90 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLL. 69 
roof was undoubtedly thatched with palmetto, which was exten- 
sively used for this purpose wherever it was obtainable. 
A palisaded town is shown in plate 16, 6, a reproduction of Le 
Moyne’s plate 30. A part of the descriptive text accompanying 
the illustration reads: 
‘The chief’s dwelling stands in the middle of the town and is 
partly underground in consequence of the sun’s heat. Around this 
are the houses of the principal men, all lightly roofed with palm 
branches, as they are occupied only nine months in the year, the 
other three . . . being spent in the woods. When they come back, 
they occupy their houses again; and if they find the enemy has burnt 
them down, they build others of similar materials.” 
It is difficult to reconcile the preceding statements with a con- 
temporary description of the dwellings of the same people, but it 
is possible that ‘‘the chief’s dwelling” of Le Moyne’s account and 
the large structure in the followmg narrative of Hawkins’s voyage 
referred to great houses similar to the ‘‘warehouses’’ mentioned by 
Dickenson as standing in the country of the Guale on the same 
coast in the year 1699. Early in the year 1565 the English reached 
the coast of Florida and soon arrived at the mouth of the River of 
May, the present St. Johns, and near by discovered a native village, 
thus briefly described in ie narrative: 
‘‘Their houses are not many together, for in one house an hundred 
of them do lodge; they being made hye like a great barne, and in 
strength not inferiour to ours, for they have stanchions and rafters 
of whole trees, and are covered with palmito-leaves, having no place 
divided, but one small roome for their king and queene. In the 
middest of this house is a hearth, where they make great fires all 
night, and they sleepe upon certaine pieces of wood hewen in for the 
bowing of their backs, and another place made high for their heads, 
which they put one by another all along the walles on both sides.” 
(Hawkins, J., (1), pp. 516-517.) 
ieiefortctnestele the form of the structure was not mentioned, but 
it was probably round, with one entrance and a large opening in the 
center of the roof. The small space partitioned off for the use of the 
chief was probably as described, although different from any custom 
prevailing among the Muskhogean tribes. Likewise the wooden 
head rests, and larger rests for the back, were not found among the 
tribes to the northward but suggest a southern culture. 
On the Gulf coast of Florida, extending northward from the 
vicinity of Tampa Bay to the Ocilla River, were other Timucuan 
tribes. One of their villages, Ucita by name, stood on the shores 
of the bay, and near it, on Friday, May 30, 1539, landed the Spanish 
forces under the command of Don Ferdinando de Soto. The town 
