which the others place the beans, or grains of maize.
After planting they leave the fields alone, as the winter in that country, situated between the west and the north, is pretty cold for about three months, being from the 24th of December to the 15th of March; and during that time, as they go naked, they shelter themselves in the woods.
When the winter is over, they return to their homes to wait for their crops to ripen.
After gathering in their harvest, they store the whole of it for the year’s use, not employing any part of it in trade, unless, perhaps some barter is made for some little household article.
As with the more northern tribes, small outhouses were built near the fields and watchers posted in each to drive away crows."
Ribault mentions among the things planted by the Floridians “beans, gourds, citrons, cucumbers, peas, and many other fruits and roots unknown to us.”
For “citrons” and “cucumbers” we should probably understand pumpkins and squashes.
Their food was broiled on the coals, roasted, or boiled.
Le Moyne enumerates “grains of maize roasted, or ground into flour, or whole ears of", while Laudonnière was presented with “little cakes" of corn.
Laudonnière mentions among the articles of food carried along by the Timucua when they were away from home “victuals . . . of bread, of honey, and of meal, made of maize, parched in the fire, which they keep without being marred a long while.
They carry also sometimes fish, which they cause to be dressed in the smoke.”
Le Challeux says:
"The method of using it [corn] is first to rub it and resolve it into flour; afterward they dissolve it [in water] and make of it their porridge [migan], which resembles the rice used in this country; it must be eaten as soon as it is made, because it spoils quickly and can not be kept at all."
Spark gives the following naive account of the use of tobacco:
"The Floridians when they travell, have a kinde of herbe dried, who with a cane and an earthen cup in the end, with fire, and the dried herbs put together doe sucke thorow the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger, and therewith they live foure or fiue dayes without meat or drinke, and this all the Frenchmen used for this purpose; yet do they hold opinion withall, that it causeth water fleame to void from their stomacks."
(Hakluyt, Voyages, III, p. 615; see also p. 386)
When European settlers arrived, they brought European fruits and vegetables with them. Archaeological evidence shows that the Timucua eventually adopted many of these foods, such as wheat, sugarcane, garlic, figs, melons, and sweet potatoes.
The granary or storehouse of a town has been mentioned earlier, but the various accounts are unclear as to whether all of these granaries were public or whether there were private family granaries also.
Le Moyne’s account of the way in which native wild fruits were stored:
"There are in that region a great many islands, producing abundance of various kinds of fruits, which they gather twice a year, and carry home in canoes, and store up in roomy low granaries built of stones and earth, and roofed thickly with palm-branches and a kind of soft earth fit for the purpose.
These granaries are usually erected near some mountain, or on the bank of some river, so as to be out of the sun’s rays, in order that the contents may keep better.
Here they also store up any other provisions which they may wish to preserve, and the remainder of their stores; and they go and get them as need may require, without any apprehensions of being defrauded.
Indeed it is to be wished that, among the Christians, avarice prevailed no more than among them, and tormented no more the minds of men."
Le Moyne speaks of the storage of animal food in a public storehouse:
"At a set time every year they gather in all sorts of wild animals, fish, and even crocodiles; these are then put in baskets, and loaded upon a sufficient number of the curly-haired hermaphrodites above mentioned, who carry them on their shoulders to the storehouse.
This supply, however, they do not resort to unless in case of the last necessity.
In such event, in order to preclude any dissension, full notice is given to all interested; for they live in the utmost harmony among themselves.
The chief, however, is at liberty to take whatever of this supply he may choose."
It does not seem very likely that all of the animal food was put into public storehouses and all of the corn and wild fruits into private ones.
Evidently both kinds of granary were in existence, but our authorities are not clear regarding the relative functions of the two.
The mutual regard which they observed with reference to their stores did not prevent them from pilfering small articles from the French colonists.
An anonymous writer says:
"They are, however, the greatest thieves in the world, for they take as well with the foot as with the hand."
Le Challeux confirms theaccusation:
"They steal without conscience and claim all that they can carry away secretly."
After the establishment of Spanish missions between 1595–1620, the Timucua were introduced to popular European crops, including: barley, cabbage, cucumbers, figs, garbanzo beans, garlic, European grapes, European greens, hazelnuts, various herbs, lettuce, melons, oranges, peas, peaches, pomegranates, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, watermelons, and wheat.
Religion
What did they believe and practice?
Little is known of the Timucuan religion, since they practiced much of it in secret and what was apparent was destroyed by the French and Spanish missionaries, as they converted to Christianity.
They worshipped primarily the sun and the moon, but they had other "gods" as well.
Human sacrifice was a regular part of their religious rituals.
The victims were often infants belonging to their own tribe.
The only reference to a future state of existence is in the account of De Gourgues’s expedition.
In a community, there would be wise men who functioned as priests, along with shamans who were able to mediate supernatural powers to serve the needs of the community.
The Timucuan shaman, through a trance was considered able to prophesy, perform a blessing, put a curse upon someone, diagnose and cure a disease, locate stolen objects, and foretell or manipulate the weather.
A shaman of a tribe held more religious power than others, while the chief held the most religious power of all.
While today we have seperated medicine from religion, many cultures of the past considered them to be connected.
This belief was also shared by the Timucua.
Shamans usually performed a double duty as priest and doctor or herbalist.
Some sickness was attributed to witchcraft and herbs were used to counteract the effects.
They would use the local plants to treat and heal people with illnesses.
Le Moyne described a ceremony gone through by an aged shaman in order to forecast the fortunes of chief Utina’s expedition against the Potano:
"The sorcerer made ready a place in the middle of the army, and, seeing the shield which D’Ottigny’s page was carrying, asked to take it.
"On receiving it, he laid it on the ground, and drew around it a circle, upon which he inscribed various characters and signs.
