Timucua

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The Timucua were an American Indian tribe that lived in North Central Florida, mainly around the St. John's River. At the time of Columbus, Timucuan areas stretched from the Altamaha River in present-day Georgia to as far south as Orlando, Florida and from Jacksonville to the Aucilla River, yet never stretching to 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, and Tomoca. The Timucuans are noted for their passiveness as compared to their neighbors, the Apalachee and Calusa as well as the successful missions that the Spanish established in their territory. The approximate population of the Timucua at the time of Columbus is estimated to be around 200,000 people.

Contents

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 Ponce de Leon near St. Augustine in 1513. Later, in 1528, the Spanish explorer Pánfilo de Narváez landed around Tampa Bay and marched north with the idea of establishing a permanent settlement and finding gold. His expedition turned out to be a dismal failure, and he was forced to turn back. On the way to Mexico, he and all but four of the 260 remaining men were killed in a shipwreck off the coast of Texas. In 1539, Hernando de Soto landed in Tampa Bay with 622 soldiers in further attempts to look for colinization opportunities and gold. Like Narváez before him, de Soto soon marched north, meeting Timucuans along the way. Both of these expeditions passed through Timucuan land in a few weeks and there was not a great deal of contact.

The Timucuas' history changed after the establishment of St. Augustine in 1565 as the Spanish capital of their province of La Florida. From here, Spanish missionaries and established missions in each main town of the Timucuan chiefdoms. By 1595, the Timucuan population had shrunk by 75%, primarily from disease and war.

In 1564, French Huguenots 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 one of the French settlers Le Moyne de Morgues have proven valuable resources for modern ethnographers in understanding these people. The next year the Spanish under Pedro Menéndez de Avilés surprized 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.

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.

The chiefs were despotic and absolute in their power. There were three social classes - the nobles, common people and below that were prisoners-of-war who were slaves.

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. Human sacrifice was practiced among the Timucua. In some ceremonies, the first-born infant son was sacrificed to the Sun.

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 caffinated. 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 an semi-agricultural people and ate many foods native to North Central Florida. They planted corn, beans, squash and various vegatables 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 tabacco. 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 percieved height was the fact that Timucuan men would wear their hair in a bun on top of their heads. Everyone was heavily tatooed, and such tatoos were gained by deeds. Children would begin to get their tatoos 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.

Language

The Timucua langage was a language isolate, unrelated to other languages. Genetic relations have been proposed with Muskogean, Algonquian, Cariban, Siouan, Arawakan, and Chibchan languages. None of these proposals have been convincingly demonstrated.

Most of what we know of their language comes from a Spanish-Timucuan document of 1688 and the works of Father Pareja and of Father Gregorio de Monilla who were missionaries for the Timucua.

The language had 6-11 dialects:

  • Timucua proper
  • Potano
  • Itafi
  • Yufera
  • Mocama
  • Tucururu
  • Agua Fresca
  • Agua Salada
  • Acuera
  • Oconi
  • Tawasa

Most of the documentation is from Mocoma and Potano.

Sounds

Timucua has 13 consonants:

  Labial Alveolar Post-
alveolar 		Velar Glottal
plain labial
Stop p t   k kʷ  
Affricate     ʧ    
Fricative f s     h
Nasal m n      
Rhotic   r      
Approximant     j    
Voiced stop, fricative,
or approximant 		b        

Timucua has 5 vowels:

  Front Back
High i u
Mid e o
Low a

Reference

Bibliography

  • Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
  • Crawford, James. (1975). Southeastern Indian languages. In J. Crawford (Ed.), Studies in southeastern Indian languages (pp. 1-120). Athens, GA: University of Georgia.
  • Goddard, Ives (Ed.). (1996). Languages. Handbook of North American Indians (W. C. Sturtevant, General Ed.) (Vol. 17). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-1604-8774-9.
  • Granberry, Julian. (1990). A grammatical sketch of Timucua. International Journal of American Linguistics, 56, 60-101.
  • Granberry, Julian. (1993). A grammar and dictionary of the Timucua language (3rd ed.). Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. (1st edition 1984).
  • Milanch, 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.
  • Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
  • Mooney, James. (1910). Timucua. Bureau of American Ethnology, bulletin (No. 30.2, p. 752).
  • Pareja, Fray Francisco. (1614). Arte y pronunciación en lengua timvquana y castellana. Mexico: Emprenta de Ioan Ruyz.
  • 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.
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