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§ 3.—Religion

It is usual to consider the religion and mythology of a nation of weighty import in determining its origin; but to him, who regards these as the spontaneous growth of the human mind, brought into existence by the powers of nature, nourished by the mental constitution of man, and shaped by external circumstances, all of which are “everywhere different yet everywhere the same,” general similarities of creed and of rite appear but deceptive bases for ethnological theories. The same great natural forces are eternally at work, above, around and beneath us, producing similar results in matter, educing like conceptions in mind. He who attentively compares any two mythologies whatever, will find so many points of identity and resemblance that he will readily appreciate the capital error of those who deduce original unity of race from natural conformity of rite. Such is the fallacy of those who would derive the ancient population of the American continent from a fragment of an insignificant Semitic tribe in Syria; and of the Catholic missionaries, who imputed variously to St. Thomas and to Satan the many religious ceremonies and legends, closely allied to those of their own faith, found among the Aztecs and Guatemalans.

In investigations of this nature, therefore, we must critically distinguish between the local and the universal elements of religions. Do we aim by analysis to arrive at the primal theistic notions of the human mind and their earliest outward expression? The latter alone can lead us. Or is it our object to use mythology only as a handmaid to history, an index of migrations, and a record of external influence? The impressions of local circumstances are our only guides.

The tribes of the New World, like other early and uncivilized nations, chose the sun as the object of their adoration; either holding it to be itself the Deity, as did most of the indwellers of the warm zones, or, as the natives of colder climes, only the most august object of His creation, a noble emblem of Himself. Intimately connected with both, ever recurring in some one of its Protean forms, is the worship of the reciprocal principle.

The Floridian Indians belonged to the first of these classes. They worshipped the sun and moon, and in their honor held such simple festivals as are common in the earlier stages of religious development. Among these the following are worthy of specification.

After a successful foray they elevated the scalps of their enemies on poles decked with garlands, and for three days and three nights danced and sang around them.²²² The wreaths here probably had the same symbolical significance as those which adorned the Athenian Hermes,²²³ or which the Maypures of the Orinoco used at their weddings, or those with which the northern tribes ornamented rough blocks of stone.

Their principal festival was at the first corn-planting, about the beginning of March. At this ceremony a deer was sacrificed to the sun, and its body, or according to others its skin stuffed with fruits and grain, was elevated on a tall pole or tree stripped of its branches, an object of religious veneration, and around which were danced and sung the sacred choruses;²²⁴ a custom also found by Loskiel among the Delawares,²²⁵ and which, recognizing the deer or stag as a solar emblem, surmounting the phallic symbol, the upright stake, has its parallel in Peruvian heliolatry and classical mythology.

The feast of Toya, though seen by the French north of the peninsula and perhaps peculiar to the tribes there situate, presents some remarkable peculiarities. It occurred about the end of May, probably when the green corn became eatable. Those who desired to take part in it, having apparelled themselves in various attire, assembled on the appointed day in the council house. Here three priests took charge of them, and led them to the great square, which they danced around thrice, yelling and beating drums. Suddenly at a given signal from the priests they broke away “like unbridled horses” (comme chevaux débridez), plunging into the thickest forests. Here they remained three days without touching food or drink, engaged in the performance of mysterious duties. Meanwhile the women of the tribe, weeping and groaning, bewailed them as if dead, tearing their hair and cutting themselves and their daughters with sharp stones; as the blood flowed from these frightful gashes, they caught it on their fingers, and, crying out loudly three times he Toya, threw it into the air. At the expiration of the third day the men returned; all was joy again; they embraced their friends as though back from a long journey; a dance was held on the public square; and all did famous justice to a bounteous repast spread in readiness.²²⁶ The analogy that these rites bear to the Διονυσια and similar observances of the ancients is very striking, and doubtless they had a like significance. The singular predominance of the number three, which we shall also find repeated in other connections, cannot escape the most cursory reader. Nor is this a rare or exceptional instance where it occurs in American religions; it is bound up in the most sacred myths and holiest observances all over the continent.²²⁷ Obscure though the reason may be, certain it is that the numbers three, four, and seven, are hallowed by their intimate connection with the most occult rites and profoundest mysteries of every religion of the globe, and not less so in America than in the older continent.

