Description of the Southeast part of North America. Two methods of categorizing the native inhabitants. A general physical descriptions of the Indians of the Southeast and their habitat. Southeastern Geographical Area Different anthropologists have defined the southeastern cultural arena differently. For this work, the area also includes those tracts of land which are considered marginally to have been the home of natives who had some of the characteristics of what is globally considered to have been Southeastern Indian culture as separate from Plains, Plateau, or Northeastern culture. This area included the present states of Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, North and South Carolina, Tennessee; contiguous areas of Texas, Arkansas, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky; and a small portion of Oklahoma in east central Oklahoma, i.e., Spiro3. Since the Indian population was not static, these marginal areas expanded and shrank. Smaller cultural groups were often joined to larger ones either through acts of war or for protection. In addition, it cannot be forgotten that lines on a map are man made. These areas are approximations of where these groups were mainly located. As can be seen from the map entitled "Early Southeastern Cultural Area," the boundaries vary depending on who delineated them. It is important to note that these boundaries represent the cultural areas or the ethnological province of the Southeast. The archaeological province is different and encompasses areas further North.4 Map # 1 Early Southeastern Cultural Area The coastal plains comprised at least three-fourths of the Southeastern Cultural Area. It's terrain was composed of rivers full of fish, flat lands of rich soil, and forests that were rich with game, edible plants, and berries. Cane, Spanish moss, and Cypress trees surrounded the swamp areas while Oaks, Magnolias and various types of pine trees were also present. The rain was plentiful and the temperature range moderate.6 The second important region was the Piedmont. This section consisted of a hilly area between the Appalachian mountains on the west and the "Fall Line" bordering the coastal plains to the east. The fall line was composed of the effluence of the rivers and streams as they fell from the uplands. The area was rich in fish and other natural resources. Many groups of Indians inhabited this area due to its proximity to both the Piedmont and coastal plains.7 The Piedmont area was rich in hardwoods and game.8 The third area, composed of the Appalachian mountains, was rugged and heavily forested. The area was rich in nut bearing hardwood trees, game, birds including the eagle, and minerals such as mica, steatite, and quartz.9 The Indians of the Southeast, as a whole, were more similar in their customs, values, and life styles at any given period of time than they were different. These Indian groups or tribes can be categorized in two ways: as linguistically related or as cultural subdivisions. The following list is from Swanton, Bureau of American Ethnology Report 137, (face p.10). Although the major linguistic stocks are represented, the subdivisions and smaller segments contain only those better known tribes. Major Linguistic Stocks
Another method of North American Indian categorization revolves around "Cultural Subdivision" or the identification of groups by their cultural similarities. The tribal locations on Map # 2 are from BAE 42 and BAE 137. Swanton in BAE Annual Report 42, "Aboriginal Culture of the Southeast," pp. 711-713 lists the groups as follows: Map #2 SE Indian Cultural Subdivision Circa 1550-1650 "(1) The Algonkian area of the tidewater region of Virginia and North Carolina; (2) The eastern Siouan area of the Piedmont section of North and South Carolina and the coast from the mouth of Cape Fear River to the Santee inclusive; (3) Florida, by which is meant particularly the territory of the Timucua; (4) the Creek area, to which the Georgia coast, the Yuchi, the Cherokee and the Chickasaws may be considered marginal; (5) the Choctaw; (6) the Natchez and their allies; (7) the Chitimacha; (8) the Tunican group proper; and (9) the Caddo."
As stated earlier, even though the cultural characteristics varied among subdivisions, the Southeast Indian tribes shared between them more similar characteristics and cultural patterns than different ones. The following list of similarities was abstracted from The Indians of the Southeastern United States by John R. Swanton.10 The time frame is 1550 plus or minus fifty years. Similarities Among the S.E Indians2) If the tribal subdivisions (clans, moieties etc.) were exogamous, then their consanguinity was transmitted through the female line. 3) The terms of relationships and names gave evidence of a similar pattern. 4) The background of religious beliefs was similar, but tribal variations were pronounced. 5) Medical practices were similar throughout the Southeast. 6) All the tribes conducted rites of passage although great variations were found among the different tribes. 7) The clothing that the Indians wore was similar throughout the Southeast. [Authors note: The materials used could be different.] 8) Ornamentation was worn by all the Indians although it varied in style and placement. 9) Shell beads and pearls were used as ornamentation throughout the area. 10) Copper was known to all the tribes. 11) There was a great similarity in the use of the environment in crops raised and harvested from Virginia to Louisiana. 12) Deer were stalked in the same manner. 13) Fishing was universal throughout; however, the methods varied. 14) All the tribes had dogs of similar breeds. 15) House types varied within a generally similar frame work with usually one door facing east or west. 16) Stockades with watch towers were constructed in the towns from Virginia to Mississippi. 17) The arrangement of the houses was similar in any encampment. 18) The chiefs were carried on litters except in the extreme northeast section. 19) Dugout canoes and rafts were used as a means of transportation. 