Then he knelt down on the shield, and sat on his heels, so that no part of him touched the earth, and began to recite some unknown words in a low tone, and to make various gestures, as if engaged in a vehement discourse.
This lasted for a quarter of an hour, when he began to assume an appearance so frightful that he was hardly like a human being; for he twisted his limbs so that the bones could be heard to snap out of place, and did many other unnatural things.
After going through with all this he came back all at once to his ordinary condition, but in a very fatigued state, and with an air as if astonished; and then, stepping out of his circle, he saluted the chief, and told him the number of the enemy, and where they were intending to meet him."
According to both Laudonnière and Le Moyne the event verified the Shaman's prediction.
The shamans would also perform rituals, to hopefully please the gods, in order to cure sick people.
The ritual involved removing evil from the body of the ill person, since the Timucua believed that evil was the cause of a person's sickness.
They placed white feathers, arrows, or deerskin in front of the sick person in order to purify them.
They would make offerings to the gods using the leaves of the bay plant.
They practiced quarantines as sick people had to use a separate fire and eat separate foods from those who were not sick.
"They have their priests, to whom they give great credit, because they are great magicians, great soothsayers, and callers upon devils. These priests serve them instead of physicians and surgeons; they carry always about with them a bag full of herbs and drugs, to cure the sick who, for the most part, are sick of the pox."
"Native priests always carry with them a bag full of herbs and drugs to treat diseases, for they love women and girls very much, whom they call daughters of the Sun.”
- Rene de Laudonniere (1565)
[Mode of Treating the Sick - Engraving by Theodore de Bry]
"Thoir way of curing diseases is as follows:
They put up a bench or platform of sufficient length and breadth for the patient… and lay the sick person upon it with his face up or down, according to the nature of his complaint; and, cutting into the skin of the forehead with a sharp shell, they suck out blood with their mouths, and spit it into an earthen vessel or a gourd bottle.
Women who are suckling boys, or who are with child, come and drink this blood, particularly if it is that of a strong young man: as it is expected to make their milk better, and to render the children who have the benefit of it bolder and more energetic.
For those who are laid on their faces they prepare fumigations by throwing certain seeds on hot coals; the smoke being made to pass through the nose and mouth into all parts of the body, and thus to act as an emetic, or to overcome and expel the cause of the disease.
They have a certain plant, whose name has escaped me, which the Brazilians call petum [petun], and the Spaniards tapaco.
The leaves of this, carefully dried, they place in the wider part of a pipe; and setting them on fire, and putting the other end in their mouths, they inhale the smoke so strongly, that it comes out at their mouths and noses, and operates powerfully to expel the humors."
- Le Moyne
Pareja also wrote that in cases of sickness their doctors would place a kind of cupping glass over the affected part and then suck it, then they would exhibit a little piece of coal, earth, or “other unclean thing,” or even something alive or at least appeared to be alive.
Pareja attributed their performance to the Devil.
The doctor would also place white feathers, new skins (“chamois”), and the ears of an owl before a sick person and thrust arrows into the soil there, saying that he would draw out the disease as he withdrew the arrows.
As a type of quarantine, when a man fell sick, a new temporary house was built for him and a new fire was also made at which his food was cooked.
Perhaps part of the motive for this was to protect the principal dwelling in case of the sick man’s death, for it was usual to burn the houses of chiefs and shamans at such times.
In particular they were said to have been extremely subject to venereal diseases, which they used natural remedies to cure.
When a sick person was getting better, they prepared “food of a sort of cakes or fritters or other things” and shouted out after the doctor that he had cured him.
If this thanksgiving was not performed, it was thought that the disease would reappear.
The principle of the “hold up” was thus well recognized among Timucua doctors.
A shaman was known to threaten that the people would all be killed, unless they gave him something to avert a calamity which he declared was threatening.
Sometimes he injured a person whom he considered had not paid him enough.
He is also accused of having caused delay in childbirth at times so that he would be called in and paid well to hasten the delivery; or, when he had been called, it is alleged that he would make the patient suffer more until he was paid what he thought he ought to receive.
Shamans would be involved in almost every part of life, including: planting crops and childbirth.
They would also perform blessings over simple tasks like finding a new place to fish or grinding maize into flour.
The shaman prayed over the new corn.
He was also asked to pray over a new fishweir so that many more fish would enter.
Witchcraft was also resorted to to attract the regard of a person of the opposite sex.
Sometimes this was effected by getting an herb into the person’s mouth and by the use of certain songs.
To bring back the affections of her husband, a woman would bathe in an infusion of certain herbs or tinge her palm-leaf hat with the juice of an herb.
She also did this to induce another person to fall in love with her.
Fasting was resorted to with the same intention.
Shamans were extremely important for hunting, due to the dangers involved.
During a hunt, the shaman would speak prayers to make sure that the men did not do anything that would bring harm to the village.
The Timucua were very superstitious.
They thought that if a Timucua man ate the meat of a deer, that he shot himself, it could mean cause the man to never kill another deer again.
"The subjects of the Chief Outina [Utina] were accustomed every year, a little before their spring – that is, in the end of February – to take the skin of the largest stag they could get, keeping the horns on it; to stuff it full of all the choicest sorts of roots that grow among them, and to hang long wreaths or garlands of the best fruits on the horns, neck, and other parts of the body.
Thus decorated, they carried it, with music and songs, to a very large and splendid level space, where they set it up on a very high tree, with the head and breast toward the sunrise.
They then offered prayers to the sun, that he would cause to grow on their lands good things such as those offered him.
The chief, with his sorcerer, stands nearest the tree and offers the prayer; the common people, placed at a distance, make responses.
Then the chief and all the rest, saluting the sun, depart, leaving the deer’s hide there until the next year.
This ceremony they repeat annually."
- Le Moyne, Narrative, p. 13
Curses were another responsibiliyt of the Shaman.
