SwANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 281 



son. (Laudonniere, 1586, pp. 18, 130 ; French, 1875, p. 178.) Calderon 

 (1936, p. 13) includes bison among their game animals. 



One of the French Huguenot colonists, Le Challeux, says that 

 snakes were devoured, and it is implied in one of Le Moj^ne's illus- 

 trations showing several animals being dried over a fire, but so much 

 imagination was used in these that the support to be derived from it 

 is rather slight (Gaffarel, 1875, p. 462; Le Moyne, 1875, pp. 9-10, 

 illus.). Le Challeux is our sole authority for lizard eating, but we 

 know that alligator meat was a rather important item among flesh 

 foods and, indeed, it constituted the main innovation encountered in 

 the peninsula (Gaffarel, 1875, p. 462; Le Moyne, 1875, pi. 26). 



In northern Florida, vegetable staples were like those found in other 

 parts of the Gulf region. Corn was the principal food and it was culti- 

 vated along with beans and several varieties of squashes and pumpkins. 

 It is possible that agriculture may have been restricted or even absent 

 along the northeast coast south of St. Augustine because the monk San 

 Miguel, who visited it in 1595, says, "these Indians neither sow nor reap, 

 nor have other care for food and clothing than animals and birds," but 

 he may have confused them with the Indians farther south, and Dicken- 

 son observed squashes and pumpkins growing near Cape Canaveral in 

 1699. (Garcia, 1902, p. 209; Lowery ms.: Dickenson, 1803, p. 66.) 

 Ribault mentions some of these latter under the terms "citrons" and 

 "cucumbers" (French, 1875, p. 174). The appearance of this last 

 word serves to strengthen the theory that it was applied to some sort 

 of pumpkin and not to the vegetables we call by that name. Gourds 

 are noted along with these, but see comments on page 275. Laudon- 

 niere speaks of "honey" but, as explained above, French mil has 

 evidently been miscopied or misspelled miel (see p. 268) . Grapes, rasp- 

 berries, and mulberries are specifically noted, the raspberries probably 

 in reality blackberries, and there is evidence that acorns were utilized as 

 elsewhere in the Southeast. (French, 1875, p. 173; Laudonniere in 

 French, 1869, pp. 181, 182, 257). We are indebted to Eanjel for 

 our knowledge of the use of chinquapins (Bourne, 1904, vol. 2, pp. 

 70-71). It appears from Pareja that Timucua taste extended at times 

 to coal, dirt, and broken pottery, and Laudonniere confirms this, as a 

 forced diet, saying, "in necessity they eat a thousand riffraffs, even to 

 the swallowing down of coal, and putting sand into the pottage that 

 they make with the meal." (Gatschet, 1877, vol. 16, p. 683; Laudon- 

 niere, 1586, p. 9.) 



South Florida belongs to a different life zone from the rest of the 

 Gulf territory and ought to introduce us to some innovations in diet. 

 This expectation is in a measure realized, but the difference is rather 

 in what was lacking than in the positive contributions. We are told 

 that throughout this section the natives cultivated no fields, but de- 