In the worship of the moon, which in all mythologies represents the female principle, their rites were curious and instructive. Of those celebrated at full moon by the tribes on the eastern coast, Dickinson, an eyewitness, has left us the following description:—“The moon being up, an Indian who performeth their ceremonies, stood out, looking full at the moon, making a hideous noise and crying out, acting like a mad-man for the space of half an hour, all the Indians being silent till he had done; after which they all made a fearful noise, some like the barking of a dogg or wolf, and other strange sounds; after this one gets a logg and setts himself down; holding the stick or logg upright on the ground, and several others getting about him, made a hideous noise, singing to our amazement.” This they kept up till midnight, the women taking part.²²⁸

On the day of new moon they placed upright in the ground “a staff almost eight foot long having a broad arrow on the end thereof, and thence half-way painted red and white, like unto a barber’s-pole; in the middle of the staff is fixed a piece of wood, like unto the thigh, legg, and foot of a man, and the lower part thereof is painted black.” At its base was placed a basket containing six rattles; each taking one and making a violent noise, the six chief men of the village including the priest danced and sang around the pole till they were fatigued, when others, painted in various devices, took their place; and so on in turn. These festivities continued three days, the day being devoted to rest and feasting, the night to the dance and fasting; during which time no woman must look upon them.²²⁹ How distinctly we recognize in this the worship of the reciprocal principle!—that ever novel mystery of reproduction shadowed forth by a thousand ingenious emblems, by a myriad strange devices, all replete with a deep significance to him who is versed in the subtleties of symbolism. Even among these wretched savages we find the colors black, white, and red, retain that solemn import so usual in oriental mythi.

The representation of a leg used in this observance must not be considered a sign of idolatry, for, though the assertion, advanced, by both Adair²³⁰ and Klemm,²³¹ that no idols whatever were worshipped by the hunting tribes, is unquestionably erroneous and can be disproved by numerous examples, in the peninsula of Florida they seem to have been totally unknown. The image of a bird, made of wood, seen at the village where De Soto first landed, cannot be regarded as such, but was a symbol common among several of the southern tribes, and does not appear to have had any special religious meaning.

Human sacrifice, so rare among the Algic nations, was not unknown, though carried to by no means such an appalling extent as among the native accolents of the Mississippi. The chief of the Caloosas immolated every year one person, usually a Christian, to the principle of evil (al Demonio)²³², as a propitiary offering; hence on one old map, that of De L’Isle, they are marked “Les Carlos Antropophages.” Likewise around the St. Johns they were accustomed to sacrifice the firstborn son, killing him by blows on the head;²³³ but it is probable this only obtained to a limited observance. In all other cases their offerings consisted of grains and fruits.

The veneration of the serpent, which forms such an integral part of all nature religions, and relics of which are retained in the most perfected, is reported to have prevailed among these tribes. When a soldier of De Gourgues had killed one, the natives cut off its head and carried it away with great care and respect (avec vu grand soin et diligence).²³⁴ The same superstitious fear of injuring these reptiles was retained in later days by the Seminoles.²³⁵

The priests constituted an important class in the community. Their generic appellation, javas, jauas, jaruars, jaovas, jaonas, jaiias, javiinas,—for all these and more orthographies are given—has been properly derived by Adair from the meaningless exclamation yah-wah, used as name, interjection, and invocation by the southern Indians. It is not, however, an etymon borrowed from the Hebrew as he and Boudinot argue, but consists of two slightly varied enunciations of the first and simplest vowel sound; as such, it constitutes the natural utterance of the infant in its earliest wail, and, as the easiest cry of relief of the frantic devotee all over the world, is the principal constituent of the proper name of the deity in many languages. Like the medas of the Algonquins and the medicine men of other tribes, they united in themselves the priest, the physician, and the sorcerer. In sickness they were always ready with their bag of herbs and simples, and so much above contempt was their skill in the healing art that not unfrequently they worked cures of a certain troublesome disease sadly prevalent among the Indians and said by some to have originated from them. Magicians were they of such admirable subtlety as to restore what was lost, command the unwilling rain from heaven in time of drought, and foretell the position of an enemy or the result of a battle. As priests, they led and ordered festivals, took part in grave deliberations, and did their therapeutic art fail to cure, were ready with spiritual power to console, in the emergencies of pain and death.

