BUSHNELL] NATIVE VILLAGES AND VILLAGE SITES 91 
was briefly described, the following account being quoted from the 
narrative of the expedition ‘“‘written by a Gentleman of Elvas:”’ 
“They came to the towne of Ucita, where the Governour was, on 
Sunday the first of June, being Trinitie Sunday. The towne was of 
seven or eight houses. The lordes house stoode neere the shore, 
upon a very hie mount, made by hand for strength. At another end 
of the towne stood the church, and on the top of it stood a fowle 
made of wood, with gilded eies. Here were found some pearles of 
small valew, spoiled with the fire, which the Indians do pierce and 
string them like beades, and weare them about their neckes and 
handwrists, and they esteeme them very much. The houses were 
made of timber, and covered with palme leaves.’’ (Elvas, (1), pp. 
_ 25-26.) 
In this translation the word ‘‘temple’”’ should be substituted for 
“church.” Two structures different from the ordinary habitations 
stood in this ancient village: one the temple, the other described 
as ‘‘the lordes house,” the chief’s dwelling, or it) may have resembled 
the town house, or rotunda, of the more northerly tribes. In addi- 
tion to these were five or six simple dwellings. This may have been a 
typical village of the time and region, and the most interesting refer- 
ence to the erection of the chief’s dwelling on the summit of an arti- 
ficial mound, erected for the purpose, suggests the probable origin 
and use of other mounds standing along the coast. 
Southward from Tampa Bay lived the Calusa, of whom very little 
is known. The tribe, or tribes, mentioned under this name in the 
early Spanish and French records probably occupied or dominated 
the lower half of the peninsula, reaching from the southern keys to 
the boundary of the territory of the Timucuan tribes. As nothing 
is now known of the language of the Calusa it is not possible to trace 
their connection, if any existed, with the neighboring villages. They 
are described by the old writers as a brave and warlike people, and 
as they are said to have had nearly fifty settlements about the year 
1567 they must have been comparatively numerous. Many of their 
towns were probably near the coast, where, among the marshes and 
shallow inlets, on the mainland though often on the low keys, were 
great mounds of sand and shells which served as elevated sites for 
their habitations and other structures. These were often connected 
by extensive artificial canals or lagoons, and were surrounded by the 
luxuriant semitropical vegetation of the region, by which they are 
_now covered and hidden from view. While many of these elevations 
may be considered accidental shell heaps, either cast up by the sea 
or resulting from the gathering of mollusks for food, others were 
intentionally raised as elevated sites, as was the mound at Ucita. 
Some of the mounds, artificial or natural, served as places of burial, 
but do not appear to have been erected for that purpose. 
