CHAPTER III.

PENINSULAR TRIBES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

§ 1. SITUATION AND SOCIAL CONDITION.--Caloosas.--Tegesta and Ais.--Tocobaga.--Vitachuco.--Utina.--Soturiba.--Method of Government.

§ 2. CIVILIZATION.--Appearance.--Games.--Agriculture.--Construction of Dwellings.--Clothing.

§ 3. RELIGION.--General Remarks.--Festivals in honor of the Sun and Moon.--Sacrifices.--Priests.--Sepulchral Rites.

§ 4. LANGUAGES.--Timuquana Tongue.--Words preserved by the French.

§ 1.--SITUATION AND SOCIAL CONDITION.

When in the sixteenth century the Europeans began to visit Florida they did not, as is asserted by the excellent bishop of Chiapa, meet with numerous well ordered and civilized nations,[182] but on the contrary found the land sparsedly peopled by a barbarous and quarrelsome race of savages, rent asunder into manifold petty clans, with little peaceful leisure wherein to better their condition, wasting their lives in aimless and unending internecine war. Though we read of the cacique Vitachuco who opposed De Soto with ten thousand chosen warriors, of another who had four thousand always ready for battle,[183] and other such instances of distinguished power, we must regard them as the hyperbole of men describing an unknown and strange land, supposed to abound in marvels of every description. The natural laws that regulate the increase of all hunting tribes, the analogy of other nations of equal civilization, the nature of the country, and lastly, the adverse testimony of these same writers, forbid us to entertain any other supposition. Including men, women, and children, the aboriginal population of the whole peninsula probably but little exceeded at any one time ten thousand souls. At the period of discovery these were parcelled out into villages, a number of which, uniting together for self-protection, recognized the authority of one chief. How many there were of these confederacies, or what were the precise limits of each, as they never were stable, so it is impossible to lay down otherwise than in very general terms, dependent as we are for our information on the superficial notices of military explorers, who took an interest in anything rather than the political relations of the nations they were destroying.

Commencing at the south, we find the extremity of the peninsula divided into two independent provinces, one called Tegesta on the shores of the Atlantic, the other and most important on the west or Gulf coast possessed by the Caloosa tribe.

The derivation of the name of the latter is uncertain. The French not distinguishing the final letter wrote it Calos and Callos; the Spaniards, in addition to making the same omission, softened the first vowel till the word sounded like Carlos, which is their usual orthography. This suggested to Barcia and others that the country was so called from the name of its chief, who, hearing from his Spanish captives the grandeur and power of Charles of Spain (Carlos V), in emulation appropriated to himself the title. Doubtless, however, it is a native word; and so Fontanedo, from whom we derive most of our knowledge of the province, and who was acquainted with the language, assures us. He translates it “_village cruel_,”[184] an interpretation that does not enlighten us much, but which may refer to the exercise of the sovereign power. As a proper name, it may be the Muskohge _charlo_, trout, assumed, according to a common custom, by some individual. It is still preserved in the Seminole appellation of the Sanybal river, Carlosa-hatchie and Caloosa-hatchie, and in that of the bay of Carlos, corrupted by the English to Charlotte Harbor, both on the southwestern coast of the peninsula near north latitude 26° 40´.