Their sepulchral rites were various. Along the St. Johns, when a chief died they interred the corpse with appropriate honors, raised a mound two or three feet high above the grave, surrounded it with arrows fixed in the ground, and on its summit deposited the conch, le hanap, from which he was accustomed to drink. The tribe fasted and mourned three days and three nights, and for six moons women were employed to bewail his death, lamenting loudly thrice each day at sunrise, at mid-day, and at sunset.²³⁶ All his possessions were placed in his dwelling, and the whole burnt; a custom arising from a superstitious fear of misfortune consequent on using the chattels of the dead, a sentiment natural to the unphilosophic mind. It might not be extravagant to suppose that the shell had the same significance as the urn so frequent in the tombs of Egypt and the sepulchres of Magna Græcia, “an emblem of the hope that should cheer the dwellings of the dead.”²³⁷ The burial of the priests was like that of the chiefs, except that the spot chosen was in their own houses, and the whole burnt over them, resembling in this a practice universal among the Caribs, and reappearing among the Natchez, Cherokees and Arkansas, (Taencas).

Among the Caloosas and probably various other tribes, the corpses were placed in the open air, apparently for the purpose of obtaining the bones when the flesh had sufficiently decomposed, which, like the more northern tribes, they interred in common sepulchres, heaping dirt over them so as to form mounds. It was as a guard to watch over these exposed bodies, and to prevent their desecration by wild beasts, that Juan Ortiz, the Spaniard of Seville, liberated by De Soto, had been employed while a prisoner among the nations of the Gulf Coast.

§ 4.—Language

A philological examination of the Floridian tribes, which would throw so much light on their origin, affiliation, and many side-questions of general interest, must for the present remain unattempted, save in a very inadequate manner. Not but that there exists material, ample and well-arranged material, but it is not yet within reach. I have already spoken of the works of the Father Pareja, the learned and laborious Franciscan, and of the good service he did the missionaries by his works on the Timuquana tongue. Not a single copy of any of these exists in the United States, and till a republication puts them within reach of the linguist, little can be done towards clearing up the doubt that now hangs over the philology of this portion of our country. What few extracts are given by Hervas, hardly warrant a guess as to their classification.

The name Timuquana, otherwise spelled Timuaca, Timagoa, and Timuqua, in which we recognize the Thimogona of the French colonists, was applied to the tongue prevalent in the immediate vicinity of St. Augustine and toward the mouth of the St. Johns. It was also held in estimation as a noble and general language, a sort of lingua franca, throughout the peninsula. Pareja remarks, “Those Indians that differ most in words and are roughest in their enunciation (mas toscos), namely those of Tucururu²³⁸ and of Santa Lucea de Acuera, in order to be understood by the natives of the southern coast, who speak another tongue, use the dialect of Moscama, which is the most polished of all (la mas politica), and that of Timuquana, as I myself have proved, for they understood me when I preached to them.”²³⁹

This language is remarkable for its singularly numerous changes in the common names of individuals, dependent on mutual relationship and the varying circumstances of life, which, though not the only instance of the kind in American tongues, is here extraordinarily developed, and in the opinion of Adelung seems to hint at some previous, more cultivated condition (in gewissen Hinsicht einen cultivirteren Zustand des Volks anzeigen möchte).²⁴⁰ For example, iti, father, was used only during his life; if he left descendants he was spoken of as siki, but if he died without issue, as naribica-pasano: the father called his son chiricoviro, other males kie, and all females ulena. Such variations in dialect, or rather quite different dialects in the same family, extraordinary as it may seem to the civilized man, were not very uncommon among the warlike, erratic hordes of America. They are attributable to various causes. The esoteric language of the priests of Peru and Virginia might have been either meaningless incantations, as those that of yore resounded around the Pythian and Delphic shrines, or the disjecta membra of some ancient tongue, like the Dionysiac songs of Athens. When as among the Abipones of Paraguay, the Natchez of Louisiana, and the Incas of Peru, the noble or dominant race has its own peculiar tongue, we must impute it to foreign invasion, and a subsequent rigorous definition of the line of cast and prevention of amalgamation. Another consequence of war occurs when the women and children of the defeated race are alone spared, especially should the males be much absent and separated from the females; then each sex has its peculiar language, which may be preserved for generations; such was found to be the case on some of the Caribbee islands and on the coast of Guiana. Also certain superstitious observances, the avoidance of evil omens, and the mere will of individuals, not seldom worked changes of this nature. In such cases these dialects stand as waymarks in the course of time, referring us back to some period of unity, of strife, or of migration, whence they proceeded, and as such, require the greatest caution to be exercised in deducing from them any general ethnographical inferences.