When foot races were held, herbs were sometimes used to cause a rival to faint.
The wizard sometimes injured a person in some particular part, such as the feet.
The Timucua wizard, who desired to cause the death of a person, used in his incantations the skin of a “viper” and that of a black snake, along with part of the “black guano” (a kind of palm tree) and other herbs.
While he was going through his incantations he would not eat fish, cut his hair, or sleep with his wife.
When the person he was trying to kill died the wizard bathed and broke his fast.
If the victim did not die, it was thought that the incantation would react upon the wizard himself and kill him.
The chiefs were held in such high opinion that it resulted in a kind of "chief cult" which was accompanied by human sacrifice:
"Their custom is to offer up the first-born son to the chief.
When the day for the sacrifice is notified to the chief, he proceeds to a place set apart for the purpose, where there is a bench for him, on which he takes his seat.
"In the middle of the area before him is a wooden stump two feet high, and as many thick, before which the mother sits on her heels, with her face covered in her hands, lamenting the loss of her child.
"The principal one of her female relatives or friends now offers the child to the chief in worship, after which the women who have accompanied the mother form a circle, and dance around with demonstrations of joy, but without joining hands.
She who holds the child goes and dances in the middle, singing some praises of the chief.
"Meanwhile, six Indians, chosen for the purpose, take their stand apart in a certain place in the open area; and midway among them the sacrificing officer, who is decorated with a sort of magnificence, and holds a club.
"The ceremonies being through, the sacrificer takes the child, and slays it in honor of the chief, before them all, upon the wooden stump.
The offering was on one occasion performed in our presence."
- Le Moyne, Narrative, p. 13
Elvas declared that human sacrifice existed also among the Tocobaga people of Tampa Bay:
"The Indians are worshippers of the devil, and it is their custom to make sacrifices of the blood and bodies of their people, or of those of any other they can come by; and they affirm, too, that when he would have them make an offering, he speaks, telling them that he is athirst, and that they must sacrifice to him."
The Timucua believed in omens. This meant that they interpreted random events could predict or have an affect upon the future.
For example, if someone saw a snake in the woods, they believed something bad was about to happen.
The "hoot" of an owl could mean that either something harmful was coming or that something bad would have occurred, but the owl took pity on the person and they were now safe.
An owl totem found in the St. Johns River proves how important the owl was to the Timucua.
The totem likely belonged to a group of Timucua likely called the “people of the owl.”
[A Great horned owl effigy carved by Native Americans
from the heart of a southern yellow pine.
It has a unique human eye inside bird's eye.
Believed to be from 1300 A.D.,
it was found in the St. Johns River near Hontoon Island (Deland) in 1955.]
As an example of the reverence which they paid to particular objects may be cited their treatment of the column set up by Ribault in 1562.
When Laudonnière saw it three years later it was “crowned with crowns of bay, and, at the foot thereof, many little baskets full of mill [i.e., corn], which they call in their language tapaga tapola.
Then, when they came hither, they kissed the same with great reverence, and besought us to do the like.”
Le Moyne says of this:
"On approaching, they found that these Indians were worshipping this stone as an idol; and the chief himself, having saluted it with signs of reverence such as his subjects were in the habit of showing to himself, kissed it.
His men followed his example, and we were invited to do the same.
Before the monument there lay various offerings of the fruits, and edible or medicinal roots, growing thereabouts; vessels of perfumed oils; a bow, and arrows; and it was wreathed around from top to bottom with flowers of all sorts, and boughs of the trees esteemed choicest."
Laudonnière and Le Moyne describe at considerable length their method of holding councils.
Early every morning the council in a settlement would meet to discuss the affairs of the chiefdom, smoke, and sometimes participate in games.
Important council meetings opened with a "White Drink" ceremony that helped purify the men , so that they would find it easier to interact.
The drink was actually black in color, but was also know as "white drink", because of it was considered to have purifying properties.
The drink is often referred to as "black" or "white" interchangeably.
This White Drink was a highly caffeinated Cassina tea, that was brewed from the leaves of the local yaupon holly tree.
Its main constituent was caffeine, and it was drunk hot like coffee to focus thought and enhance intellectual powers.
This drink was integral to most Timucua rituals and hunts.
The black drink was used as a way for Timucua men to gain the energy needed to not eat anything, while performing the strenuous task of hunting or going to battle all day before eating their only meal at night.
The Timucua believed that when they sweat because of the caffeine, they were sweating out impurities like fear.
Sometimes before a major battle or hunt the men would drink large portions of the drink, which would make them vomit at times.
It was related to the maté drink of Central and South America and is thought to perhaps have been brought over by the Arawak-speaking peoples that migrated from Amazonia, from which the Timucua were believed to have descended.
During ceremonies, a pipe would be lit and smoke blown in the four cardinal directions by one person after another according to their status.
Laudonnière wrote:
They take no enterprise in hand, but first they assemble often times their council together, and they take very good advisement before they grow to a resolution.
They meet together every morning in a great common house, whither their king repaireth, and setteth him down upon a seat, which is higher than the seats of the others; where all of them, one after another, come and salute him; and the most ancient begin their salutations, lifting up both their hands twice as high as their face, saying, Ha, he, ha! and the rest answer: Ah, ah!
As soon as they have done their salutation, every man sitteth him down upon the seats which are round about in the house.
If there be anything to entreat of, the king calleth the lawas, that is to say, their priests and the most ancient men, and asketh them their advice.
Afterward, he commandeth cassine to be brewed, which is a drink made of the leaves of a certain tree.
They drink this cassine very hot; he drinketh first, then he causeth to be given thereof to all of them, one after another, in the same bowl, which holdeth well a quart-measure of Paris.
They make so great account of this drink, that no man may taste thereof, in this assembly, unless he hath made proof of his valor in the war.
