The Glades Indians and the Plants They Used

The Palmetto Quarterly Magazine of the Florida Native Plant Society · Vol. 17, No. 2 · Summer/Fall 1997

The Glades Indians

And the Plants they Used

Ethnobotany of an Extinct Culture

by Daniel F. Austin

Dozens of papers have been published about the now extinct people found living in South Florida at the time of European discovery in 1513. Most studies have concentrated on pottery, bone and shell artifacts, animals used, and culture. In contrast, this article summarizes the plants the people used in their daily lives. THE PEOPLE especially the Jupiter Inlet region. The Jaega villages. Their cultures combined aspects of All data suggest that these Native seem to have been linked closely with the people who came from the Mound Builder Americans were linguistically and culturally Mayamis. The Jeaga were certainly allied complex of the Southeastern United States related. As a group, they were dubbed the with the Ais to their north since the Ais and those in the Caribbean. Some even "Glades Indians" by anthropologists even leader was father-in-law to the Jaega leader identify Mexican elements in their lives and though they had no permanent villages in historic times. The Jaega also shared artifacts. They left ceremonial and village within the Everglades. The Glades Indians several cultural traits with the Calusa. mounds like those used by the Mound preceded the more famous Seminoles in Ais. This name is of uncertain origin, Builders around Lake Okee-chobee and South Florida, living between Lake although reports from the 1760s said with scattered down both coasts. In the manner Okee-chobee and Key West from about 2000 confidence that it was from Muskogee "issi" of their neighbors to the south ' they built years ago until the 1760s, when they or "aisa” meaning deer. Bernard Romans, the platform-type dugout canoes like those used disappeared as a culture. Seminoles, by surveyor, said that "Aisahatchee" was in Central America and the West Indies. contrast, did not settle in the area until the "deer-river" in Ais. We now call the Other people in the United States built middle 1700s, although they were familiar “Aisa-hatchee" the Indian River. Ais lived pointed-end-type canoes. Whatever their with the landscape and made from St. Lucie County north to the Cape origin, the Glades Indians left middens, slave-capturing raids south into the region Canaveral region. The Ais were more like the canals, and mounds behind after living here well before that time. people to their north, the Timucua, whose about 2,000 years. Bernard Romans reported Based on historical and archaeological history was better recorded by Europeans. that the last of them were taken to Cuba in data, anthropologists recognize five village These five groups spoke two basic 1763, where they lived for a while in a suburb complexes or tribes of Glades Indians. languages; the Calusa, Tequesta and of Havana. Others think that the "Spanish Calusa. This culture may have taken their Mayamis spoke one and the Ais and Jaega Indians;' who lived with the Seminoles in the name from their second historical leader, another. Direct translations exist for only 1800s, were remnants of the Glades Indian Calos. These were a coastal people of about ten of their words. In spite of this culture. Southwestern Florida between Charlotte paucity, Swanton thought they were of Historical and archaeological records Harbor and Cape Sable who relied heavily on Muskogean language stock like the Creeks exist to document fewer than 50 plant the ocean for food. The most powerful group and Seminoles. The entire recorded Glades species used by the Glades people. That in historic times, the Calusa extracted tribute Indian vocabulary is as follows: number is about 3% of the native flora, from the Atlantic coastal villages. Most of calobe: deep spring markedly lower than other Native Americans the gold and silver lost by Spanish calos: a fierce people used. Several studies in North America shipwrecks on the Florida East Coast made caogacola:. a crafty people, skillful with indicate that about 18% of the local flora was its way to the Calusa. Their dominance the bow used by preEuropean cultures. South caused people to incorrectly refer to all cucbiaga: a martyred place; for many Florida’s poor recorded usage is doubtless pre-Seminole Indians in South Florida as the years the Keys were called The an artifact of lost