According to Fontanedo, the province included fifty villages of thirty or forty inhabitants each, as follows: “Tampa, Tomo, Tuchi, Sogo, No which means beloved village, Sinapa, Sinaesta, Metamapo, Sacaspada, Calaobe, Estame, Yagua, Guayu, Guevu, Muspa, Casitoa, Tatesta, Coyovea, Jutun, Tequemapo, Comachica, Quisiyove, and two others; on Lake Mayaimi, Cutespa, Tavaguemme, Tomsobe, Enempa, and twenty others; in the Lucayan Isles, Guarunguve and Cuchiaga.” Some of these are plainly Spanish names, while others undoubtedly belong to the native tongue. Of these villages, Tampa has given its name to the inlet formerly called the bay of Espiritu Santo[185] and to the small town at its head. Muspa was the name of a tribe of Indians who till the close of the last century inhabited the shores and islands in and near Boca Grande, where they are located on various old maps. Thence they were driven to the Keys and finally annihilated by the irruptions of the Seminoles and Spaniards.[186] Guaragunve, or Guaragumbe, described by Fontanedo as the largest Indian village on Los Martires, and which means “the village of tears,” is probably a modified orthography of Matacumbe and identical with the island of Old Matacumbe, remarkable for the quantity of lignum vitæ there found,[187] and one of the last refuges of the Muspa Indians. Lake Mayaimi, around which so many villages were situated, is identical with lake Okee-chobee, called on the older maps and indeed as late as Tanner’s and Carey’s, Myaco and Macaco. When Aviles ascended the St. Johns, he was told by the natives that it took its origin “from a great lake called Maimi thirty leagues in extent,” from which also streams flowed westerly to Carlos.[188] In sound the word resembles the Seminole _pai-okee_ or _pai-hai-o-kee_, grassy lake, the name applied with great fitness by this tribe to the Everglades.[189] When travelling in Florida I found a small body of water near Manatee called lake Mayaco, and on the eastern shore the river Miami preserves the other form of the name.

The chief of the province dwelt in a village twelve or fourteen leagues from the southernmost cape.[190] The earliest of whom we have any account, Sequene by name, ruled about the period of the discovery of the continent. During his reign Indians came from Cuba and Honduras, seeking the fountain of life. He was succeeded by Carlos, first of the name, who in turn was followed by his son Carlos. In the time of the latter, Francesco de Reinoso, under the command of Pedro Menendez de Aviles, the founder of St. Augustine and Adelantado of Florida, established a colony in this territory, which, however, owing to dissensions with the natives, never flourished, and finally the Cacique was put to death by Reinoso for some hostile demonstration. His son was taken by Aviles to Havana to be educated and there baptized Sebastian. Every attempt was made to conciliate him, and reconcile him to the Spanish supremacy but all in vain, as on his return he became “more troublesome and barbarous than ever.” This occurred about 1565-1575.[191] Not long after his death the integrity of the state was destroyed, and splitting up into lesser tribes, each lived independent. They gradually diminished in number under the repeated attacks of the Spaniards on the south and their more warlike neighbors on the north. Vast numbers were carried into captivity by both, and at one period the Keys were completely depopulated. The last remnant of the tribe was finally cooped up on Cayo Vaco and Cayo Hueso (Key West), where they became notorious for their inhumanity to the unfortunate mariners wrecked on that dangerous reef. Ultimately, at the cession of Florida, to England in 1763, they migrated in a body to Cuba, to the number of eighty families, since which nothing is known of their fate.[192]

Of the province of Tegesta, situate to the west of the Caloosas, we have but few notices. It embraced a string of villages, the inhabitants of which were famed as expert fishers, (grandes Pescadores,) stretching from Cape Cañaveral to the southern extremity.[193] The more northern portion was in later times called Ais, (Ays, Is) from the native word _aïsa_, deer, and by the Spaniards, who had a post here, Santa Lucea.[194] The residence of the chief was near Cape Cañaveral, probably on Indian river, and not more than five days journey from the chief town of the Caloosas.

At the period of the French settlements, such amity existed between these neighbors, that the ruler of the latter sought in marriage the daughter of Oathcaqua, chief of Tegesta, a maiden of rare and renowned beauty. Her father, well aware how ticklish is the tenure of such a jewel, willingly granted the desire of his ally and friend. Encompassing her about with stalwart warriors, and with maidens not a few for her companions, he started to conduct her to her future spouse. But alas! for the anticipations of love! Near the middle of his route was a lake called Serrope, nigh five leagues about, encircling an island, whereon dwelt a race of men valorous in war and opulent from a traffic in dates, fruits, and a root “so excellent well fitted for bread, that you could not possibly eat better,” which formed the staple food of their neighbors for fifteen leagues around. These, fired by the reports of her beauty and the charms of the attendant maidens, waylay the party, rout the warriors, put the old father to flight, and carry off in triumph the princess and her fair escort, with them to share the joys and wonders of their island home.

Such is the romantic story told Laudonniére by a Spaniard long captive among the natives.[195] Why seek to discredit it? May not Serrope be the beautiful Lake Ware in Marion county, which flows around a fertile central isle that lies like an emerald on its placid bosom, still remembered in tradition as the ancient residence of an Indian prince,[196] and where relics of the red man still exist? The dates, _les dattes_, may have been the fruit of the Prunus Chicasaw, an exotic fruit known to have been cultivated by the later Indians, and the bread a preparation of the coonta root or the yam.

