Calusa

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Tribal area of ​​the Calusa in the 16th century.

The Calusa [ kəˈluːsə ] were a North American Indian tribe . They lived on the coast and the coastal rivers in southwest Florida . The Calusa society developed from the archaic Indian tribes of the Everglades . At the time of the European conquest of Florida, the Calusa were at their cultural peak ( Caloosahatchee culture ). It is noteworthy that the Calusa had developed a complex culture that was predominantly focused on fishing and less on agriculture. The area of ​​the Calusa extended from Charlotte Harbor to Cape Sable , what is now the area of Charlotte County and Lee Counties and possibly to the Florida Keys . The highest population was reached around the time of the European conquest of Florida. At that time it was a few tens of thousands of Calusa.

The Calusa exerted a great cultural and political influence on the other tribes in southern Florida. They ruled the Mayaimi on Lake Mayaimi (today Lake Okeechobee ), the Tocobaga on Tampa Bay , the Tequesta and the Jaega , which inhabited the southeast coast of Florida. It is believed that their influence extended to the Ais tribe who inhabited the central eastern coast of Florida.

Origin of name

Early Spanish and French sources name the tribe or chiefs as Calos , Calus , Caalus , and Carlos . Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda , a Spanish conqueror who was imprisoned by the Calusa in the 16th century, reports that Calusa in their language meant wild (militant) people . The name Calusa was adopted by the Anglo-Americans in the early 19th century. In the language of the Creek and Mikasuki , or today's Seminoles and Miccosukee , Calusa is an ethnonym for people who live around the Caloosahatchee River .

Juan Rogel, a Jesuit missionary who lived with the Calusa around 1560, wrote that they called their tribal area Escampaba or Escampaha . The tribal chief called himself Caalus , which was corrupted by the Spaniards to Carlos . According to the reports of the Spaniards from 1570, there was a Carlos bay on the coast , which was called Escampaba by the Indians there .

Origins

The first humans, the Paleo-Indians , came to Florida about 12,000 years ago. After the end of the last ice age, the sea level rose to its present level and Florida's coastline got its current shape. Around 5000 BC For the first time in BC, Indians settled the swamps in southern Florida and established permanent villages. These have been continuously inhabited for several generations. The early inhabitants of Florida populated both the inland swamps and the saltwater marshes on the coast. From 2000 BC Baked pottery was made. Finally around 500 BC. BC from the Paleo-Indians today's Indian tribes of Florida, including the Calusa.

There is evidence that the Charlotte Harbor area has existed since about 3500 BC. Is inhabited by indigenous peoples. But only since 500 AD have there been references to the Calusa or the Caloosahatchee culture . The social structure that existed until the disappearance of the Calusa culture took shape around 800 AD. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Florida, the Calusa formed the core of the Caloosahatchee culture. Archaeological finds show that their culture did not change fundamentally from 800 AD until the arrival of the first Europeans.

society

Diorama with a Calusa Chief ( Florida Museum of Natural History )

The Calusa society consisted of a two-part caste system consisting of bourgeois and aristocratic members. Society was ruled by the nobles, headed by a tribal chief. Subordinate to him were a military leader ( capitán general , as the Spaniards called him) and a high priest . According to Spanish reports, in 1564 the high priest was the father of the tribal chief and the military leader was his cousin. Political offices were not necessarily inherited, although at least four cases are known of a son taking over his father's office as tribal chief. The Spaniards also reported that the chief was expected to marry his sister. Today's archaeologists such as Darcie A. MacMahon and William H. Marquardt , however, doubt this and attribute it to a translation error. With sister was probably not meant the biological sister, but a female member of her own clan. The chief could marry other wives or concubines from other clans or tribes in order to consolidate his political power. In this context it is reported by the Spaniards that the chief Carlos offered his sister Antonia to the conqueror Pedro Menéndez de Avilés for marriage in 1566.

Culture

nutrition

From excavation sites on the coast or the estuaries it is known that they mainly fed on fish. In particular, sea ​​bream (Lagodon rhomboides), sweetlips and sea ​​catfish were consumed. In addition to these smaller fish, remains of larger bony fish , sharks , rays as well as molluscs and crustaceans were found. In addition to these, ducks , land and sea ​​turtles were also part of their diet to a lesser extent . Pedro Menéndez de Avilés reported from his visit in 1566 that the Calusa only served him fish and oysters . An analysis of the waste heaps at the Wightman excavation site on Sanibel showed that the Calusa obtained about 93% of their energy needs from fish and shellfish . Less than 6% was covered by mammals and less than 1% by birds and reptiles. Excavations in the interior ( Platt Island ) show a different picture. Here 60% came from mammals, such as the white-tailed deer found in Florida . Fish and crustaceans made up only about 20% of the diet here.

