ABORIGINAL WOODEN OBJECTS FROM SOUTHERN 



FLORIDA 



Bv J. WALTER FEWKES 

 chief, bureau of american ethnology 



(With Three Plates) 



In 1895 the late Air. F. Fl. Cushing. for many years connected with 

 the Bureau of American Ethnology, made some very remarkable dis- 

 coveries of aboriginal remains at Key Marco, on one of the chain of 

 islands that fringe the southwest coast of Florida, forming the coastal 

 border of the Florida Everglades on the Gulf of Mexico. Cushing 

 described and illustrated in a preliminary report on his work some of 

 the most important objects found at that time.^ Among the char- 

 acteristic artifacts obtained by him were several wooden objects so 

 radically different from any found elsewhere in Florida shell heaps 

 that he regarded them as typical of an aboriginal culture theretofore 

 unrecorded. He thereby opened up a new chapter of archeological 

 research in Florida. 



The author has desired for several years to obtain- more specimens 

 of this work in wood and although he has not been successful in his 

 search for them in the field, a few have come to light in other ways. 

 Through the kindness of Dr. Walter Hough, Head Curator of 

 Anthropology of the V. S. National Museum, he is able to present 

 figures of two " altar slabs " and a wooden " idol " found near Fort 

 J\lyer and Lake Okeechobee. There is good reason to believe that as 

 exploration in southern Florida progresses other wooden images will 

 be brought to light. 



The idol (pi. i. Cat. No. 316254, U. S. N. M.) is cut out of lignum 

 vitae. It is said to have been plowed up on the north shore of Lake 

 Okeechobee and was shipped to the V. S. National Museum ])y Mr. 

 M. A. Miller, artesian and deep-well constructor of that vicinity. The 

 De Soto County News of Alarch 25, 1921, published an account of it 

 by Mr. Miller in which he states that " where Mr. Miller plowed up 

 the idol, Lake Okeechobee waters formerly stood six feet deep. The 



Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc, Vol. XXXV, No. I33- 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 80, No. 9 