North of the province of Carlos, throughout the country around the Hillsboro river, and from it probably to the Withlacooche, and easterly to the Ocklawaha, all the tribes appear to have been under the domination of one ruler. The historians of De Soto’s expedition called the one in power at that period, Paracoxi, Hurripacuxi, and Urribarracuxi, names, however different in orthography, not unlike in sound, and which are doubtless corruptions of one and the same word, otherwise spelled Paracussi, and which was a generic appellation of the chiefs from Maryland to Florida. The town where they found him residing, is variously stated as twenty, twenty-five, and thirty leagues from the coast,[197] and has by later writers been located on the head-waters of the Hillsboro river.[198] In later times the cacique dwelt in a village on Old Tampa Bay, twenty leagues from the main, called Tocobaga or Togabaja,[199] (whence the province derived its name,) and was reputed to be the most potent in Florida. A large mound still seen in the vicinity marks the spot.

This confederacy waged a desultory warfare with their southern neighbors. In 1567, Aviles, then superintending the construction of a fort among the Caloosas, resolved to establish a peace between them, and for this purpose went himself to Tocobaga. He there located a garrison, but the span of its existence was almost as brief as that of the peace he instituted. Subsequently, when the attention of the Spaniards became confined to their settlements on the eastern coast, they lost sight of this province, and thus no particulars of its after history are preserved.

The powerful chief Vitachuco, who is mentioned in the most extravagant terms by La Vega and the Gentleman of Elvas, seems, in connection with his two brothers, to have ruled over the rolling pine lands and broad fertile savannas now included in Marion and Alachua counties. Though his power is undoubtedly greatly over-estimated by these writers, we have reason to believe, both from existing remains and from the capabilities of the country, that this was the most densely populated portion of the peninsula, and that its possessors enjoyed a degree of civilization superior to that of the majority of their neighbors.

The chief Potavou mentioned in the French accounts, residing about twenty-five leagues, or two days’ journey from the territory of Utina, and at war with him, appears to have lived about the same spot, and may have been a successor or subject of the cacique of this province.[200]

The rich hammocks that border the upper St. Johns and the flat pine woods that stretch away on either side of this river, as far south as the latitude of Cape Cañaveral,[201] were at the time of the first settlement of the country under the control of a chief called by the Spanish Utina, and more fully by the French Olata Ouæ Outina. His stationary residence was on the banks of the river near the northern extremity of Lake George, in which locality certain extensive earthworks are still found, probably referable to this period. So wide was his dominion that it was said to embrace more than forty subordinate chiefs,[202] which, however, are to be understood only as the heads of so many single villages. It is remarkable, and not very easy of satisfactory explanation, that among nine of these mentioned by Laudonniére,[203] two, Acquera and Moquoso, are the names of villages among the first encountered by De Soto in his march through the peninsula, and said by all the historians of the expedition to be subject to the chief Paracoxi.

Soturiba (Sotoriva, Satouriona) was a powerful chief, claiming the territory around the mouth of the St. Johns, and northward along the coast nearly as far as the Savannah. Thirty sub-chiefs acknowledged his supremacy, and his influence extended to a considerable distance inland. He showed himself an implacable enemy to the Spaniards, and in 1567, assisted Dominique de Gourgues to destroy their settlements on the St. Johns. His successor, Casicola, is spoken of by Nicolas Bourguignon as the “lord of ten thousand Indians,” and ruler of all the land “between St. Augustine and St. Helens.”

