428 



ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1&17. 



Concerning their food Dickenson says: 



These people neither sow nor reap nor plant any manner of thing whatsoever, 

 nor care for anything but what the barren sands produce. Fish they have as 

 plenty as they please, but sometimes they would make it scarce for us, so that 

 a meal a week was most commonly our portion, and three meals a rarity. 



Oysters, clams, and other shellfish were also included in their 

 menus, and thej 7 must have had venison and other game occasionally, 

 for Dickenson mentions the use of deerskins for clothing. In fish- 

 ing, torches were sometimes used at night, and Dickenson noticed a 

 young Indian spearing fish with great dexterity by means of a 

 "striking staff," which he threw at the fish and brought them to 

 shore on the end of his staff. In two hours he got as many fish as 

 would serve 20 men. This striking staff or spear must have been 



similar to a harpoon, with a foreshaft. 

 Among the objects from southern 

 Florida in the United States National 

 Museum there are wooden spears hav- 

 ing the foreshaft pointed with sharks' 

 teeth. In addition to the spears, they 

 are armed with bows and arrows, and 

 many of them carried Spanish knives. 

 They also had other objects of Euro- 

 pean origin which they had obtained 

 from wrecks, and one of them had a 

 supply of ambergris which he had 

 collected along the shore and which 

 he expected to sell to the Spaniards 

 at a good price. 



Among the wild fruits eaten by the 

 Indians, Dickenson mentions "seaside coco plums" (Chrysohalanus 

 Icaco) (fig. 32), "seaside grapes" {Coccolobis uvifera) (pi. 57), 

 and palmetto berries, great stores of which w r ere kept in their houses. 

 The latter, which were undoubtedly the drupes of the saw palmetto 

 (jSerenoa ser / ) v ulata) (pi. 58), may be considered the principal vege- 

 table food staple of the Indians south of Jupiter Inlet. Dickenson 

 found the coco plums and seaside grapes refreshing, but of the pal- 

 metto berries he saj's : 



Not one amongst us could suffer them to stay in our mouths, for we could 

 compare them to nothing else than rotten cheese steeped in tobacco juice. 1 



Notwithstanding his dislike of these berries when he first en- 

 countered them, Dickenson and his companions became accustomed 



1 That this comparison is most apt was proved by the writer, who tested some dried 

 drupes of Serrenoa serrulata in the collection of the Bureau of Plant Industry. They are 

 not unlike small dates in appearance, with a seed resembling a brown bean, surrounded 

 by scant pulp. The latter tasted very much like rancid cheese, with a slightly sweetish 

 taste like that of certain kinds of chewing tobacco. (See pi. 28.) 



Fig. 32. — Coco plum, Chrysohalanus 

 pilocarpus. Half NAT. size. 