Some historians have claimed that the Calusa also cultivated corn and wild sago . This is countered by the fact that so far no remains of wild sago and maize have been found during the archaeological excavations. Another argument against growing wild sago is that no sago pollen has been found and that wild sago does not thrive well in the damp swamps of Florida. It is also said that the Calusa did not exchange any agricultural equipment from the Spanish.

The plant-based diet of the Calusa consisted of a wide range of wild berries, fruits, nuts, roots and other parts of plants. American anthropologist George Murdock estimated that plants made up about 20% of the total diet, all of which was collected but not grown. Interestingly, no plant remains were found in the garbage dumps at the Wightman archaeological site. However, there is evidence that the Calusa cultivated papayas 2000 years ago . They also grew garden gourds and bottle gourds to use to make fishing nets and floats.

Tools

Carved head of an alligator

The Calusa caught most of their fish with nets. The nets had a uniform mesh size. Nets with different mesh sizes were rarely and probably only used seasonally for special fish species. The nets were made with awls from shells or bones. From calabash gourds were floats and weights made. Spears and harpoons were also used for fishing. Well-preserved nets, floats and hooks have been found on Key Marco and the neighboring areas of the Muspa Indians .

Metal tools were unknown. Only tools made of mussel shells and wood were used here. In addition to the mussel shells, shark teeth were also often used as tools for cutting, carving and engraving. The Calusa made their nets from palm fibers. Cords and ropes were made from the fibers of the palmetto palm , saw palmetto , agave and Spanish moss . The bark of bald cypress trees and willows was also used. Fish traps were also made from this. Larger objects, such as boats, paddles, and bowls, were carved out of wood. Cultic objects such as masks and statues of animals were also often painted.

Houses and settlements

The Calusa lived in large communal houses. When Pedro Menéndez de Avilés visited the capital of Calusa on Mound Key around 1566 , he described the chief's house, which also served as a meeting house. It was big enough to accommodate 2,000 people without the crowd. When the chief Menéndez granted an audience in his house, he was seated on a throne and surrounded by 500 faithful. His concubine also sat on a throne and was surrounded by 500 women. Menéndez goes on to say that the house had two large windows. According to reports from Spanish monks, the roofs of the houses offered little protection from storms. In a report from 1697, the Spanish noted that there were a total of 16 houses with around 1,000 residents on Mound Key.

In the area of ​​the settlements, large piles of garbage specific to the Calusa have formed over time. Since their culture was shaped by fishing, these rubbish heaps consisted largely of mussels and remains of crustaceans and fish. The villages were partly built on artificially created hills, some of which are still visible today, for example the archaeological excavations on Horr's Island .

Clothing and jewelry

The Calusa wore little clothing. The men are known to wear loincloths made of deerskin. Nothing has been handed down from the Spaniards about women's clothing. Presumably, like other Florida Indians, they wore shirts made from Spanish moss . It is also reported that the Calusa painted, but not tattooed, their bodies. As with many indigenous peoples , the men wore long hair. According to reports from the first Christian missionaries, it was considered a great sacrilege for men to cut their hair. Little is known about the jewelry of the Calusa. Menéndez de Avilés describes for his visit to Calusa in 1566 that the chief's wife wore pearls, precious stones and gold pearls. He reported that the chief's son also wore gold jewelry.

Faith

The Calusa believed in three supernatural beings who ruled the world. The first, most powerful being ruled over the local material world. The second being directed the worldly leaders and the third being decided the outcome of wars. Furthermore, they believed that each has three souls, two of which migrate into different animals after death. The three souls manifested themselves in the pupils of the eyes, the shadow of a person and their reflection on objects. The soul associated with a person's pupil remained in their body after death. The other two souls became an animal. If a Calusa killed such an animal, the soul passed into a lower animal or disappeared. The Calusa ceremonies were accompanied by processions of priests and singing women. The priests wore carved masks that were hung on the walls of the temple after use. Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, an early chronicler of Calusa, writes that their shamans had masks with horns that reminded him of devils.