The political theories on which these confederacies were based, differed singularly in some particulars from those of the Indians of higher latitudes. Among the latter the chief usually won his position by his own valor and wisdom, held it only so long as he maintained this superiority, and dying, could appoint no heir to his pre-eminence. His counsel was sought only in an emergency, and his authority coerced his fellows to no subjection. All this was reversed among the Floridians. The children of the first wife inherited the power and possessions of their father,[204] the eldest getting the lion’s share; the sub-chiefs paid to their superior stated tributes of roots, games, skins, and similar articles;[205] and these superiors held unquestioned and absolute power over the persons, property, and time of their subjects.[206] Among the Caloosas, indeed, the king was considered of divine nature, and believed to have the power to grant or withhold seasons favorable to the crops, and fortune in the chase; a superstition the shrewd chief took care to foster by retiring at certain periods almost unattended to a solitary spot, ostensibly to confer with the gods concerning the welfare of the nation.[207] In war the chief led the van with a chosen body guard for his protection,[208] and in peace daily sate in the council house, there both to receive the homage of his inferiors, and to advise with his counsellors on points of national interest. The devotion of the native to their ruler, willingly losing their lives in his defence, is well illustrated in the instance of Vitachuco, killed by De Soto. So scrupulously was the line of demarcation preserved between them and their subjects, that even their food was of different materials.[209]

§ 2.--CIVILIZATION.

The Floridians were physically a large, well proportioned race, of that light shade of brown termed by the French _olivâtre_. On the southern coast they were of a darker color, caused by exposure to the rays of the sun while fishing, and are described by Herrera as “of great stature and fearful to look upon,” (de grandes cuerpos y de espantosa vista). What rendered their aspect still more formidable to European eyes was the habit of tattooing their skin, practiced for the double purpose of increasing their beauty, and recording their warlike exploits. Though this is a perfectly natural custom, and common wherever a warm climate and public usage permits the uncivilized man to reject clothing a portion of the year, instances are not wanting where it has been made the basis of would-be profound ethnological hypotheses.

In their athletic sports they differed in no notable degree from other tribes. A favorite game was that of ball. In playing this they erected a pole about fifty feet in height in the centre of the public square; on the summit of this was a mark, which the winning party struck with the ball.[210] The very remarkable “pillar” at the Creek town of Atasse on the Tallapoosa river, one day’s journey from the Coosa, which puzzled the botanist Bartram,[211] and which a living antiquarian of high reputation has connected with phallic worship,[212] was probably one of these solitary trunks, or else the “red painted great war-pole” of the southern Indians,[213] usually about the same height.

In some parts they had rude musical instruments, drums, and a sort of flute fashioned from the wild cane,[214] the hoarse screeching of which served to testify their joy on festive occasions. A primitive pipe of like construction, the earliest attempt at melody, but producing anything but sounds melodious, was common among the later Chicasaws[215] and the Indians of Central America.[216]

Their agriculture was of that simple character common to most North American tribes. They planted twice in the year, in June or July and March, crops of maize, beans, and other vegetables, working the ground with such indifferent instruments as sticks pointed, or with fish bones and clam-shells adjusted to them.[217] Yet such abundant return rewarded this slight toil that, says De Soto,[218] the largest army could be supported without exhausting the resources of the land. In accordance with their monarchical government the harvests were deposited in public granaries, whence it was dispensed by the chief to every family proportionately to the number of its members. When the stock was exhausted before the succeeding crop was ripe, which was invariably the case, forsaking their fixed abodes, they betook themselves to the woods, where an abundance of game, quantities of fish and oysters, and the many esculent vegetables indigenous in that latitude, offered them an easy and not precarious subsistence.

Their dwellings were collected into a village, circular in form, and surrounded with posts twice the height of a man, set firmly in the ground, with interfolding entrance. If we may rely on the sketches of De Morgues, taken from memory, the houses were all round and the floors level with the ground, except that of the chief, which occupied the centre of the village, was in shape an oblong parallelogram, and the floor somewhat depressed below the surface level.[219] In other parts the house for the ruler and his immediate attendants was built on an elevation either furnished by nature or else artificially constructed. Such was the “hie mount made with hands,” described by the Portuguese Gentleman at the spot where De Soto landed, and which is supposed by some to be the one still seen in the village of Tampa. Some of these were of sufficient size to accommodate twenty dwellings, with roads leading to the summits on one side, and quite inaccessible on all others.

