1880.] 4/1 [Gatschet. 



Either the Atlantic coast or the borders of the interior fresh-water lakes, 

 or the Seminole settlements, Fla., might still harbor some of the race, 

 though little hope is to be entertained that their ancient vocalic language 

 may still be heard among them. 



Ethnographic Remakes Concerning the Timdcua People. 



Not only for the history of the Floridians, but also for their ethnography 

 the report of Rene de Laudonniere is of the greatest value. In the 

 small extent of territory which he saw, the manners and customs were 

 probably the same everywhere, on the coast and in the interior ; but fur- 

 ther to the west, among the Apalache, Hitchiti and Creeks, they must 

 have differed not inconsiderably, The artist Jacques ie Moyne de Morgues 

 accompanied the captain on his expeditions inland, and with his skilful 

 pencil reproduced most tastefully what he had observed among the red men 

 of the plains and forests. These sketches do not seem to be historically 

 faithful in every respect, for striking pictorial effect often seems more desir- 

 able to artists than historic truth ; but taken as a whole, they give us a 

 vivid picture of the reality of life among the Timucua. They were pub- 

 lished in Theodor de Bry's collection of pictorial voyages, vol. II, with 

 Latin text at the lower margin (Brevis Narratio; Fraucofurti ad Moenum, 

 1598, fob). Alb. J. Pickett, History of Alabama, Charleston, 1851 (2 vols.. 

 12mo.), has reproduced several of these drawings, together with extracts 

 from De Laudonniere ; but he wrongly supposes that LeMoyne's pictures 

 represent the appearance and customs of the Southern Indians in general. 

 Neither he nor Fairbanks, nor any other southern writer speaks of the 

 Timucua as a distinct race. 



Condensed from De Laudonniere, Pareja and other sources, I present the 

 following short sketch of what appeared to me the most characteristic of 

 all the Timucua customs and peculiarities : 



Men and women generally went nude. Their bodies were well propor- 

 tioned, the men were of a brown-olive color, tall stature and without ap- 

 parent deformities. The majority of men tattooed themselves in very 

 artistic devices on the arms and thighs, and to judge from Le Moyne's 

 pictures, the chiefs at least were tattooed over the whole body. They 

 trussed up their long black hair in a bunch resting on their head, and 

 covered their privates with a well-dressed deerskin. Women wore 

 the hair long, reaching down to the hips, but on losing their hus- 

 bands they cut their hair off to its root, and did not remarry before it 

 had grown again to reach the shoulders. Both sexes were in the habit of 

 wearing their finger nails long. The custom of pressing the heads of in- 

 fants is not mentioned. - 



* This custom prevailed largely among the Cha'hta, who were called Flat- 

 heads on that account. The German anatomist, A. Ecker, has lately examined 

 twenty skulls excavated on the western coast of Florida, and published the re- 

 sult in the Brunswick " Archiv filr A nthropologie" vol. X (1S78 1, page 2111-14, under 

 the heading: "Zur Kenntniss de.s Korperbaues friiherer Einwonuer der Halb- 

 insel Florida." He thinks that a portion of them was artificially altered and 

 deformed, but that they belonged to a race similar or identical to that encoun- 

 tered by the first Spanish explorers; he further believes, that the people which 

 accumulated the shell-heaps which are so frequent on the Floridian shore-line 

 differed from the above, and perhaps belonged to the Carib stock. 