The Calusa resisted all attempts by the Spaniards to convert them to the Catholic faith. Their tribal chiefs in particular resisted vehemently, since all their power and their two-caste system were based on their faith. According to their belief, the tribal chiefs saw themselves as a link between their tribe and their gods. Any conversion of faith would have undermined the legitimacy and authority of the tribal chiefs. They held on to their social system and religion until their demise.

language

Little has been handed down of the Calusa language. Only a dozen words and 50 to 60 geographical names can be clearly assigned to the Calusa language today. The Spaniard Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda indicated in his reports that all Indian tribes of South Florida and Tampa Bay , such as the Tequesta , Mayaimi , Tocobaga and also the Calusa, spoke one language, albeit in different dialects. The language can be assigned to a language family also spoken by the Apalachee , Timucua , Mayaca, and Ais who inhabited central and northern Florida. According to Julian Granberry, the Calusa language is related to tunica , an isolated language spoken by Lower Mississippi Indians .

Contact with Europeans

The first recorded contact between Europeans and Calusa took place in May 1513 when Juan Ponce de León landed on the west coast of Florida, presumably near the Caloosahatchee River . The Spaniards already knew the Calusa from their previous landings, but kept themselves in hiding, as they had heard of the Spanish invasion from Indians who had fled Cuba. The Spaniards pulled one of their ships onto the beach and offered the Calusa trade. Ten days later a man came to Ponce de León who spoke Spanish and announced the arrival of the Calusa chief. But shortly afterwards, the Spaniards were attacked by about 20 Calusa war canoes. The Spaniards were able to repel the attack and they managed to capture some of the Indians. The next day the Spaniards were attacked again by 80 canoes, whereupon they withdrew to Puerto Rico .

In 1517 Francisco Hernández de Córdoba landed in southwest Florida on his way back from his voyage of discovery to the Yucatán . He too was attacked by the Calusa when he landed. It was not until 1521 that Ponce de León returned to southwest Florida to found a colony. The plans had to be abandoned after massive attacks by the Calusa. Ponce de León was fatally wounded in the fighting.

The next contact with the Calusa took place through expeditions by Pánfilo de Narváez (1528) and Hernando de Soto (1539). Both landed in Tampa Bay , just north of the Calusa area. The Dominicans reached the area of ​​Calusa around 1549, but left it again quickly because the Indians were very hostile towards the monks. Between 1540 and 1550 there was only a few contacts between shipwrecked Europeans and the Calusa. The best information about the first contact between the Calusa and the Europeans can be found in the descriptions of Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, who came to the Calusa as a shipwrecked man. Fontaneda was shipwrecked on the east coast of Florida, possibly in the Keys, around 1550. At the time he was thirteen years old. Although several people survived the shipwreck, he was the only one who was not killed by the warriors of the Calusa. For the next seventeen years he lived with various tribes in southern Florida until he was rescued by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés ' expedition .

In 1566 Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, the founder of St. Augustine , was able to negotiate a peace with the Calusa or the tribal prince Caluus (Carlos). Menéndez marries Carlos' sister. She took the Christian name "Doña Antonia". Menéndez founded a garrison and the Jesuit mission San Antón de Carlos near the capital of Calusa. After hostile acts between the Spaniards and Calusa, the Spaniards killed the chief Carlos, his son Felipe and other dignitaries of the Calusa. Their garrison or mission were no longer safe and so they gave up their base in 1569.

After this event, there was no contact between Spaniards and Calusa for a long time. It was not until 1641 that the Spaniards attacked in Tampa Bay during a war between the Calusa and other Indians allied with the Spaniards . In 1680 an attempt by the Spaniards to free the Spanish soldiers held captive by the Calusa failed. The Indian tribes bordering on the territory of the Calusa refused to allow the Spanish soldiers to march through because they were afraid of reprisals by the Calusa. In 1697 Franciscan monks tried again to found a mission. This attempt was given up after a few months.

Downfall

After the outbreak of war between Spain and England in 1702, the Uchise and Yamasee, allied with the English, invaded Florida and began to enslave the Calusa. The situation was made worse by the fact that the Uchise and Yamasee were armed with firearms by the British. Since the Calusa lived isolated from the Europeans, they had no such weapons. The invading Indian tribes and Europeans spread devastating epidemics such as smallpox under the Calusa. The few surviving Calusa withdrew to the south and east of Florida. In 1711 the Spaniards evacuated 270 of the remaining 1,700 Florida Indians, including many Calusa, from the Florida Keys to Cuba . About 200 of the evacuees died.

