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Florida native structures

Source: Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors #121

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There are not many special descriptions of Timucua houses. Ribault says, in speaking of the dwellings of those Indians whom he met at the mouth of the river which he called the Seine and which was probably what is now known as the St. Marys: "Their houses are made of wood, fitly and closely set up, and covered with reeds, the most part after the fashion of a pavilion. But there was one house among the rest very long and wide, with seats around about made of reeds nicely put together, which serve both for beds and seats, two feet high from the ground, set upon round pillars painted red, yellow, and blue, and neatly polished."8 Le Challeux describes them thus: "Their dwellings are of a round shape and in style almost like the pigeon houses of this country, the foundation and main structure being of great trees, covered over with palmetto leaves, and not fearing either wind or tempest."9

Says Le Moyne: "The chief's dwelling stands in the middle of the town, and is partly underground in consequence of the sun's heat. Around this are the houses of the principal men, all lightly roofed with palm branches, as they are occupied only nine months in the year; the other three, as has been related, being spent in the woods. When they come back they occupy their houses again; and if they find that the enemy has
burnt them down, they build others of similar materials. Thus magnificent are the palaces of the Indians."1

The description of Timucua houses given by Spark contains details not noted by the others: "Their houses are not many together, for in one house au hundred of them do lodge: they being made much like a great barne, and in strength not inferiour to ours, for they haue stanchions and rafters of whole trees, and are covered with palmito-leaues, hauing no place diuided, but one small roome for their king and queene."2

It is to be noticed that the houses at the mouth of the St. Marys were covered with reeds, while on those which were farther south palmetto was employed. It is probable that the frames and the rest of the construction were practically identical. The greater part of the common houses figured by Le Moyne are circular, but there is another type square or squarish in ground plan and with a pronounced gable, although the gable ends are sloping, not perpendicular. Besides these, two houses are figured square or oblong in outline, with a domeshaped roof, and the door in one end very similar to some of the houses on the North Carolina coast.2 The town house, the one described at most length by Ribault, is also figured by Le Moyne in one place.4 It is represented as a long, quadrilateral building with a regular gable and perpendicular ends. This specimen appears to be thatched with palmetto like the rest.

In 1699 Dickenson described the town houses in three mission stations in this region, but these were mainly occupied by Indians from the former province of Guale, and the architecture can not be set down as certainly Timucua. What he has to say regarding them will be found on pages 92-93.

Cabeza de Vaca must mean one of the town houses when he speaks of a house ''so large that it could hold more than 300 people." *

The following description of the village of Ucita on Tampa Bay may be given by way of contrast, showing as it does either a somewhat different method of arrangement on the west coast of Florida or greater variety in method than the French narratives indicate: "The town [of Ucita] was of seven or eight houses, built of timber, and covered with palm leaves. The chief's house stood near the beach, upon a very high mount, made by hand for defense; at the other end of the town was a temple, on the roof of which perched a wooden fowl with gilded eyes."8 In the center of the town of Uriutina was "a very large open court,"7 and in Napetaca a "town yard" is mentioned.8

It appears that the beds of these Indians were made on a raised platform about the sides of the houses precisely like those of the other southern tribes. The seats illustrated by Le Moyne were probably made in an identical manner and were in fact the same thing.1 Their openwork construction offered certain advantages, thus explained by a writer quoted by Gaffarel: "They are often bothered by little flies [No See Ums!], which they call in their language maringous and it is usually necessary for them to make fires in their houses, absolutely under their beds, in order to be freed from these vermin; and they say that they bite severely, and the part of the skin affected by their bite becomes like that of a leper.2

Spark seems to have seen a more solidly constructed bed, provided with a wooden pillow:
In the middest of this house is a hearth, where they make great fires all night, and they sleepe vpon certeine pieces of wood hewin in for the bowing of their backs, and another place made high for their heads, which they put one by another all along the walles on both sides.3

The narrative of De Gourgues records that Saturiwa seated him upon "a seat of wood of lentisque, covered with moss, made of purpose like unto his own,"4 the rest sitting upon the ground. Perhaps these seats were of the three-legged variety used in the West Indies and throughout the Southern States generally.
(Swanton)