Moreover, this drink hath such a virtue, that, as soon as they have drunk it, they become all of a sweat, which sweats being past, it taketh away hunger and thirst for twenty-four hours after."
[Timucua Black Drink Ceremony]
[Timucua Black Drink Ceremony performed by Chief Saturiwa before going to battle against the enemy.
- Engraving by Theodore de Bry]
Le Moyne’s account, as usual inserted to accompany a sketch, is as follows:
"The chief and his nobles are accustomed during certain days of the year to meet early every morning for this express purpose in a public place, in which a long bench is constructed, having at the middle of it a projecting part laid with nine round trunks of trees for the chief’s seat.
On this he sits by himself, for distinction’s sake, and here the rest come to salute him, one at a time, the oldest first, by lifting both hands twice to the height of the head and saying, “Ha, he, ya, ha, ha.”
To this the rest answer, “Ha, ha.”
Each, as he completes his salutation, takes his seat on the bench.
If any question of importance is to be discussed, the chief calls upon his lailas (that is, his priests) and upon the elders, one at a time, to deliver their opinions.
They decide upon nothing until they have held a number of councils over it, and they deliberate very sagely before deciding.
Meanwhile the chief orders the women to boil some casina, which is a drink prepared from the leaves of a certain root [plant], and which they afterwards pass through a strainer.
The chief and his coimcillors being now seated in their places, one stands before him, and spreading forth his hands wide open asks a blessing upon the chief and the others who are to drink.
Then the cup bearer brings the hot drink in a capacious shell, first to the chief and then, as the chief directs, to the rest in their order, in the same shell.
They esteem this drink so highly that no one is allowed to drink it in council unless he has proved himself a brave warrior.
Moreover, this drink has the quality of at once throwing into a sweat whoever drinks it.
On this account those who can not keep it down, but whose stomachs reject it, are not intrusted with any difficult commission or any military responsibility, being considered unfit, for they often have to go three or four days without food; but one who can drink this liquor can go for twenty-four hours afterwards without eating or drinking.
In military expeditions, also, the only supplies which the hermaphrodites carry consist of gourd bottles or wooden vessels full of this drink.
It strengthens and nourishes the body, and yet does not fly to the head, as we have observed on occasion of these feasts of theirs.
To these accounts of the regular gatherings I will add one of the ceremony attending a meeting between one of the Florida chiefs, Saturiwa, and the French.
The usual form of friendly greeting consisted in rubbing the body of the visitor, seemingly a continent-wide method of salutation.
The king [Saturiwa] was accompanied by seven or eight hundred men, handsome, strong, well made, and active fellows, the best trained and swiftest of his force, all under arms as if on a military expedition.
Before him marched fifty youths with javelins or spears, and behind these and next to himself were twenty pipers, so produced a wild noise without musical harmony or regularity, but only blowing away with all their might, each trying to be the loudest.
Their instruments were nothing but a thick sort of reed or cane, with two openings, one at the top to blow into and the other end for the wind to come out of, like organ pipes or whistles.
On his right hand limped his soothsayer, and on the left was his chief counsellor, without which two personages he never proceeded on any matter whatever.
He entered the place prepared for him alone [an arbor made of boughs] and sat down in it after the Indian manner – that is, by squatting on the ground like an ape or any other animal.
Then, having looked all around and having observed our little force drawn up in line of battle, he ordered MM. de Laudonnière and d’Ottigny to be invited into his tabernacle, where he delivered to them a long oration, which they understood only in part."
Le Moyne thus describes the preparations for an ordinary social feast:
"At the time of year when they are in the habit of feasting each other, they employ cooks, who are chosen on purpose for the business.
These, first of all, take a great round earthen vessel (which they know how to make and to burn so that water can be boiled in it as well as in our kettles), and place it over a large wood fire, which one of them drives with a fan very effectively, holding it in the hand.
The head cook now puts the things to be cooked into the great pot; others put water for washing into a hole in the ground; another brings water in a utensil that serves for a bucket; another pounds on a stone the aromatics that are to be used for seasoning; while the women are picking over or preparing the viands."
[Depiction of Athore, son of Chief Saturiwa, showing René Laudonnière a monument placed by Jean Ribault.
- Engraving based on Jacques le Moyne's drawing]
Timucua men played several recreational games, notably archery, running, and a type of ball game similar to lacrosse and soccer. The game was played during the summer in honor of the gods of the sun, rain, and thunder in order to bless the harvest. The eastern Timucua played a game in which balls were thrown, rather than kicked, at a goal post. Dancing was another popular pastime.
[An engraving depicting Timucua men participating in archery competition.
- Theodore de Bry]
Regarding games Laudonnière says:
"They exercise their young men to run well, and they make a game, among themselves, which he winneth that hath the longest breath.
They also exercise themselves much in shooting.
They play at the ball in this manner: They set up a tree in the midst of a place, which is eight or nine fathoms high, in the top whereof there is set a square mat, made of reeds, or bullrushes, which whosoever hitteth in playing thereat winneth the game."
And Le Moyne:
"Their youth are trained in running, and a prize is offered for him who can run longest without stopping; and they frequently practise with the bow.
They also play a game of ball, as follows: In the middle of an open space is set up a tree some eight or nine fathoms high, with a square frame woven of twigs on the top; this is to be hit with the ball, and he who strikes it first gets a prize."
The Timucua adopted a variation of the North American game of chunkey to resolve a judicial dispute.
This involved using beautifully fashioned concave disks of stone about 45 centimeters in diameter.
When rolled, the stone takes an irregular path, and each player throws a long pole toward the point they think the stone will eventually stop.
The object is to throw just before you think the stone will fall over.
Politics and Warfare
The Timucua were living in different tribes with their own territories and dialects.
They did not view themselves as one people.