What we are to judge in the present instance is not yet easy to say. Hervas does not hesitate to assert that abundant proof exists to ally this with the Guaranay (Carib) stock. Besides a likeness in some etymons, he takes pains to lay before the reader certain similar rites of intermarriage, quotes Barcia to show that Carib colonies actually did land on Florida, and adds an ideal sketch of the Antigua configuracion del golfo Mexicano y del mar Atlantico, thereon proving how readily in ancient ages, under altered geological conditions, such a migration could have been effected.

Without altogether differing from the learned abbé in his position, for it savors strongly of truth, it might be well, with what material we have at hand, to see whether other analogies could be discovered. The pronominal adjectives and the first three numerals are as follows;—

Now, bearing in mind that the pronouns of the first and second persons and the numerals are primitive words, and that in American philology it is a rule almost without exception that personal pronouns and pronominal adjectives are identical in their consonants,²⁴¹ we have five primitive words before us. On comparing them with other aboriginal tongues, the n of the first person singular is found common to the Algonquin Lenape family, but in all other points they are such contrasts that this must pass for an accidental similarity. A resemblance may be detected between the Uchee nowah, two, nokah, three, and naiucha-mima, naka-pumima. Taken together, iti-na, my father, sounds not unlike the Cherokee etawta, and Adelung notices the slight difference there is between niha, eldest brother, and the Illinois nika, my brother. But these are trifling compared to the affinities to the Carib, and I should not be astonished if a comparison of Pareja with Gilü and D’Orbigny placed beyond doubt its relationship to this family of languages. Should this brief notice give rise to such an investigation, my object in inserting it will have been accomplished.

The French voyagers occasionally noted down a word or two of the tongues they encountered, and indeed Laudonniére assures us that he could understand the greater part of what they said. Such were tapagu tapola, little baskets of corn, sieroa pira, red metal, antipola bonnasson, a term of welcome meaning, brother, friend, or something of that sort (qui vaut autant à dire comme frère, amy, ou chose semblable).²⁴² Albert Gallatin²⁴³ subjected these to a critical examination, but deciphered none except the last. This he derives from the Choktah itapola, allies, literally, they help each other, while “in Muskohgee, inhisse, is, his friends, and ponhisse, our friends,” which seems a satisfactory solution. It was used as a friendly greeting both at the mouth of the St. Johns and thirty leagues north of that river; but this does not necessarily prove the natives of those localities belonged to the Chahta family, as an expression of this sort would naturally gain wide prevalence among very diverse tribes.

Fontanedo has also preserved some words of the more southern languages, but none of much importance.

CHAPTER IV.
LATER TRIBES

§ 1. Yemassees.—Uchees.—Apalachicolos.—Migrations northward.

§ 2. Seminoles.

§ 1.—Yemassees and other Tribes

About the close of the seventeenth century, when the tribes who originally possessed the peninsula had become dismembered and reduced by prolonged conflicts with the whites and between themselves, various bands from the more northern regions, driven from their ancestral homes partly by the English and partly by a spirit of restlessness, sought to fix their habitations in various parts of Florida.

The earliest of these were the Savannahs or Yemassees (Yammassees, Jamasees, Eamuses,) a branch of the Muskogeh or Creek nation, who originally inhabited the shores of the Savannah river and the low country of Carolina. Here they generally maintained friendly relations with the Spanish, who at one period established missions among them, until the arrival of the English. These purchased their land, won their friendship, and embittered them against their former friends. As the colony extended, they gradually migrated southward, obtaining a home by wresting from their red and white possessors the islands and mainland along the coast of Georgia and Florida. The most disastrous of these inroads was in 1686, when they drove the Spanish colonists from all the islands north of the St. Johns, and laid waste the missions and plantations that had been commenced upon them. Subsequently, spreading over the savannas of Alachua and the fertile plains of Middle Florida, they conjoined with the fragments of older nations to form separate tribes, as the Chias, Canaake, Tomocos or Atimucas, and others. Of these the last-mentioned were the most important. They dwelt between the St. Johns and the Suwannee, and possessed the towns of Jurlo Noca, Alachua, Nuvoalla, and others. At the devastation of their settlements by the English and Creeks in 1704, 1705 and 1706, they removed to the shores of Musquito Lagoon, sixty-five miles south of St. Augustine, where they had a village, long known as the Pueblo de Atimucas.