Most of the houses were mere sheds or log huts thatched with the leaf of the palmetto, a plant subservient to almost as many purposes as the bread-fruit tree of the South Sea Islands. Occasionally, however, the whole of a village was comprised in a single enormous habitation, circular in form, from fifty to one hundred feet in diameter. Into its central area, which was sometimes only partially roofed, opened numerous cabins, from eight to twelve feet square, arranged around the circumference, each the abode of a separate family. Such was the edifice seen by Cabeza de Vaca “that could contain more than three hundred persons” (que cabrian mas de trecientas personas);[220] such that found by De Soto in the town of Ochile on the frontiers of the province of Vitachuco; such those on the north-eastern coast of the peninsula described by Jonathan Dickinson.[221]

The agreeable temperature that prevails in those latitudes throughout the year did away with much of the need of clothing, and consequently their simple wardrobe seems to have included nothing beyond deerskins dressed and colored with vegetable dyes, and a light garment made of the long Spanish moss (_Tillandsia usneoides_), the gloomy drapery of the cypress swamps, or of the leaves of the palmetto. A century and a half later Captain Nairn describes them with little or no clothing, “all painted,” and with no arms but spears, “harpoos,” pointed with fish bones.

§ 3.--RELIGION.

It is usual to consider the religion and mythology of a nation of weighty import in determining its origin; but to him, who regards these as the spontaneous growth of the human mind, brought into existence by the powers of nature, nourished by the mental constitution of man, and shaped by external circumstances, all of which are “everywhere different yet everywhere the same,” general similarities of creed and of rite appear but deceptive bases for ethnological theories. The same great natural forces are eternally at work, above, around and beneath us, producing similar results in matter, educing like conceptions in mind. He who attentively compares any two mythologies whatever, will find so many points of identity and resemblance that he will readily appreciate the capital error of those who deduce original unity of race from natural conformity of rite. Such is the fallacy of those who would derive the ancient population of the American continent from a fragment of an insignificant Semitic tribe in Syria; and of the Catholic missionaries, who imputed variously to St. Thomas and to Satan the many religious ceremonies and legends, closely allied to those of their own faith, found among the Aztecs and Guatemalans.

In investigations of this nature, therefore, we must critically distinguish between the local and the universal elements of religions. Do we aim by analysis to arrive at the primal theistic notions of the human mind and their earliest outward expression? The latter alone can lead us. Or is it our object to use mythology only as a handmaid to history, an index of migrations, and a record of external influence? The impressions of local circumstances are our only guides.

The tribes of the New World, like other early and uncivilized nations, chose the sun as the object of their adoration; either holding it to be itself the Deity, as did most of the indwellers of the warm zones, or, as the natives of colder climes, only the most august object of His creation, a noble emblem of Himself. Intimately connected with both, ever recurring in some one of its Protean forms, is the worship of the reciprocal principle.

The Floridian Indians belonged to the first of these classes. They worshipped the sun and moon, and in their honor held such simple festivals as are common in the earlier stages of religious development. Among these the following are worthy of specification.

After a successful foray they elevated the scalps of their enemies on poles decked with garlands, and for three days and three nights danced and sang around them.[222] The wreaths here probably had the same symbolical significance as those which adorned the Athenian Hermes,[223] or which the Maypures of the Orinoco used at their weddings, or those with which the northern tribes ornamented rough blocks of stone.

Their principal festival was at the first corn-planting, about the beginning of March. At this ceremony a deer was sacrificed to the sun, and its body, or according to others its skin stuffed with fruits and grain, was elevated on a tall pole or tree stripped of its branches, an object of religious veneration, and around which were danced and sung the sacred choruses;[224] a custom also found by Loskiel among the Delawares,[225] and which, recognizing the deer or stag as a solar emblem, surmounting the phallic symbol, the upright stake, has its parallel in Peruvian heliolatry and classical mythology.