The grouping of the Northeastern and Central Florida tribes into one nation known as Timucua was a creation of the Spanish and French.
They grouped them together based on a shared similar language.
The Timucua "nation" was made up of 30 to 35 chiefdoms, each speaking one of the ten dialects of the Timucuan language.
Each chiefdom had a central town, along with hundreds of people in assorted villages within its purview.
The tribes can be placed into eastern and western groups.
The Eastern Timucua were located along the Atlantic coast and on the islands of northern Florida and southeastern Georgia; along the St. Johns River and its tributaries; and among the rivers, swamps and associated inland forests in southeastern Georgia, possibly including the Okefenokee Swamp.
They usually lived in villages close to waterways, participated in the St. Johns culture or in unnamed cultures related to the Wilmington-Savannah culture, and were more focused on exploiting the resources of marine and wetland environments.
In 1601 the Spanish noted more than 50 caciques (chiefs) subject to the head caciques of Santa Elena (Yustaga), San Pedro (Tacatacuru, on Cumberland Island), Timucua (Northern Utina) and Potano.
The Tacatacuru, Saturiwa and Cascangue were subject to San Pedro, while the Yufera and Ibi, neighbors of the Tacatacuru and Cascangue, were independent.
The aristocratic nature of Timucua government is apparent from the statements of the French and Pareja.
From Pareja’s Catechism it appears that chiefs were allowed to exact tribute and labor from their subjects, and that by way of punishment they sometimes had the arms of their laborers broken.
He also wrote that just before assuming the chieftainship a man had a new fire lighted and maintained for six days in a small house or arbor which was closed up with laurels and “other things.”
The chiefs wore at times long painted skins, the ends of which were held up from the ground by attendants. Le Moyne and Laudonnière confirmed this.
These skins were often presented to the French as marks of esteem.
While alliances and confederacies arose between the chiefdoms from time to time, the Timucua were never organized into a single political unit and often fought amongst themselves.
Conflicts between different groups of Timucua were common and mostly fought over status and to capture new wives and slaves.
Although the Timucua were considered to be one of the more peaceful tribes, especially compared to Southern and Western Florida tribes, they would fight back when pushed.
The valor and skill of Timucua warriors is also well attested by the chroniclers of the expedition of Do Soto.
Timucua weapons consisted of bows and arrows, darts, and clubs.
“...they obstruct our dances, banquets, feasts, fires and wars, so that by failing to use them we lose the ancient valor and dexterity inherited from our ancestors...”
(Excerpt from a tribal complaint concerning Spanish missionaries.)
“A chief who declares war against his enemy, does not send a herald to do it, but orders some arrows, having locks of hairs fastened at the notches, to be stuck up along the public ways.”
- Le Moyne, Narrative, p. 13 (ill.)
Le Moyne gave the following account in which Chief Saturiwa set out to war against his enemy, Utina:
"He assembled his men, decorated, after the Indian manner, with feathers and other things, in a level place, the soldiers of Laudonnière being present, and the force sat down in a circle, the chief being in the middle.
A fire was then lighted on his left and two great vessels full of water were set on his right.
Then, the chief, after rolling his eyes as if excited by anger, uttering some sounds deep down in his throat, and making various gestures, all at once raised a horrid yell; and all his soldiers repeated this yell, striking their hips and rattling their weapons.
Then the chief, taking a wooden platter of water, turned toward the sun and worshiped it, praying to it for victory over the enemy, and that, as he should now scatter the water that he had dipped up in the wooden platter, so might their blood be poured out.
Then he flimg the water with a great cast up into the air, and as it fell down upon his men he added,
“As I have done with this water, so I pray that you may do with the blood of your enemies.”
Then he poured the water in the other vase upon the fire and said,
“So may you be able to extinguish your enemies and bring back their scalps.”
Then they all arose and set off by land, up the river, upon their expedition.
In the fight with the Utina, the Indians displayed great skill, discharging their arrows by squads and throwing themselves on the ground when the Frenchmen aimed at them."
The following is Laudonnière’s version of this ceremony:
When he [Saturiwa] was sitting down by the river’s side, being compassed about with ten other paracoussiss he commanded water to be brought him speedily.
This done, looking up into heaven, he fell to discourse of divers things, with gestures that showed him to be in exceeding great choler, which made him one while shake his head hither and thither; and, by and by, with, I wot not what fury, to turn his face toward the country of his enemies, and to threaten to kill them.
He oftentimes looked upon the sun, praying him to grant him a glorious victory of his enemies; which, when he had done, by the space of half an hour, he sprinkled, with his hand, a little of the water, which he held in a vessel, upon the heads of the paracoussies and cast the rest, as it were, in a rage and despite, into a fire, which was there prepared for the purpose.
This done, he cried out, thrice, He Thimogoa! [Timucua] and was followed with five hundred Indians, at the least, which were there assembled, which cried, all with one voice, He Thimogoa!
This ceremony, as a certain Indian told me, familiarly, signified nothing else but that Saturiwa besought the Sun to grant unto him so happy a victory, that he might shed his enemies’ blood, as he had shed the water at his pleasure.
Moreover, that the paracoussies, which were sprinkled with a part of that water, might return with the heads of their enemies, which is the only, and chief, triumph of their victories."
We also learn from Pareja’s Catechism that before they set out on an expedition the warriors bathed in certain herbs.
Before march two men blowing on flutes, and at the sides are two others with large feather fans on the ends of long poles. Some of these features, especially the last, seem suspiciously European, but the use of flutes before such personages is well attested. Feather fans were also employed throughout the southern area; it is rather the type of fan shown here that is doubtful.
When traveling to battle, provisions were carried along by women, young boys, and berdaches, but frequently it seems to have been confined to parched (roasted) corn.
