92 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 76 



Island, Porpoise Point, Postman's Key. and Choskoloski River have 

 many little-known shell heaps. The keys near Caxambas appear to 

 have been the center or the sites of a considerable population, judging 

 from the number of these mounds. 



This word with a different orthography, cacimbas, occurs in the Isle 

 of Pines, Cuba, where 20 or 30 ol^jects called Cacimbas de los Indios 

 were examined by Dr. Fewkes several years ago. The word occurs 

 on the mainland of South America and is interpreted as a " pipe." 

 Cuban cacimbas are large vase-like objects buried in the earth and 

 ample enough to contain a child. These vases are associated with low 

 mounds showing effects of fire, and are supposed by some writers to 

 be receptacles for turpentine or pitch with which the ancients pitched 

 their canoes. N^aturally it would be interesting to know why the name 

 is applied to this region in Florida. Was the " Arawak Colony " in 

 this neighborhood ? 



Several shell implements (fig. 92) were found at Horr's Island, 

 near Caxambas. among which was a perforated circular disk of stone, 

 called an anchor by the owner. It was smooth on one face and rough 

 on the opposite, suggesting a quern or mill for grinding or bruising 

 roots or corn, similar to those elsewhere described from Haiti and 

 Porto Rico. The particular interest attached to this object which was 

 one of many other specimens is that it is one of the few implements 

 from the Ten Thousand Islands that substantiates the historical 

 accounts that the Indians in southern Florida ground food into meal. 



There are only a few modern settlements in the Ten Thousand 

 Islands scattered along the southwestern coast of Florida, the most 

 extensive of which, at Porpoise Point, consists of several houses and 

 about 50 people, all related or belonging to one social unit or clan 

 (fig. 88f, d). At this isolated community a school house has been 

 erected for the natives by 'Sir. Elliott, and ?\Ir. Little, who will serve 

 as their school master, was carried to them on this trip. The oldest 

 man of the settlement claims to be a Choctaw Indian ; he is very old, 

 and although there is some doubt of his ancestry, his descendants are 

 mixed bloods. Life is very simple in this primitive place and the 

 houses are mounted on piles like pile dwellings. 



One of the most interesting clusters of shell heaps (fig. 88a) 

 visited in Florida is situated near Porpoise Point. The shell heaps 

 near this settlement are rarely visited or at least seldom described by 

 archeologists, probably because it is hidden by a dense jungle of 

 mangroves and approached by a narrow channel cut through this 

 forest, and navigable onlv at half or full tide. The difficult entrance 



