12 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 95 



of trees. These are : The Surruqueses, the Ayses, the Santaluces, the 

 Geigas, the Jobeses, the Vizcaynos," the Matcumbeses. the Baya- 

 jondos, the Cuchiagaros, the Pojoyes, the Pineros, the Tocopacas. 

 and those of Carlos, who are great fishermen and divers. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CHRISTIANIZED INDIANS 



In the four provinces of Guale, Timuqua, Apalache and Apalacho- 

 coh there are 13,152 Christianized Indians to whom I administered the 

 holy sacrament of confirmation. They are fleshy, and rarely is there a 

 small one, but they are weak and phlegmatic as regards work, though 

 clever and quick to learn any art they see done, and great carpenters 

 as is evidenced in the construction of their wooden churches which arc 

 large and painstakingly wrought. The arms they employ are bow and 

 arrows and a hatchet they call nmcdnu. They go naked, with only the 

 skin [of some animal] from the waist down, and, if anything more, a 

 coat of serge without a lining, or a blanket. The women wear only a 

 sort of tunic that wraps them from the neck to the feet, and which 

 they make of the pearl-colored foliage of trees,*'' which they call guano 

 and which costs them nothing except to gather it. Four thousand and 

 eighty-one women, whom I found in the villages naked from the waist 

 up and from the knees down, I caused to be clothed in this grass " 

 like the others. 



Their ordinary diet consists of porridge which they make of corn 

 with ashes,*^ pumpkins, beans which they call frijoles, with game and 

 fish from the rivers and lakes which the well-to-do ones can afford. 

 Their only drink is water, and they do not touch wine or rum. Their 

 greatest luxury is [a drink] which they make from a weed that grows 

 on the seacoast, which they cook and drink hot and which they call 

 cadna. It becomes very bitter and is worse than beer, although it 

 does not intoxicate them and is beneficial. They sleep on the ground, 

 and in their houses only on a frame made of reed bars, which they call 

 barbacoa, with a bear skin laid upon it and without any cover, the fire 

 they build in the center of the house serving in place of a blanket. 

 They call the house bujio. It is a hut made in round form, of straw, 

 without a window and with a door a vora ** high and half a vara wide. 



"A Spanish word, like Santaluces, Bayajondos and Pineros. 



*■' Guano is a general term for any sort of palm tree or leaf. He evidently refers 

 to clothing of Spanish moss. 



" Yerha: the use of this word indicates that the writer did not recognize the 

 material. 



^^ Corn with ashes " ^^ lye hominy. 



'" The z'ara is 2.8 feet. 