The feast of Toya, though seen by the French north of the peninsula and perhaps peculiar to the tribes there situate, presents some remarkable peculiarities. It occurred about the end of May, probably when the green corn became eatable. Those who desired to take part in it, having apparelled themselves in various attire, assembled on the appointed day in the council house. Here three priests took charge of them, and led them to the great square, which they danced around thrice, yelling and beating drums. Suddenly at a given signal from the priests they broke away “like unbridled horses” (comme chevaux débridez), plunging into the thickest forests. Here they remained three days without touching food or drink, engaged in the performance of mysterious duties. Meanwhile the women of the tribe, weeping and groaning, bewailed them as if dead, tearing their hair and cutting themselves and their daughters with sharp stones; as the blood flowed from these frightful gashes, they caught it on their fingers, and, crying out loudly three times _he Toya_, threw it into the air. At the expiration of the third day the men returned; all was joy again; they embraced their friends as though back from a long journey; a dance was held on the public square; and all did famous justice to a bounteous repast spread in readiness.[226] The analogy that these rites bear to the Διονυσια and similar observances of the ancients is very striking, and doubtless they had a like significance. The singular predominance of the number three, which we shall also find repeated in other connections, cannot escape the most cursory reader. Nor is this a rare or exceptional instance where it occurs in American religions; it is bound up in the most sacred myths and holiest observances all over the continent.[227] Obscure though the reason may be, certain it is that the numbers three, four, and seven, are hallowed by their intimate connection with the most occult rites and profoundest mysteries of every religion of the globe, and not less so in America than in the older continent.

In the worship of the moon, which in all mythologies represents the female principle, their rites were curious and instructive. Of those celebrated at full moon by the tribes on the eastern coast, Dickinson, an eyewitness, has left us the following description:--“The moon being up, an Indian who performeth their ceremonies, stood out, looking full at the moon, making a hideous noise and crying out, acting like a mad-man for the space of half an hour, all the Indians being silent till he had done; after which they all made a fearful noise, some like the barking of a dogg or wolf, and other strange sounds; after this one gets a logg and setts himself down; holding the stick or logg upright on the ground, and several others getting about him, made a hideous noise, singing to our amazement.” This they kept up till midnight, the women taking part.[228]

On the day of new moon they placed upright in the ground “a staff almost eight foot long having a broad arrow on the end thereof, and thence half-way painted red and white, like unto a barber’s-pole; in the middle of the staff is fixed a piece of wood, like unto the thigh, legg, and foot of a man, and the lower part thereof is painted black.” At its base was placed a basket containing six rattles; each taking one and making a violent noise, the six chief men of the village including the priest danced and sang around the pole till they were fatigued, when others, painted in various devices, took their place; and so on in turn. These festivities continued three days, the day being devoted to rest and feasting, the night to the dance and fasting; during which time no woman must look upon them.[229] How distinctly we recognize in this the worship of the reciprocal principle!--that ever novel mystery of reproduction shadowed forth by a thousand ingenious emblems, by a myriad strange devices, all replete with a deep significance to him who is versed in the subtleties of symbolism. Even among these wretched savages we find the colors black, white, and red, retain that solemn import so usual in oriental mythi.

The representation of a leg used in this observance must not be considered a sign of idolatry, for, though the assertion, advanced, by both Adair[230] and Klemm,[231] that no idols whatever were worshipped by the hunting tribes, is unquestionably erroneous and can be disproved by numerous examples, in the peninsula of Florida they seem to have been totally unknown. The image of a bird, made of wood, seen at the village where De Soto first landed, cannot be regarded as such, but was a symbol common among several of the southern tribes, and does not appear to have had any special religious meaning.

Human sacrifice, so rare among the Algic nations, was not unknown, though carried to by no means such an appalling extent as among the native accolents of the Mississippi. The chief of the Caloosas immolated every year one person, usually a Christian, to the principle of evil (al Demonio)[232], as a propitiary offering; hence on one old map, that of De L’Isle, they are marked “Les Carlos Antropophages.” Likewise around the St. Johns they were accustomed to sacrifice the firstborn son, killing him by blows on the head;[233] but it is probable this only obtained to a limited observance. In all other cases their offerings consisted of grains and fruits.

The veneration of the serpent, which forms such an integral part of all nature religions, and relics of which are retained in the most perfected, is reported to have prevailed among these tribes. When a soldier of De Gourgues had killed one, the natives cut off its head and carried it away with great care and respect (avec vu grand soin et diligence).[234] The same superstitious fear of injuring these reptiles was retained in later days by the Seminoles.[235]

