112 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 73 
these resembles Sapello and the second is given in South Carolina 
documents as the name of a Yamasee chief, ' ' the Ilcombe king," x it is 
probable that they had moved from the Guale coast in later times. 
The Apalachee town of Oconi, although missionized as early as 1655, 
may also have been an adopted town, part of the Oconee tribe to be 
mentioned later. A town called Machaba, which is located on many 
maps not far from the Apalachee settlements, was really Timucua. 
Although perhaps not as prominent toward the close of Apalachee 
history as San Luis de Talimali Ibitachuco, the San Lorenco de 
Ybithachucu of the missionaries, has the longest traceable history. 
It appears as far back as the De Soto narratives in the forms Ivit- 
achuco, Uitachuco, and Vitachuco, although Garcilasso, our authority 
for the last form, bestows it upon a Timucua chief instead of an 
Apalachee town. 2 In a letter of 1677 it appears as Huistachuco, 3 in 
the mission list above given Ybithachuco, and in the Apalachee letter 
written to Charles II in 1688 Ybitachuco. 4 Finally, Colonel Moore, 
who destroyed it, writes the name Ibitachka. 5 Ajubali is noted more 
often under the forms Ayaville or Ayubale. 
Very little has been preserved regarding the ethnology of the 
Apalachee. Their culture was midway between that of the Florida 
tribes and their own Muskhogean relatives to the north. Writing 
in 1673 one of the governors of Florida says of their dress: 
The men wear only bark and skin clothing and the women small cloaks (goaipiles), 
which they make of the roots of trees. 
These last must have been similar to, if not identical with, the 
mulberry bark garments. From what the De Soto chroniclers say 
of the change in domestic architecture which they encountered in 
south-central Georgia it is evident that the Apalachee were asso- 
ciated in this feature rather with the southern than with the north- 
ern tribes. 
Fontaneda makes a few brief remarks regarding the customs of the 
Apalachee, 6 but it is secondhand information obtained through the 
south Florida Indians and of little value. 
The first historical reference to the Apalachee is in Cabeza de 
Vaca's narrative of the Narvaez expedition. On their way north 
through the central part of the Florida Peninsula in the spring of 
1528 the explorers met some Indians who led them to their village, 
and "there," says Cabeza de Vaca, "we found many boxes for mer- 
chandize from Castilla. In every one of them was a corpse covered 
with painted deer hides. The commissary thought this to be some 
i See p. 97. 
- Bourne, Narr. of De Soto, I, p. 47; u, pp. 7, 79; Shipp's Garcilasso, p. 283. 
3 Serrano y Sanz, Doc. Hist., p. 207. 
4 Buckingham Smith, Two Docs. 
■ See p. 121. 
o Buckingham Smith, Letter of De Soto and Mem. of Fontaneda, pp. 27-28. 