data. Diseases, slaving, "Calusa:' Martyrs "Los Martyres” were and wars quickly decimated the Glades Tequesta. Ponce de Leon recorded their originally located on Big Pine Key Indians after Europeans arrived, and there name phonetically as "Chequescha” in 1513. guarangube: "Puebto de Llanto" or village were no Jesuit priests recording native plant The leader of this group in the 1530s was a of crying, now Matacumbe Key usage in Florida as there were in Mexico. "near relative" of Calos. These people lived mayamis: big water Houses. No contemporary descriptions from the Palm Beach-Broward County border o: town beloved exist for the Calusa and Tequesta dwellings. to Key West. Although they took much of se-le-tega: run to the lookout, see if there There is a poor description from Jonathan their food from the ocean, they also relied are people coming Dickinson for the Jaega and Ais. We do more heavily on plants than the other tejibue: look-out know that marsh grasses (probably Spartina groups. Coontie (Zamia floridana) was zertepe or certepe: chief or cacique species), and palm fronds (Sabal, Serenoa, especially important to them. Five other words from their languages Thrinax, and Coccotbrinax species) were used Mayamis. The group living around Lake have no translations. These are tequesta (a for thatch. Trees such as the gumbo limbo Okeechobee took their name from the lake. village in modern Miami, probably on Miami (Bursera simaruba), slash pine (Pinus elliottii), Mayamis has the same meaning as the Beach), guacata (a people also known as the cypress (Taxodium distichum), and others Mikasukee-derived word Okeechobee (big Ais or St. Lucies), Senquene (father of Calos), were used for logs, posts and pilings. water). There was no linguistic or cultural surruque (a village at Cape Canaveral),and The literature of the period mentions two relationship with the Miamis of Ohio. Lake tampa or tanpa (said to be Charlotte Harbor). types of houses: those of the leaders and Okeechobee provided most of the Mayamis' Another word, soco (grape), is said to be in simpler houses of the other people. Possibly food. their languages; it has the same meaning in these houses were of the hut and chickee Jaega or Job. There is no known meaning Muskogee and Cherokee. types used later by Seminoles and of these names. Fontaneda gave us both; Populations of Glades Indians are European-Americans. The type now called Jonathan Dickinson left more details on the estimated at being between 4,000 and 10,000 chickee (a Muskogean word) is still used in second village. These people lived in what individuals. To obtain enough food to wet sites in Central and South America. are today Palm Beach and Martin Counties, survive, they lived in small, widely dispersed Perhaps the Seminoles learned this style when they were at war, they had "tails" of Palm fibers were also used to make from the Glades Indians. the yucca fibers attached at the back. fishing nets. Fragments of these nets were Domestic Utensils. Plants were used to Food Plants. We have direct and indirect preserved in the Marco Island site. Al- make cups, trays, coffins, bowls, mortars, records of 17 species being used as food, though they were hundreds of years old, pestles, ladles, canoes, adze handles, fibers, but surely there were more. Some of those there were still parts of the nets that showed clothes, and other items. Species used used were fruits of prickly pear (Opuntia the weave and the knots used to tie them. include pine, cypress, and mangrove spp.), gopher apple (Licania micbauxii), coco Additionally, there were wooden and gourd (presumably Rhizophora mangle). Several plum (Chrysobalanus icaco), saw palmetto floats attached. other artifacts are probably of the more (Serenoa repens), and sea grape (Coccoloba Popular accounts portray the Glades In- tropical species of the region, like gumbo uvfiera). Jonathan Dickinson and other dians using bows and arrows. Possibly by limbo. Gourds (Cucurbita pepo and Lageneria survivors of the 1690s shipwreck off the historic times they did. Fontaneda refers to siceraria) were used for floats on nets mouth of the Loxahatchee River at first flecberos (archers), although he never uses recovered from the Marco Island site that declined saw palmetto berries. He wrote that the word for bow (arco). Jaega later were was abandoned and burned before 1500. "They taste like rancid cheese soaked in illustrated using bows when meeting These