Spark was considerably more detailed in their bows and arrows, along with fighting techniques:
"In their warres they use bowes and arrowes, whereof their bowes are made of a kind of Yew, but blacker than ours, and for the most part passing the strength of the Negros or Indians, for it is not greatly inferior to ours: their arrowes are also of a great length, but yet of reeds like other Indians, but varying in two points, both in length and also for nocks and feathers, which the other lacke, whereby they shoot very stedy: the heads of the same are vipers teeth, bones of fishes, flint stones, piked points of knives, which they hvuing gotten of the French men, broke the same, and put the points of them in their arrowes heads: some of them have their heads of siluer, othersome that have want of these, put in a kind of hard wood, notched, which pierceth as farre as any of the rest.
In their fight, being in the woods, they use a maruellous pollicie for their owne safegard, which is by clasping a tree in their armes, and yet shooting notwithstanding: this policy they used with the French men in their fight, whereby it appeareth that they are people of some policy."
Commenting on the weapons of the Timucua farther west, Elvas says:
"Their bows are very perfect; the arrows are made of certain canes, like reeds, very heavy, and so stiff that one of them, when sharpened, will pass through a target. Some are pointed with the bone of a fish, sharp, and like a chisel; others with some stone like a point of diamond; of such the greater number, when they strike upon armor, break at the place the parts are put together; those of cane split, and will enter a shirt of mail, doing more injury than when armed."
Le Moyne told of arrows with gold heads sent in by one of the Frenchmen from the western Timucua, but these were probably copper.
Their arrows were not poisoned.
Quivers were made of skins, but from Le Challeux it appears that their hair was impressed into service as a natural receptacle for arrows:
"It is wonderful how suddenly they take them in their hands in order to shoot to a distance and as straight as possible."
(Gaffarel, Hist. Floride française, p. 461)
A wrist guard made from bark is described and figured by Le Moyne.
A bow and arrow prowess description of the Fidalgo of Elvas:
"The Indians are exceedingly ready with their weapons, and so warlike and nimble that they have no fear of footmen; for if these charge them they flee, and when they turn their backs they are presently upon them.
They avoid nothing more easily than the flight of an arrow.
They never remain quiet, but are continually running, traversing from place to place, so that neither crossbow nor arquebuse can be aimed at them.
Before a Christian can make a single shot with either, an Indian will discharge three or four arrows; and he seldom misses of his object.
Where the arrow meets with no armor, it pierces as deeply as the shaft from a crossbow."
Scalping and mutilation of the dead were universally practiced and there is evidence also of cannibalism.
The following describes Florida war expeditions by Le Moyne:
When Saturiwa went to war his men preserved no order, but went along one after another, just as it happened.
On the contrary, his enemy, Holata Outina, whose name, as I now remember, means “king of many kings,” and who was much more powerful than he as regards both wealth and number of his subjects, used to march with regular ranks, like an organized army; himself marching alone in the middle of the whole force, painted red.
On the wings, or horns, of his order of march were his young men, the swiftest of whom, also painted red, acted as advanced guards and scouts for reconnoitering the enemy.
These are able to follow up the traces of the enemy by scent, as dogs do wild beasts; and, when they come upon such traces, they immediately return to the army to report.
And, as we make use of trumpets and drums in our armies to promulgate orders, so they have heralds, who by cries of certain sorts direct them to halt, or to advance, or to attack, or to perform any other military duty.
After sunset they halt, and are never wont to give battle.
For encamping, they are arranged in squads of ten each, the bravest men being put in squads by themselves. When the chief has chosen the place of encampment for the night, in open fields or woods, and after he has eaten, and is established by himself, the quartermasters place ten of these squads of the bravest men in a circle around him.
About ten paces outside of this circle is placed another line of twenty squads; at twenty yards farther, another of forty squads; and so on, increasing the number and distance of these lines, according to the size of the army.
At no time while the French were acting along with the great chief Holata Outina in his wars against his enemies, was there any combat which could be called a regular battle; but all their military operations consisted either in secret incursions, or in skirmishes as light troops, fresh men being constantly sent out in place of any who retired.
Whichever side first slew an enemy, no matter how insignificant the person, claimed the victory, even though losing a greater number of men.
In their skirmishes, any who fall are instantly dragged off by persons detailed for the purpose; who, with slips of reeds sharper than any steel blade, cut the skin of the head to the bone, from front to back, all the way round, and pull it off with the hair, more than a foot and a half long, still adhering, done up in a knot on the crown, and with that lower down round the forehead and back cut short into a ring about two fingers wide, like the rim of a hat.
Then, if they have time, they dig a hole in the ground, and make a fire, kindling it with some which they keep burning in moss, done up in skins, and carry round with them at their belts; and then dry these scalps to a state as hard as parchment.
They also are accustomed, after a battle, to cut off with these reed knives the arms of the dead near the shoulders, and their legs near the hips, breaking the bones, when laid bare, with a club, and then to lay these fresh broken, and still running with blood, over the same fires to be dried.
Then hanging them, and the scalps also, to the ends of their spears, they carry them off home in triumph.
I used to be astonished at one habit of theirs – for I was one of the party which Laudonnière sent out under M. d’Ottigny – which was, that they never left the field of battle without shooting an arrow as deep as they could into the arms of each of the corpses of the enemy, after mutilating them as above – an operation which was sometimes sufficiently dangerous, unless those engaged in it had an escort of soldiers.
From Laudonnière:
"The kings of the country make war, one against another, which is not executed except by surprise, and they kill all the men they can take; afterwards they cut off their heads, to have their hair, which, returning home, they carry away, to make thereof their triumph when they come to their houses."
"When they go to war, their king marcheth first, with a club in one hand, and his bow in the other, with his quiver full of arrows.
While they fight, they make great cries and exclamations."
"They save the women and children, and nourish them, and keep them always with them.
