388 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 73 
A later writer says that the Calusa Indians wore gold and other 
metal on their foreheads, but this was a custom general in the penin- 
sula. 1 
The people in the interior of the country about Lake Okeechobee, 
which was called by them "the little ocean," 1 were probably related 
to these Calusa. Fontaneda speaks of them thus: 
This lake [Mayaimi] is situated in the midst of the country, and is surrounded by a 
great number of villages of from thirty to forty inhabitants each, who live on bread 
made from roots during most of the year. They can not procure it. however, when the 
waters of the lake rise very high. They have roots which resemble the truffles of this 
country [Spain], and have besides excellent fish. Whenever game is to be had, either 
deer or birds, they eat meat. Large numbers of very fat eels are found in the rivers, 
some of them as large as a man's thigh, and enormous trout, almost as large as a man's 
body; although smaller ones are also found. The natives eat lizards, snakes, and 
rats, which infest the lakes, fresh-water turtles, and many other animals which it 
would be tiresome to enumerate. They live in a country covered with swamps and 
cut up by high bluffs. They have no metals, nor anything belonging to the Old 
World. They go naked, except the women, who wear little aprons woven of shreds 
of palm. They pay tribute to Carlos, composed of all the objects of which I have 
spoken, such as fish, game, roots, deer skins, etc. 2 
Still less is to be learned regarding the social organization and 
religious beliefs of these people. From what has already been said 
and from what Fontaneda and others relate elsewhere it is plain that 
the chief of Calos was head chief either of a very large tribe or of a 
sort of confederacy centering about Charlotte Harbor and San Carlos 
Bay, that his power was similar to that of the Timucua chiefs, and 
that here also there was a class of nobles. The riches and conse- 
quently the power of the Calos chief ruling in the latter part of the 
sixteenth century were greatly enhanced by the gold and silver cast 
upon his coast in wrecked Spanish vessels from Mexico and Central 
America. In Laudonniere's time he had united spiritual with 
political and social power, for that adventurer learned through a 
Spaniard who had been a captive in the country of Calos that he 
made his subjects believe — 
that his sorceries and charms were the causes that made the earth bring forth her 
fruit; and, that he might the easier persuade them that it was so he retired himself 
once or twice a year to a certain house, accompanied by two or three of his most 
familiar friends, where he used certain enchantments; and, if any man intruded him- 
self to go to see what they did in this place, the king immediately caused him to be 
put to death. 
Moreover, they told me, that, every year, in the time of harvest, this savage king 
sacrificed one man, which was kept expressly for this purpose, and taken out of the 
number of the Spaniards, which, by tempest, were cast away upon that coast. 3 
This sacrifice is also mentioned by Barcia, but perhaps on Lau- 
donniere's authority. 4 
i Brooks and Lowery, MSS. 
2 Doc. Ined., v, pp. 534-535. 
» Laudonniere, La Floride, p. 132; French, Hist. Colls. La., 1869, p. 282. 
* Barcia, La Florida, p. 94. 
