624 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHKOLOGY [Bull. 137 



Cosmic designs are remarkable for their abundance as well as the 

 absence of those of animal and plant origin. Indeed, among these 

 latter, almost exclusive attention is devoted to the snake. It is note- 

 worthy that Skinner found the same thing true of the Florida Semi- 

 nole. The only meanings he could obtain for any of the designs in 

 bead work were "(1) diamond-back rattlesnake, (2) 'ground' rattle- 

 snake, (3) everglade terrapin, (4) terrapin spear-point" (Skinner, 

 1913, p. 71). We also find, as appears, terrapin, bull snake, and centi- 

 pede designs among the Yuchi (Speck, 1909, pp. 54-60). 



The Florida Seminole seem to have derived nothing from the 

 art of the wood-carving tribes which preceded them in the peninsula, 

 and to have taken little into it. MacCauley says : 



I saw but few attempts at ornamentation beyond those made on the person 

 and on clothing. Houses, canoes, utensils, implements, weapons, were almost 

 all without carving or painting. In fact, the only carving I noticed in the 

 Indian country was on a pine tree near Myers. It was a rude outline of the 

 head of a bull. The local report is that when the white men began to send 

 their cattle south of the Caloosahatchie River the Indians marked this tree with 

 this sign. The only painting I saw was the rude representation of a man, upon 

 the shaft of one of the pestles used at the Koonti log at Horse Creek. It was 

 made by one of the girls for her own amusement. (MacCauley, 1887, p. 519.) 



MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 



DRUMS 



Drums were known to these Indians from the earliest times of 

 which we have any record. Garcilaso (1723, p. 45) reports that 

 drums were used by the Indians about the marshy country along 

 what we now know as the Withlacoochee River. Biedma mentions 

 drums at Mabila, and Elvas says that, as soon as the Alabama Indians 

 "saw the Christians approach with loud cries and beating two drums, 

 they came out in great fury to meet them" (Bourne, 1904, vol. 2, p. 

 19; Robertson, 1933, p. 153). In all these cases, except perhaps the 

 first, the drum is represented as an instrument used in war. The 

 same is equally noteworthy in the descriptions which we have of the 

 Chickasaw attack upon De Soto's men. This impressed them so much 

 that all chroniclers except Biedma allude to it. Ran j el says that 

 "the Indians . . . entered the camp in many detachments, beating 

 drums as if had been in Italy." Elvas mentions but one drum, but 

 Garcilaso says they attacked to the accompaniment of "fifes, horns, 

 and drums." (Bourne, 1904, vol. 2, p. 134; Robertson, 1933, p. 147; 

 Garcilaso, 1723, p. 166.) This military use of the drum is repeated 

 by Smith, speaking of the Powhatan Indians : 



For their warres, they have a great deepe platter of wood. Thoy cover the 

 mouth thereof with a skin, at each corner they tie a walnut, which meeting 

 on the backside neere the bottorae, with a small rope they twitch them to- 