A portion of the tribe remained in Carolina, dwelling on Port Royal Island, whence they made frequent attacks on the Christian Indians of Florida, carrying them into captivity, and selling them to the English. In April, 1715, however, instigated as was supposed by the Spanish, they made a sudden attack on the neighboring settlements, but were repulsed and driven from the country. They hastened to St. Augustine, “where they were received with bells ringing and guns firing,”²⁴⁴ and given a spot of ground within a mile of the city. Here they resided till the attack of Colonel Palmer in 1727, who burnt their village and destroyed most of its inhabitants. Some, however, escaped, and to the number of twenty men, lived in St. Augustine about the middle of the century. Finally, this last miserable remnant was enslaved by the Seminoles, and sunk in the Ocklawaha branch of that tribe.²⁴⁵

Originating from near the same spot as the Yemassees were the Uchees. When first encountered by the whites, they possessed the country on the Carolina side of the Savannah river for more than one hundred and fifty miles, commencing sixty miles from its mouth, and, consequently, just west of the Yemassees. Closely associated with them here, were the Palachoclas or Apalachicolos. About the year 1716, nearly all the latter, together with a portion of the Uchees, removed to the south under the guidance of Cherokee Leechee, their chief, and located on the banks of the stream called by the English the Flint river, but which subsequently received the name of Apalachicola.

The rest of the Uchees clung tenaciously to their ancestral seats in spite of the threats and persuasion of the English, till after the middle of the century, when a second and complete migration took place. Instead of joining their kinsmen, however, they kept more to the east, occupying sites first on the head-waters of the Altamaha, then on the Santilla, (St. Tillis,) St. Marys, and St. Johns, where we hear of them as early as 1786. At the cession to the United States, (1821,) they had a village ten miles south of Volusia, near Spring Gardens. At this period, though intermarrying with their neighbors, they still maintained their identity, and when, at the close of the Seminole war in 1845, two hundred and fifty Indians embarked at Tampa for New Orleans and the West, it is said a number of them belonged to this tribe, and probably constituted the last of the race.²⁴⁶

Both on the Apalachicola and Savannah rivers this tribe was remarkable for its unusually agricultural and civilized habits, though of a tricky and dishonest character. Bartram²⁴⁷ gives the following description of their town of Chata on the Chatauchee:—“It is the most compact and best situated Indian town I ever saw; the habitations are large and neatly built; the walls of the houses are constructed of a wooden frame, then lathed and plastered inside and out, with a reddish, well-tempered clay or mortar, which gives them the appearance of red brick walls, and these houses are neatly covered or roofed with cypress bark or shingles of that tree.” This, together with the Savanuca town on the Tallapoosa or Oakfuske river, comprised the whole of the tribe at that time resident in this vicinity.

Their language was called the Savanuca tongue, from the town of that name. It was peculiar to themselves and radically different from the Creek tongue or Lingo, by which they were surrounded; “It seems,” says Bartram, “to be a more northern tongue;” by which he probably means it sounded harsher to the ear. It was said to be a dialect of the Shawanese, but a comparison of the vocabularies indicates no connection, and it appears more probable that it stands quite alone in the philology of that part of the continent.

While these movements were taking place from the north toward the south, there were also others in a contrary direction. One of the principal of these occurred while Francisco de la Guerra was Governor-General of Florida, (1684-1690,) in consequence of an attempt made by Don Juan Marquez to remove the natives to the West India islands and enslave them. We have no certain knowledge how extensive it was, though it seems to have left quite a number of missions deserted.²⁴⁸

What has excited more general attention is the tradition of the Shawnees, (Shawanees, Sawannees, Shawanos,) that they originally came from the Suwannee river in Florida, whose name has been said to be “a corruption of Shawanese,” and that they were driven thence by the Cherokees.²⁴⁹ That such was the origin of the name is quite false, as its present appellation is merely a corruption of the Spanish San Juan, the river having been called the Little San Juan, in contradistinction to the St. Johns, (el rio de San Juan,) on the eastern coast.²⁵⁰ Nor did they ever live in this region, but were scions of the Savannah stem of the Creeks, accolents of the river of that name, and consequently were kinsmen of the Yemassees.