The priests constituted an important class in the community. Their generic appellation, _javas_, _jauas_, _jaruars_, _jaovas_, _jaonas_, _jaiias_, _javiinas_,--for all these and more orthographies are given--has been properly derived by Adair from the meaningless exclamation _yah-wah_, used as name, interjection, and invocation by the southern Indians. It is not, however, an etymon borrowed from the Hebrew as he and Boudinot argue, but consists of two slightly varied enunciations of the first and simplest vowel sound; as such, it constitutes the natural utterance of the infant in its earliest wail, and, as the easiest cry of relief of the frantic devotee all over the world, is the principal constituent of the proper name of the deity in many languages. Like the medas of the Algonquins and the medicine men of other tribes, they united in themselves the priest, the physician, and the sorcerer. In sickness they were always ready with their bag of herbs and simples, and so much above contempt was their skill in the healing art that not unfrequently they worked cures of a certain troublesome disease sadly prevalent among the Indians and said by some to have originated from them. Magicians were they of such admirable subtlety as to restore what was lost, command the unwilling rain from heaven in time of drought, and foretell the position of an enemy or the result of a battle. As priests, they led and ordered festivals, took part in grave deliberations, and did their therapeutic art fail to cure, were ready with spiritual power to console, in the emergencies of pain and death.

Their sepulchral rites were various. Along the St. Johns, when a chief died they interred the corpse with appropriate honors, raised a mound two or three feet high above the grave, surrounded it with arrows fixed in the ground, and on its summit deposited the conch, _le hanap_, from which he was accustomed to drink. The tribe fasted and mourned three days and three nights, and for six moons women were employed to bewail his death, lamenting loudly thrice each day at sunrise, at mid-day, and at sunset.[236] All his possessions were placed in his dwelling, and the whole burnt; a custom arising from a superstitious fear of misfortune consequent on using the chattels of the dead, a sentiment natural to the unphilosophic mind. It might not be extravagant to suppose that the shell had the same significance as the urn so frequent in the tombs of Egypt and the sepulchres of Magna Græcia, “an emblem of the hope that should cheer the dwellings of the dead.”[237] The burial of the priests was like that of the chiefs, except that the spot chosen was in their own houses, and the whole burnt over them, resembling in this a practice universal among the Caribs, and reappearing among the Natchez, Cherokees and Arkansas, (Taencas).

Among the Caloosas and probably various other tribes, the corpses were placed in the open air, apparently for the purpose of obtaining the bones when the flesh had sufficiently decomposed, which, like the more northern tribes, they interred in common sepulchres, heaping dirt over them so as to form mounds. It was as a guard to watch over these exposed bodies, and to prevent their desecration by wild beasts, that Juan Ortiz, the Spaniard of Seville, liberated by De Soto, had been employed while a prisoner among the nations of the Gulf Coast.

§ 4.--LANGUAGE.

A philological examination of the Floridian tribes, which would throw so much light on their origin, affiliation, and many side-questions of general interest, must for the present remain unattempted, save in a very inadequate manner. Not but that there exists material, ample and well-arranged material, but it is not yet within reach. I have already spoken of the works of the Father Pareja, the learned and laborious Franciscan, and of the good service he did the missionaries by his works on the Timuquana tongue. Not a single copy of any of these exists in the United States, and till a republication puts them within reach of the linguist, little can be done towards clearing up the doubt that now hangs over the philology of this portion of our country. What few extracts are given by Hervas, hardly warrant a guess as to their classification.

The name Timuquana, otherwise spelled Timuaca, Timagoa, and Timuqua, in which we recognize the Thimogona of the French colonists, was applied to the tongue prevalent in the immediate vicinity of St. Augustine and toward the mouth of the St. Johns. It was also held in estimation as a noble and general language, a sort of _lingua franca_, throughout the peninsula. Pareja remarks, “Those Indians that differ most in words and are roughest in their enunciation (mas toscos), namely those of Tucururu[238] and of Santa Lucea de Acuera, in order to be understood by the natives of the southern coast, who speak another tongue, use the dialect of Moscama, which is the most polished of all (la mas politica), and that of Timuquana, as I myself have proved, for they understood me when I preached to them.”[239]