The Spaniards established a mission for the last survivors in Biscayne Bay in 1743 . However, the mission was closed again after a few months. With the surrender of Florida from Spain to Great Britain in 1763, the last survivors of the Calusa tribe were moved to Cuba and a few were absorbed into the Seminole tribes . The Calusa tribe has been considered extinct since the middle of the 18th century.

See also

List of North American Indian tribes

literature

  • Bullen, Adelaide K. (1965). "Florida Indians of Past and Present," in Carson, Ruby Leach and Tebeau, Charlton . Florida from Indian trail to space age: a history . (Vol. I, pp. 317-350). Southern Publishing Company.
  • Goggin, John M., and William C. Sturtevant. (1964). "The Calusa: A Stratified, Nonagricultural Society (With Notes on Sibling Marriage)." In Explorations in Cultural Anthropology: Essays Presented to George Peter Murdock . Ed. Ward H. Goodenough. New York: McGraw-Hill, 179-219.
  • Hann, John, ed. & Trans. (1991). Missions to the Calusa . University of Florida Press.
  • Hann, John H. (2003). Indians of Central and South Florida: 1513-1763 . University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-2645-8
  • MacMahon, Darcie A. and William H. Marquardt. (2004). The Calusa and Their Legacy: South Florida People and Their Environments. University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-2773-X
  • Mahon, John K. (1985). History of the Second Seminole War 1835-1842 (Revised Edition). University Presses of Florida.
  • Marquardt, William H. (1992). ed. Culture and Environment in the Domain of the Calusa. Institute of Archeology and Paleoenvironmental Studies Monograph # 1. University of Florida.
  • Marquardt, William H. (2004). "Calusa". In RD Fogelson (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Southeast (Vol. 14, pp. 204-212). Smithsonian Institution.
  • Milanich, Jerald. (1993). ed. "Chapter 10. The Caloosahatchee Region". Florida Historical Contexts . State of Florida Division of Historical Resources. ( Online ; PDF; 41 kB) - accessed on March 29, 2006
  • Milanich, Jerald T. (1994). Archeology of Precolumbian Florida . University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-1273-2
  • Milanich, Jerald T. (1995). Florida Indians and the Invasion from Europe . University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-1360-7
  • Milanich, Jerald T. (1998). Florida's Indians From Ancient Time to the Present . University Press of Florida.
  • Widmer, Randolph J. (1998). The Evolution of the Calusa: A Nonagricultural Chiefdom on the Southwest Florida Coast. University of Alabama Press. ISBN 0-8173-0358-8
  • Ed Winn: Florida's great king: King Carlos of the Calusa Indians . Buster's Books, 2003, ISBN 0-9658489-3-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ MacMahon and Marquardt: 1-2
  2. ↑ a b Marquadt 2004: 211-2
    Hann 2003: 14-5
  3. ↑ Milanich 1994: 32-5
    Milanich 1998: 3-37
  4. ↑ Milanich 1993.
    Milanich 1995.
  5. ↑ MacMahon and Marquardt .
    : 78-9 , 86 Widmer: 5-6
  6. ↑ a b Widmer: 224–31
    Marquardt 2004: 206
    Hann 2003: 31–2
  7. ↑ MacMahon and Marquardt: 69-70
    Marquardt 2004: 206-7
  8. ↑ MacMahon and Marquardt: 69-71
    Marquardt 2004: 206-7
  9. ↑ Hann 2003: 35–6
  10. ↑ Hann 2003: 33-5
  11. ^ Winn: 16-17
  12. ^ Julian Granberry: The Calusa: Linguistic and Cultural Relationships . The University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 2011, ISBN 978-0-8173-1751-5 , pp. 19-24.
  13. ↑ MacMahon and Marquardt: 115-6
  14. ↑ cops.
    MacMahon and Marquardt: 116-7
  15. ↑ MacMahon and Marquardt: 86, 117
  16. ↑ MacMahon and Marquardt: 117-8
  17. ↑ MacMahon and Marquardt: 82-85, 87
  18. ↑ MacMahon and Marquardt: 118-21
  19. ^ Marquardt 2004: 211