Being returned home from the war, they assemble all their subjects, and, for joy, three days and three nights, they make good cheer, they dance and sing; likewise, they make the most ancient women of the country to dance, holding the hairs of their enemies in their hands, and, in dancing, they sing praises to the sun, ascribing unto him the honor of the victory…"
Le Moyne described the attacks upon fortified towns:
For the enemy, eager for revenge, sometimes will creep up by night in the utmost silence, and reconnoiter to see if the watch be asleep.
If they find everything silent, they approach the rear of the town, set fire to some dry moss from trees, which they prepare in a particular manner, and fasten to the heads of their arrows.
They then fire these into the town, so as to ignite the roofs of the houses, which are made of palm branches thoroughly dried with the summer heats.
As soon as they see that the roofs are burning, they make off as fast as possible, before they are discovered, and they move so swiftly that it is a hard matter to overtake them; and meanwhile also the fire is giving the people in the town enough to do to save themselves from it and get it under.
Such are the stratagems used in war by the Indians for firing the enemy’s towns; but the damage done is trifling, as it amounts only to the labor required for putting up new houses.
But when the burning of a town has happened in consequence of the negligence of the watch, the penalty is as follows:
The chief takes his place alone on his bench, those next to him in authority being seated on another long bench curved in a half circle; and the executioner orders the culprit to kneel down before the chief.
He then sets his left foot on the delinquent’s back; and, taking in both hands a club of ebony [?] or some other hard wood, worked to an edge at the sides, he strikes him on the head with it, so severely as almost to split the skull open.
The same penalty is inflicted for some other crime reckoned capital among them; for we saw two persons punished in this same way."
In the particular case of the expedition by Saturiwa against Thimogoa, Laudonnière says that after having attacked one of the enemies’ towns successfully and taken 24 prisoners, they retired themselves immediately into their boats, which waited for them.
"Being come thither, they began to sing praises unto the Sun, to whom they attributed their victory.
And, afterwards, they put the skins of those heads on the ends of their javelins, and went all together toward the territories of Paracoussy Omoloa, one of them which was in the company.
Being come thither, they divided their prisoners, equally, to each of the paracoussies, and left thirteen of them to Saturiwa, which straightway dispatched an Indian, his subject, to carry news before of the victory to them which stayed at home to guard their houses, which immediately began to weep.
But as soon as night was come, they never left dancing, and playing a thousand gambols, in honor of the feast.
The next day the Paracoussy Saturiwa came home, who, before he entered into his lodging, caused all the scalps of his enemies to be set up before his door, and crowned them with branches of laurel, showing, by this glorious spectacle, the triumph of the victory which he had obtained.
Straightway began lamentation and mourning, which, as soon as the night began, were turned into pleasures and dances."
"After returning from a military expedition they assembled in a place set apart for the purpose, to which they bring the legs, arms, and scalps which they have taken from the enemy, and with solemn formalities fix them up on tall poles set in the ground in a row.
Then they all, men and women, sit down on the ground in a circle before these members; while the sorcerer, holding a small image in his hand, goes through a form of cursing the enemy, uttering in a low voice, according to their manner, a thousand imprecations.
At the side of the circle opposite to him there are placed three men kneeling down, one of whom holds in both hands a club, with which he pounds on a flat stone, marking time to every word of the sorcerer.
At each side of him the other two hold in each hand the fruit of a certain plant, something like a gourd or pumpkin, which has been dried, opened at each end, its marrow and seeds taken out, and then mounted on a stick, and charged with small stones or seeds of some kind.
These they rattle after the fashion of a bell, accompanying the words of the sorcerer with a kind of song after their manner.
They have such a celebration as this every time they take any of the enemy.
One of Laudonnière’s lieutenants was witness of a ceremony intended to keep in mind the injuries which his people had received in times past from their enemies. It consisted in the mock killing of one of his family and subsequent wailing over him. This was performed only when they returned from a war expedition without the heads of their enemies or any captives.
Some captives were probably tortured to death, as was threatened in the case of the Spaniard, Juan Ortiz, who was “bound hand and foot to four stakes, and laid upon scaffolding, beneath which a fire was kindled, that he might be burned.”
- Bourne, Narr. of De Soto, I, p. 28
Death and Burial
"Hermaphrodites, partaking of the nature of each sex, are quite common in these parts, and are considered odious by the Indians themselves, who, however, employ them, as they are strong, instead of beasts of burden."
"When any Indian is dead of wounds or disease, two hermaphrodites take a couple of stout poles, fasten cross-pieces on them, and attach to these a mat woven of reeds.
On this they place the deceased, with a skin under his head, a second bound around his body, a third around one thigh, a fourth around one leg.
Why these are so used I did not ascertain; but I imagine by way of ornament, as in some cases they do not go so far, but put the skin upon one leg only.
Then they take thongs of hide, three or four fingers broad, fasten the ends to the ends of the poles, and put the middle over their heads, which are remarkably hard; and in this manner they carry the deceased to the place of burial.
Persons having contagious diseases are also carried to places appointed for the purpose on the shoulders of the hermaphrodites, who supply them with food, and take care of them until they get quite well again."
- Le Moyne
Drawings made by the French artist Jacobo Le Moyne, who visited the east coast in the year 1564, were reproduced by De Bry in the second part of his famous collection of voyages, printed in 1591.
One of the engravings, representing a burial ceremony in one of the Timucuan villages, is reproduced in plate 13, b.
The description of the plate as given in the old work reads:
"When a king dieth, they bury him very solemnly, and, upon his grave they set the cup wherein he was wont to drink; and round about the said grave, they stick many arrows, and weep and fast three days together, without ceasing.
All the kings which were his friends make the like mourning; and, in token of the love which they bear him, they cut off more than the one-half of their hair, as well men as women.
During the space of six moons (so they reckon their months), there are certain women appointed which bewail the death of this king, crying, with a loud voice, thrice a day – to wit, in the morning, at noon, and at evening.