gourds may have been cultivated, tobacco juice.” Jonathan Dickinson in the 1690s. However, although reports of maize (Zea mays) Later they were so hungry that they grew to the Calusas of southwestern Florida were cultivation in South Florida are based on favor them on their long walk to St. Augus- not using bows before the 1500s. At that misinterpretations. tine. time, they were using spear-throwers, often Transport. Canoes were made of logs. Starch was obtained from the roots of called atlatls, to launch their weapons. One Although no full-size examples are known, both Smilax spp. and Zamia floridana. We do atlad recovered from Marco Island had a miniatures were recovered on Marco Island not know what the Glades Indians called rabbit carved on the end that held the spear in the 1890s. Larger versions of these canoes these, but the Seminoles call them "coontie in place with its tail. were used "legally" from 1699 when Spain chatte” (red flour root for Smilax), and Small birds were captured by the ancient reopened trade between Florida and Cuba (it "coontie hateka" (white flour root for Zamia). method of using bird-lime. This technique had been closed officially since the 1570s). Extraction from Smilax was comparatively consists of putting a sticky material on a Contemporary historical records describe easy; Zamia was more difficult and poisons favored perch. The Glades Indians used the Glades Indians traveling between Key West always remained behind in trace amounts. glue-like sap of gumbo limbo boiled with wa- and Havana (about 90 miles) in these People in the world who still eat cycad ter to make the bird-lime. When this material dugout canoes in 24 hours. In Havana, starch have higher esophageal cancer rates was spread on a branch, any bird landing on individuals traded furs, live birds in cages than those who do not. the site became stuck. The hunters removed made of willow (Salix caroliniana), and Fishing and Hunting. We have no docu- the birds carefully and placed them in cages. unrecorded fish and plant species. Good mentation of the Glades Indians using plant Some were eaten; others were sold or singers like mockingbirds and cardinals chemicals to catch fish, but there are several bartered. brought the equivalent of $5.00 apiece when in the region they could not have missed. Medicinal and Religious Plants. If we sold to the cigar factories. Notable among those containing poisons judge Florida inhabitants by people in Clothes. The Tequesta women wore that block oxygen-uptake on fish gills nearby regions, we know that many plants shawls made of woven palm leaves. These are"fish poison” (Piscidia piscipula), now were used in these contexts. A few are re- women’s "skirts” were simple, being little often called Jamaica dogwood. This species corded. Cassine is the best known medicinal more than fibers suspended from a belt; a and another legume, coin-vine (Dalbergia and religious plant from this time and region. little like the stereotype Hawaiian "grass ecastopbyllum), have rotenone-like Either these people used the same word for skirt.” John K. Small and others interpreted compounds that make them effective the plants as the Muskogee farther north, or Fontaneda’s description of the source of piscicides (fish killers). they used it as a Spanish loan-word with these fibers ("unas yerbas que nacen cle Palms (Sabal palmetto, Serenoa repens, Jonathan Dickinson and his party. The name unos arboles" -"some herbs that grow on Thrinax spp., Coccotbrinax argentata) were cassine is derived from Muskogee asi that trees") as being Spanish moss (Tillandsia sources of fibers for nets and cords. Of becomes aseen in the objective form. The usneoides). Indian women were supposed to these, Thrinax was preferred as it still is in Seminole leader who came to be called have clothed thems elves with this air plant, remote and poor areas in Central America. Osceola was really called not by a personal and Jacques LeMoyne's 1550s drawings of Palm fiber ropes are especially good for name, but by a title: Asi-Yahola, the black the Timucua farther north seemed to support ocean fishing and hunting because they do drink singer. Ultimately aseen became cassina the idea. However, other words in the not get wet and sink. That feature made in Spanish and cassine in English. We know original Spanish ("a manera de estopa o lana ropes attached to harpoons effective for the plant scientifically as Ilex vomitoria