Timucua

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Timucuan_Ecological_and_Historic_Preserve

The Timucua were a group of American Indian people that spoke dialects of the Timucua language and lived in northeast and north central Florida and southeast Georgia. At the time of European contact, Timucuan areas stretched from the Altamaha River in present-day Georgia down the coast to below St. Augustine in Florida, and as far south as Orlando in the interior, and from the Atlantic coast to the Aucilla River, yet never reaching the Gulf of Mexico.

Their name may come from the word atimoqua which means "lord" or "chief" in their own language, allegedly mistaken by the Spanish as the name of one of their chiefs. Another story is that the word Timucua comes from the word thimogona, meaning "my enemy" in the local tongue. Other names for the Timucua include Atimuca, Thimapoa, Tomoca and Utina. The population of the Timucua people at the time of European contact has been estimated to be around 50,000 people. The Timucua were organized in a number of chiefdoms at the time of European contact, and there is no reason to believe that they ever formed a single political unit. The various groups of Timucua speakers practiced several different cultural traditions at the time of European contact.Milanich, Jerald T. 1995 Florida Indians and the Invasion from Europe. Gainesville, Florida: The University Press of Florida. ISBN 0813913607

History

The pre-Colombian era was marked by regular, routine, and probably small tribal wars with neighbors. The Timucuans may have been the first Native Americans to see the landing of Juan Ponce de León near St. Augustine in 1513. Later, in 1528, the Pánfilo de Narváez expedition passed along the western fringes of the Timucua territory.

In 1539, Hernando de Sotò led an army of more than 500 men through the western parts of Timucua territory, stopping in a series of villages of the Ocale, Potano, Northern Utino and Uzachile (or Yustaga) branchs of the Timucua on his way to the Apalachee domain. His army seized the food stored in the villages, took women for consorts and forced men and boys to serve as guides and bearers. The army fought two battles with the Timucua, resulting in heavy Timucua casualties. De Sotò was in a hurry to reach the Apalachee domain, where he expected to find gold and sufficient food to support his army through the winter, and did not linger in Timucua territory.

In 1564, French Huguenots led by René Goulaine de Laudonnière founded Fort Caroline in present-day Jacksonville and attempted to establish further settlements along the St. John's River. After initial conflict, the Huguenots established friendly relations with the local natives in the area, primarily the Timucuans. Sketches of the Timucua drawn by Le Moyne de Morgues, one of the French settlers, have proven valuable resources for modern ethnographers in understanding these people. The next year the Spanish under Pedro Menéndez de Avilés surprised the Huguenots and ransacked Fort Caroline, killing everyone but 50 women and children and 26 escapees. The rest of the French had been shipwrecked off the coast and picked up by the Spanish, who executed all but 20 of them; this brought French settlement in Florida nearly to an end. These events caused somewhat of a rift between the natives and Spanish, though Spanish missionaries were soon out in force.

The Timucua's history changed after the establishment of St. Augustine in 1565 as the Spanish capital of their province of Florida. From here, Spanish missionaries and established missions in each main town of the Timucuan chiefdoms, including the Santa Isabel de Utinahica mission in southern Georgia, for the Utinahica. By 1595, the Timucuan population had shrunk by 75%, primarily from disease and war.

By 1700, the Timucuan population had been reduced to just 1,000. In 1703 the British with the Creek, Catawba, and Yuchi began killing and enslaving hundreds of the Timucua. Seventeen years later their number had dropped to just 250. In 1726 there were 176, and by 1752 only 26 remained. By the time the United States acquired Florida in 1821, there were only a handful of Timucua left. They are now an extinct tribe.

Culture

Organization and classes

Like most Native American tribes, the Timucua were not a unified and single tribe. Rather, they were split into a number of chiefdoms - perhaps 25-30 - with each chiefdom comprised of at least five hundred villages. Villages were divided into family clans, usually bearing animal names.

Customs

The Timucua were a people who had many ceremonies. There were numerous ceremonies and festivals for the harvesting season, planting season, marriages, funerals, wars, and fishing and hunting expeditions. Every ceremony had its own special rite, such as fasting, feasting, praying or dancing.

The Timucua played a version of the game called chunkey. In this game a concave shaped disc was rolled while a spear was thrown at it. The point was to throw the spear to the point where the disc would stop.

The chief had a council that met every morning, when they would discuss the problems of the chiefdom and smoke. To initiate the meeting, the White Drink ceremony would be carried out. The drink was actually black in color, but the drink was thought to purify the council members to make interaction more easy. The drink was made of holly and was highly caffeinated. The council members were among the more highly respected members of the tribe.

Settlements

Settlements were quite small in the Timucua tribe and were naturally centered around a religious center. Each home was made of upright poles and circular in shape. Thatched palm leaves comprised the roof. Granaries were raised off the ground to keep them out of reach from wild animals. Each village was heavily stockaded, and in the center of all of them would probably be a larger building made for religious or ceremonial purposes.

Diet

The Timucua were a semi-agricultural people and ate many foods native to North Central Florida. They planted corn, beans, squash and various vegetables as part of their diet. Archealogists' findings suggest that they may have employed crop rotation. In order to plant, the fields would be cleared with fire at first and then the soil would be prepared using various tools, such as the hoe. Later the women would plant the seeds using two sticks known as coa. In addition to these farming techniques the Timucua would hunt game (including alligators, manatees, and maybe even whales), fish in the many streams and lakes in the area, collect wild fruits and berries and bake bread made from the root koonti. They also cultivated tobacco. Their crops were stored in granaries to protect them from the insects and weather. Meat would be cooked over an open fire known as the barbacoa, the origin of the word "barbeque".

Physical appearance

Spanish explorers were shocked at the size of the Timucua, who could stand four inches or more above them. Perhaps adding to their perceived height was the fact that Timucuan men would wear their hair in a bun on top of their heads. Everyone was heavily tattooed, and such tattoos were gained by deeds. Children would begin to get their tattoos when assuming responsibility. The people of higher social class had more elaborate decorations on themselves, which were made by cutting into the skin. The Timucua had dark skin, usually brown, and black hair. They wore clothes made from moss and cloth created from various animals.

2006 discovery

An archaeological dig in St. Augustine, Florida in 2006 yielded a Timucuan site dating back to between 1100 and 1300 A.D., predating Pedro Menendez. Included in the discovery were pottery and even two human skeletons. Jessica Clark, "Dig Proves Historically Significant", First Coast News, June 2, 2006 ^*

References

http://www.nps.gov/timu/indepth/foca/foca_timucua.htm
http://www.floridahistory.org/floridians/indian.htm
Hann, John. (1996) A History of the Timucua Indians and Missions. University Press of Florida.
Milanich, Jerald T. (2004). "Timucua." In R. D. Fogelson (Ed.), Southeast (p. 219-228). Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 17) (W. C. Sturtevant, Gen. Ed.). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-072300-0.
Milanich, Jerald T. The Timucua. Blackwell Publications, Oxford, UK, 1996.
Mooney, James. (1910). Timucua. Bureau of American Ethnology, bulletin (No. 30.2, p. 752).
Sturtevant, William C. (Ed.). (1978-present). Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 1-20). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. (Vols. 1-3, 16, 18-20 not yet published).
Swanton, John R. (1946). The Indians of the southeastern United States. Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology bulletin (No. 137). Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.
Worth, John. (1998) The Timucuan Chiefdoms of Spanish Florida: Volume I: Assimilation, Volume II: Resistance and Destruction. University of Florida Press.

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