All the goods of this king are put into his house, and, afterwards, they set it on fire, so that nothing is ever more after to be seen.
The like is done with the goods of the priests; and, besides, they bury the bodies of their priests in their houses, and then set them on fire."
- Le Moyne
A manuscript, entitled “Notes and Annotations of the Cosmographer, Lopez de Velasco”, contains an interesting account of the burial customs of the Tocobaga (near Tampa):
"When one of the principal caciques dies, they cut him to pieces and cook him in large pots during two days, when the flesh has entirely separated from the bones, and adjust one to another until they have formed the skeleton of the man, as he was in life.
Then they carry it to a house which they call their temple.
This operation lasts four days and during all this time they fast.
At the end of the four days, when everything is ready, all the Indians of the town get together and come out with the skeleton in procession, and they bury it with the greatest show and reverence.
Then they say that all those who have participated in the ceremonies gain indulgendes."
The mourning rites for persons of the lower orders are not given, but from Pareja it appears that the custom of cutting off the hair was universal.
He also informs us that some object was placed with the body in the tomb.
In the narrative of De Grourgues’s expedition Olotocara, the nephew of Saturiwa, is said to have begged De Gourgues “to give unto his wife, if he escaped not, that which he had meant to bestow on him, that she might bury the same with him, that thereby he might be better welcome unto the village of the souls or spirits departed.”
The early Woodland cultures of Eastern North America started the practice of burying the dead under large mounds of earth.
Their legends claim that this practice began when they defeated the early red-haired cannibal giants that were already living in North America when they arrived.
According to their legends, the bodies of the dead giants were too large for them to move, so they just covered their bodies with dirt.
They eventually began using this practice with the bodies of their own dead.
When the Taino (later Timucua) arrived from Cuba and took over as the prominent culture of the peninsula of Florida, they retained the Woodland practice of burial mounds.
Clarence Bloomfield Moore has examined many mounds on the west coast between Tampa Bay and the mouth of the Ocilla, and has discovered innumerable burials contained in them.
The mounds on the eastern portion of the peninsula, were somewhat different from those to the westward, and probably the burial customs were likewise different.
Moore even explored the mounds along Lake Emma in Villa City.
According to Moore, it is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between the different burials now found in central Florida.
Many are unquestionably quite ancient, dating from some generations before the coming of the Spaniards; others are comparatively recent.
The older forms may be Timucuan or even of the people who may have traversed this section when going farther southward; possibly some very old Muskhogean [Woodland] tribe.
But no human remains yet found in Florida, or elsewhere east of the Mississippi, can justly be attributed to a people more ancient than the native American tribes, as now known and recognized.
Various forms are represented.
In some instances, only skulls were found, without any other bones in contact.
But of all the works examined in this region the most interesting stood near Tarpon Springs, near the Gulf shore, south of Tampa Bay.
The mound was thoroughly explored and ”the remains of more than six hundred skeletons” were found.
Moore has given a very graphic description of the construction of a mound examined by him which stood in Duval County, Florida, not far from the banks of the St. Johns.
Its diameters were 63 feet and 58 feet, and its height, then greatly reduced by cultivation, was only 2 feet 2 inches.
He wrote:
”It was evident that the mound had been constructed in the following manner.
First, a fire was built on the surface, possibly to destroy the underbrush.
Next, a pit of the area of the intended mound was dug to a depth of about 3 feet.
In a central portion of this pit was made a deposit of human remains with certain artifacts.
Then the pit was filled with the sand previously thrown out, through which was plentifully mingled charcoal from the surface fire.
During the process of filling, various relics but no human remains, were deposited, and covered by the sand.
When the pit was filled to the general level, a great fire was made over its entire area as was evidenced by a well marked stratum of sand discolored by fire and containing particles of charcoal, extending entirely through the mound at the level of the surrounding territory.
Upon this the mound proper was constructed and various bunched burials and art relics introduced.
In all human remains were encountered eleven times, once at the base of the pit, the remainder in the body of the mound.
The burials were of the bunched variety, but small portions remaining.
Objects of shell, stone, pottery, and copper were recovered from the mound, which was entirely destroyed."
Traces of great fires are characterstic of many mounds along the St. Johns, but whether they were supposed to have served some practical purpose, or were ceremonial, can not be told.
Midway across the peninsula, in the present Lake County, and within the Acuera territory, have been encountered many mounds, shell deposits, and other signs of the occupancy of the country by a comparatively large native population. Some were even found along Lake Emma in Villa City.
[Ceremonies of Women Mourning for their Deceased Husbands
Engraving by Theodore de Bry]
Sketches of Le Moyne illustrate the ceremonies undergone by widows; and they are thus explained:
"The wives of such as have fallen in war or died by disease are accustomed to get together on some day which they find convenient for approaching the chief.
They come before him with great weeping and outcry, sit down on their heels, hide their faces in their hands, and with much clamor and lamentation require of the chief vengeance for their dead husbands, the means of living during their widowhood, and permission to marry again at the end of the time appointed by law.
The chief, sympathizing with them, assents, and they go home weeping and lamenting, so as to show the strength of their love for the deceased.
After some days spent in this mourning they proceed to the graves of their husbands, carrying the weapons and drinking cups of the dead, and there they mourn for them again and perform other feminine ceremonies….
After coming to the graves of their husbands they cut off their hair below the ears and scatter it upon the graves, and then cast upon them the weapons and drinking shells of the deceased, as memorials of brave men.
This done they return home, but are not allowed to marry again until their hair has grown long enough to cover their shoulders."
Many Timucua artifacts are stored at the Florida Museum of Natural History, at the University of Florida, and other museums.
More Information:
Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve
12713 Fort Caroline Road, Jacksonville, Florida 32225