MOUNDS OF THE VANISHED CALUSA INDIANS 



OF FLORIDA 



By M. W. STIRLING, 

 Chief, Bureau of American Ethnology 



When the Spaniards first visited the west coast of Florida early 

 in the sixteenth century, the region from Tampa Bay southward to 

 the Keys was occupied by the Calusa Indians. At this time they were 

 an important tribe, but in common with the other aboriginal Indians 

 of Florida they disappeared rapidly upon contact with the whites. Un- 

 fortunately no early traveler has left an adequate description of this 

 interesting group. As a result we must depend almost entirely upon 

 the results of archeological investigations in reconstructing their mode 

 of living. 



It was for the purpose of continuing such researches that the writer 

 visited Florida during February, March, and April of 1930. Through 

 the kindness of Mr. Lee Parish, the writer was enabled to accompany 

 him on his yacht Esperanza through the intricate channels of the Ten 

 Thousand Islands, where a number of old village sites were located 

 and excavations conducted on a typical southern Calusa mound on 

 Horr's Island. Numerous trade objects of European manufacture 

 discovered in course of the excavations helped to confirm the writer's 

 previous view that the mounds of the Ten Thousand Island district 

 are probably the most recent in Florida. It was in this hidden and 

 comparatively inaccessible region that the Calusa Indians finally re- 

 tired as a result of pressure from the north and here made their 

 last stand against encroaching civilization. Here and there among 

 the maze of keys comprising the Ten Thousand Islands is one which 

 bas caught the wind-blown sand in such a manner as to build it up, 

 forming " high ground " above the level of the surrounding mangrove 

 swamps. Such localities were invariably utilized by the Indians as 

 places of abode, the height of the ground in most instances being con- 

 siderably augmented by the accumulation of shells and village debris. 



On the east end of Horr's Island is a rather extensive shell deposit 

 now overgrown with a dense underbrush. Three hundred yards to 

 the eastward of the village site is a sand burial mound 35 feet in 

 diameter and 7 feet in height. Working among dense clouds of mos- 

 quitoes and sand flies, we excavated a sector of the mound compris- 

 ing about one-third of its volume. Seven burials were encountered, 



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