and y no es blanca sino pardo” -"resembling tow killing seals (now extinct), manatees, turtles, the source of the "black drink" of the or wool, but brown instead of white”) and and other marine animals. When these Timucua and Muskogean-speaking Creeks. other data show that the fibers were from animals sounded, the buoyant fiber lines From Lake Okeechobee south, Ilex cassine Spanish dagger (Yucca aloifolia), an abundant served as floats to bring them back to the was used in the beverage because the other coastal plant in South Florida. Men wore a surface. species is absent. Europeans, who did not "loincloth" of woven palm leaves. At least believe in bathing, considered the Native Americans barbarians for drinking the "black intricate detail clearly indicates a Fontaneda, Hernando Don Escalante 1575. drink" and vomiting in their religious sophisticated and skilled people with a Memoirs Respecting Florida. Translated by festivals. We do not know what the well- complex worldview. This, with other wooden Buckingham Smith, 1854. Reprinted with bathed Indians thought of the aromatic carvings, and the quantity of plant uses by revisions by David 0. True (ed.), Historical Association of South Florida, Glades House, Europeans. these Glades Indians also indicates a people Coral Gables, 1944. Gumbo limbo as a common name for who had a full understanding of the Bursera simaruba first appeared in the middle resources around them. Gilliland, M. S. 1975. The Material Culture 1800s. Fontaneda called it "el palo para of Key Marco Florida. Gainesville, University muchas cosas" (the tree of many uses). The Florida Press. sap was used in medicines, to ward off evil ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dan Austin is a spirits, to safe-guard canoes from wood- founding member of the FNPS who has Hudson, C. M. 1976. The Southeastern Indians. Knoxville, University Tennessee boring shipworms (Teredo, Teredinidae: contributed to The Palmetto regularly since its Press. Mollusca), as glue, and in many other ways. beginning. This paper is based on the talk Alakenge is a name used in early literature "Environmental effects of the Glades Indians on Hudson, C. M. (ed.). 1979. Black Drink, A for Physalis spp. in Florida. Doubtless the southern Florida," first given at the March 1980 Native American Tea. Athens, University Glades Indians used the plants medicinally joint meeting of the Association of Southeastern Georgia Press, as do many people, although the common Biologists and the Ecological Society of America, name is Arabic. The roots are a drastic Tampa, Florida. Subsequently, Austin has given Romans, Bernard. 1775. A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida. New York, laxative and were used to purge demons, bad an annual "Glades Indians" lecture in the published by the author, Reprinted by Pelican blood, and other evils from the body. education program at the Loxahatchee National Publishing Co., New O rleans, 1961. Pigments were taken from a number of Wildlife Refuge. places. Artifacts from Marco Island, buried Swanton, J. R. 1979. The Indians of the under anaerobic seawater for 400-500 years, Southeastern United States. Washington, DC, still contained visible pigments of black, Additional Reading Smithsonian Institution Press. white, blue, red-brown, pink, red and gray. Austin, D. F. 1980. "Historically Important Swanton, J. R. 1985. Final Report of the Black came from charcoal and, according to Plants of Southeastern Florida. Florida' United States De Soto Expedition Commission. some, oxidized rubber from strangler fig sap Anthropologist 33: 17-31. Washington, DC., Smithsonian Institution (Ficus spp.). Reds and pinks came from the Press. cochineal insects (Dactylopius coccus) that Austin, D. F. and D. M. McJunkin 1978. "An live on cacti (Opuntia spp.). Ethnoflora of Chokoloskee Island,, Collier

Probably the most famous plant fragment County, Florida" Journal of the Arnold Arboretum 59: 50-67. taken from the Marco Island site by Frank

Hamilton Cushing was the feline figure or Dickinson, Jonathan. 1699. God's panther. This six inch tall carved cat was Protecting Providence. Reprinted and edited by considered by Gilliland as a "god-animal Andrews, E. W. and C. M. Andrews (eds.) as representation.” No one seems to have Jonathan Dickinson's Journal or God's identified the wood of this carving, but its Protecting Providence. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1945.