This language is remarkable for its singularly numerous changes in the common names of individuals, dependent on mutual relationship and the varying circumstances of life, which, though not the only instance of the kind in American tongues, is here extraordinarily developed, and in the opinion of Adelung seems to hint at some previous, more cultivated condition (in gewissen Hinsicht einen cultivirteren Zustand des Volks anzeigen möchte).[240] For example, _iti_, father, was used only during his life; if he left descendants he was spoken of as _siki_, but if he died without issue, as _naribica-pasano_: the father called his son _chiricoviro_, other males _kie_, and all females _ulena_. Such variations in dialect, or rather quite different dialects in the same family, extraordinary as it may seem to the civilized man, were not very uncommon among the warlike, erratic hordes of America. They are attributable to various causes. The esoteric language of the priests of Peru and Virginia might have been either meaningless incantations, as those that of yore resounded around the Pythian and Delphic shrines, or the _disjecta membra_ of some ancient tongue, like the Dionysiac songs of Athens. When as among the Abipones of Paraguay, the Natchez of Louisiana, and the Incas of Peru, the noble or dominant race has its own peculiar tongue, we must impute it to foreign invasion, and a subsequent rigorous definition of the line of cast and prevention of amalgamation. Another consequence of war occurs when the women and children of the defeated race are alone spared, especially should the males be much absent and separated from the females; then each sex has its peculiar language, which may be preserved for generations; such was found to be the case on some of the Caribbee islands and on the coast of Guiana. Also certain superstitious observances, the avoidance of evil omens, and the mere will of individuals, not seldom worked changes of this nature. In such cases these dialects stand as waymarks in the course of time, referring us back to some period of unity, of strife, or of migration, whence they proceeded, and as such, require the greatest caution to be exercised in deducing from them any general ethnographical inferences.

What we are to judge in the present instance is not yet easy to say. Hervas does not hesitate to assert that abundant proof exists to ally this with the Guaranay (Carib) stock. Besides a likeness in some etymons, he takes pains to lay before the reader certain similar rites of intermarriage, quotes Barcia to show that Carib colonies actually did land on Florida, and adds an ideal sketch of the _Antigua configuracion del golfo Mexicano y del mar Atlantico_, thereon proving how readily in ancient ages, under altered geological conditions, such a migration could have been effected.

Without altogether differing from the learned abbé in his position, for it savors strongly of truth, it might be well, with what material we have at hand, to see whether other analogies could be discovered. The pronominal adjectives and the first three numerals are as follows;--

na mine mile our ye thine yaye your mima his lama their minecotamano one naiuchanima two nakapumima three

Now, bearing in mind that the pronouns of the first and second persons and the numerals are primitive words, and that in American philology it is a rule almost without exception that personal pronouns and pronominal adjectives are identical in their consonants,[241] we have five primitive words before us. On comparing them with other aboriginal tongues, the _n_ of the first person singular is found common to the Algonquin Lenape family, but in all other points they are such contrasts that this must pass for an accidental similarity. A resemblance may be detected between the Uchee _nowah_, two, _nokah_, three, and _naiucha_-mima, _naka_-pumima. Taken together, _iti-na_, my father, sounds not unlike the Cherokee _etawta_, and Adelung notices the slight difference there is between _niha_, eldest brother, and the Illinois _nika_, my brother. But these are trifling compared to the affinities to the Carib, and I should not be astonished if a comparison of Pareja with Gilü and D’Orbigny placed beyond doubt its relationship to this family of languages. Should this brief notice give rise to such an investigation, my object in inserting it will have been accomplished.

The French voyagers occasionally noted down a word or two of the tongues they encountered, and indeed Laudonniére assures us that he could understand the greater part of what they said. Such were _tapagu tapola_, little baskets of corn, _sieroa pira_, red metal, _antipola bonnasson_, a term of welcome meaning, brother, friend, or something of that sort (qui vaut autant à dire comme frère, amy, ou chose semblable).[242] Albert Gallatin[243] subjected these to a critical examination, but deciphered none except the last. This he derives from the Choktah _itapola_, allies, literally, they help each other, while “in Muskohgee, _inhisse_, is, his friends, and _ponhisse_, our friends,” which seems a satisfactory solution. It was used as a friendly greeting both at the mouth of the St. Johns and thirty leagues north of that river; but this does not necessarily prove the natives of those localities belonged to the Chahta family, as an expression of this sort would naturally gain wide prevalence among very diverse tribes.

Fontanedo has also preserved some words of the more southern languages, but none of much importance.