738 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHTs^OLOGY [Bull. 137 



Aguacay, were evidently in Louisiana. (Garcilaso, 1723, p. 189; 

 Bourne, 1904, vol. 2., pp. 147-148; Robertson, 1933, pp. 192-193, 237- 

 238.) When the French entered the country, trade in salt was still 

 active but most salt seems to have been extracted in northern 

 Louisiana. The Tunica Indians are particularly mentioned in con 

 nection with it, but the Koroa, Washita, and Natchitoches were also 

 concerned in it, and the Cahinnio were active as middle men. The 

 principal outlets on the Mississippi appear to have been the Taensa 

 and Quapaw towns (Margry, 1875-86, vol. 3. pp. 442-443; vol. 4, 

 pp. 432, 435; Cox, 1905, vol. 1., p. 45). Smaller centers of trade 

 were the town of the Namidish and the Chitimacha country. The 

 Natchez are said to have obtained pearls for their Sun caste from the 

 upper course of Pearl River (Hennepin, 1698, p. 177; Jones, C. C, 

 1873, p. 470). Still farther east, on the lower Tombigbee, we find 

 the Tohome tribe exploiting a small salt lick." Some of this salt 

 may have found its way to the Mississippi, since it appears from an 

 early French narrative that the Yazoo sometimes went as far as the 

 River of Mobile for shells. 



These items, which thus bring the region of Mobile Bay into the 

 picture, constitute almost all the information supplied us in the 

 literature regarding trade in the midgulf section though there must 

 have been considerable, this being the territory of the great southern 

 nations. 



Although, as already noted, the inhabitants of Florida obtained 

 much of their flint without going outside of the peninsula, the early 

 French and Spanish narratives give evidence that stone for various 

 purposes was obtained from Flint River and in the Appalachian 

 Mountains, and that copper was imported from this latter country 

 (Le Moyne, 1875, p. 7; Fontaneda, 1854, p. 20). When De Soto was 

 in the Apalachee country, Garcilaso tells us that a youth was brought 

 to him who had traveled far inland in Florida, meaning the North 

 American continent in general, with traders. He said that they ob- 

 tained at Cofitachequi a j^ellow metal, evdently copper, which they 

 carried long distances in trade. In southern Florida we are told that 

 the natives traded in fruit and the kunti flour obtained from a Zamia. 

 Later they bartered "skins, mocking birds, and pet squirrels" at 

 Havana for guns, ammunition, and clothing (Garcilaso, 1723, p. 104 ; 

 Swanton, 1922, p. 344). About 1774 Bartram tells us the coast 

 Indians of Florida would give two or three buckskins for a single 

 root of Angelica (Bartram, 1792, p. 325; 1909, pp. 46-67). And 

 Catesby says regarding the Ilex vomiforia : 



This medicinal slirnb, so universally esleem'd by the Indians of north 

 America, is produced but in a small part of the continent, confined by northern 



" See De Crenay map in Swanton, 1922, pi. 5. 



