31.8 America: a.d. 1601 to 1700  (Page 3/16)

Early Spanish, French and English colonists in southeastern United States encountered a 50 settlement confederation of the Creek Indian Confederacy in an area now consisting of Alabama and Georgia. The confederacy included various peoples with several languages, including Chickasaw and Choctaw. To the north of the Creek also lived the Cherokees, some 60,000 strong in about 100 settlements. Their ancestors had built large mounds in West Virginia and Tennessee. On the lower Mississippi were the Natchez, inheritors of the Mississippian Culture. (Ref. 215 ) Mystery surrounds the Westos and Ricahecrians, who appeared menacingly on the South Carolina and Virginia frontiers in this century. Were they one and the same people? Did they speak Iroquoian or Siouan? Many of the coastal Indians relied heavily on the sea, eating mollusks and catching fish with spears. Bows and arrows, bone hooks, basket traps and poisons. Until Franciscans established missions and promoted agriculture, Gaule Indians in coastal Georgia depended primarily on marine life. As agriculture spread, time became available for perfection of crafts such as basket-making, carpentry, woodworking, pipe-making, weaving, pottery, tanning and even certain kinds of metal work. Tobacco cultivation created a demand for pipes, some finely wrought from clay and decorated. (Ref. 267 )

The Calusa were not typical southern Indians and there is much mystery about them, also. They were excellent seamen, constructing large, seaworthy, dugout canoes, some of which would hold up to 80 men. Among almost all southern Indians the men were tall for that time, usually 5'6" but some 6' or more. Both sexes were well proportioned, with the men wearing deerskin breechcloths and the women skirts. Mantles of deer, bear or buffalo skins, woven feathers and Spanish moss provided warmth in the winter. Elaborate tattooing was widespread, with extensive body decoration indicating higher rank. Ornaments were worn by men and women alike. They lived in an essentially law-abiding society, although their laws and morals were different than their later white counterparts. Men could have as many wives as they could afford and young girls normally had sexual relations freely. Divorce was easy, but adultery resulted in severe punishment both for the guilty one and the clan. There is little question that Indians scalped their victims, even before Europeans arrived. (Ref. 267 )

The Powhatans in the Virginia Tidewater were the most densely populated of any Indians of the south, and even in 1650 after white contact had begun its depopulation from disease, Dobyns