74 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 73 
What Oviedo records about the large communal house said to have 
been found on this coast by the Spaniards early in the sixteenth cen- 
tury has been given already. 1 That they could build houses of con- 
siderable size without much labor is clearly shown by the experience 
of the French at Port Royal. One of their buildings described as "the 
large house" having been destroyed, the Indians of Maccou and 
Audusta built another in less than 1 2 hours "scarcely smaller than the 
one which had been burned." 2 As we have seen, Hewat speaks of 
their houses as "foul, mean, and offensive, " 3 but the structures seen 
by Hilton and Sandford certainly did not deserve the censure of 
meanness. Some of those noted by the former captain as having 
been seen at St. Helena were evidently put up by Spaniards, but he 
mentions one which was probably of native construction. At least 
some of the features connected with it were native. This was "a 
fair house builded in the shape of a Dove-house, round, two hundred 
foot at least, compleatly covered with Palmeta-le&ves, the wal-plate 
being twelve foot high, or thereabouts, & within lodging rooms and 
forms; two pillars at the entrance of a high Seat above all the rest. " * 
This "high seat" was perhaps a chief's seat such as were seen else- 
where on the Cusabo coast. When Capt. Sandford visited the chief 
Edisto town in 1666 he was "conducted into a large house of a Circu- 
lar forme (their generall house of State)." Over against the en- 
trance was "a high seate of sufficient breadth for half a dozen per- 
sons," for the chief, his wife, eminent persons, and distinguished 
visitors. Lower benches for the common people extended from the 
ends of this on each side all the way to the door, and about the fire, 
which was in the center of the building, were "little lowe foormes. " 
The town house of St. Helena is said to have been of the same pattern, 
and was probably identical with that described by Hilton, as quoted 
above. 5 
In hunting, their principal weapons were bows and arrows, the 
latter made of reeds pointed with sharp stones or fishbones. The 
Cusabo country abounded with game, its rivers and inlets with fish; 
shellfish were also abundant along the coast. The deer was, as usual, 
the chief game animal, the bear being hunted more for its fat than for 
its flesh. According to Samuel Wilson, whose account was published 
in 1682, deer were so plentiful "that an Indian hunter hath killed 
Nine fat Deere in a day all shot by himself, and all the considerable 
Planters have an Indian Hunter which they hire for less than Twenty 
shillings a year, and one hunter will very well find a Family of Thirty 
people, with as much venison and foul as they can well eat. " 6 What 
i See p. 4s. « See p. 62. 
2 Laiidonnierc, Hist. Not. de la Floride, p. 50. & See p. 04. 
8 See p. 72. 6 Carroll, op. cit., n, p. 28. 