20) Artistic development was similar even though certain tribes were known for a particular craft form. 21) Baskets and mats were universally employed. The following table shows certain salient characteristics that differentiated one cultural subdivision from another.11 The time frame is 1550 plus or minus fifty years. Salient Attributes of Different Cultural SubdivisionsThere is much controversy over Aboriginal population figures for North America. However, even though the Aboriginal figures are attributed to Mooney, he was not reporting census information for that time period; the period that he referenced was 1600-1650. The time period differentiation is important because prior to European contact, the Indian population was much larger: "In virtually every region there were significant earlier contacts between native Americans and Europeans or Americans. The first contacts typically resulted in important population losses for American Indians, and the contacts did not need to be direct to have serious demographic impacts. American Indians suffered epidemics of European disease resulting from incidental contact, or even without direct contact, as disease spread from one American Indian tribe to another."12 The population for the Southeast area from the Chesapeake to Texas and including the Caddo and Shawnee but excluding the Atakapa was 171,900. The time frame was from 1600-1650.13 This period marks the beginning of "extensive European contact."14 Ubelaker revised Mooney's figures to try to reflect more accurately the Aboriginal Southeastern Indian population, i.e., the population prior to European contact. He stated that it was approximately 467,000.15 As can be seen there is a significant difference between the population figures of 1600-1650 and those prior to European contact. In 1819 Thomas Nuttall wrote: "Their extinction will ever remain in the utmost mystery. The agency of this destruction is, however, fairly to be attributed to the Europeans, and the present hostile Indians who possess the country. It is from these exterminating and savage conquerors, that we in vain inquire of the unhappy destiny of thie [this] great and extinguished population, and who, like so many troops of assassins, have concealed their outrages by an unlimited annihilation of their victims."16 European diseases ravaged the Americas. As early as the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century "Old World Pathogens" had been transmitted to Florida via a "canoe load of native Caribbean merchants".17 This has been labeled the "Columbian Exchange." Prior to the infestation of European diseases, Henry Dobyns states that the Native population in Florida was estimated at 925,000.18 In 1650, Mooney estimated the population of all the gulf states to be 114,400.19 However, neither Dobyns nor Mooney defined the boundaries of the Florida territory. Since Florida in the late fifteenth century encompassed an area much larger than the present state of Florida, a comparison to the gulf states is not out of order. "The major diseases of Florida natives that we can trace to the Colombian exchange are malaria, syphilis, hookworm, dengue fever, smallpox, typhus, influenza, bubonic plague, and yellow fever. [Also] Florida's mosquitoes carried malaria among the native peoples by the sixteenth century, and the disease claimed many victims until the twentieth century..."20 Except for being acutely susceptible to European diseases, the Europeans found the Indians to be "very robust and have a vigorous constitution."21 Hennepin, who was a missionary in the late seventeenth century, traveled throughout parts of the region. He was very impressed with the physical condition of the natives. He described the children as being very well formed and the women having the ability to carry "two or three hundred weight and set their children atop their burden."22 He further believed that since the children were very well formed, that their minds: "......might easily be fashioned as comely as their outward form, if it were cultivated, and if we conversed more with them to polish their wild barbarous humour"23 A native and inhabitant of Virginia wrote in 1705 about the settling of Virginia and the customs of its native population. "The Indians are of the middling and largest stature of the English. They are straight and well proportioned, having the cleanest and most exact limbs in the world. They are so perfect in their outward frame, that I never heard of a single Indian, that was either dwarfish, crooked, bandy legged, or otherwise misshapen. "Their colour, when they grow up, is a chestnut brown and tawny; but much clearer in infancy. They have generally coal black hair and very black eyes......"24 His description is basically characteristic of the entire Southeastern Indian population. Excavations of burial mounds in the southeast attest to the large stature of the Indians described by many early writers. Mound #12 found on Long Island in the Holston River in Roane County, Tennessee contained the skeletal remains of an Indian judged to have been seven and one half feet tall when living.25 Even though there are significant cultural differences among the native inhabitants of the Southeast, compared to the remainder of the North American continent, they remain a definite entity with more similar characteristics than different ones. The cultural characteristics of the Southeast Indians presented in the next few chapters are merely examples from their rich heritage chosen to create a generalized picture of Southeastern Indian life in the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century. As the Europeans extended their contact with the Indians, some of these customs were modified or destroyed completely. 4. Swanton, Indians of the Southeastern United States, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 137, p. 2. 11. Swanton, "Aboriginal Culture of the Southeast", Bureau of Ethnology Report no. 42, pp. 713-717. The author has taken Swanton's text and put it into columnar form. The content has not been altered. 16. Thomas Nuttall, A Journal of Travels into the Arkansas Territory During the year 1819, p. 227. 1980 edition. 17. Henry Dobyns, "The Invasion of Florida-Disease and the Indians of Florida", Spanish Pathways in Florida, p. 58. 21. Hennepin, A Continuation of the Discovery of a Vast Country in America, p. 85. This English version is a direct translation of the French version: Nouveau Voyage d'un Pais Plus Grand Que L'Europe. Both were published in 1698 although he lived in the area in the 1680's. |