Calusa

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Approximate Calusa core area (red) and political domain (blue)

The Calusa, sometimes spelled Caloosa or Calosa, were a Native American group that lived on the coast and along the inner waterways of Florida's southwest coast. At the time of European contact, the Calusa were the people of the Caloosahatchee culture. Calusa territory reached from Charlotte Harbor to Cape Sable, and may have included the Florida Keys at times. Calusa influence and control also extended over other tribes in southern Florida, including the Mayaimis around Lake Mayaimi (now Lake Okeechobee), and the Tequestas and Jaegas on the southeast coast of the peninsula. Calusa influence may have also extended to the Ais tribe on the central east coast of Florida. Calusa is pronounced "ka LOOS a" and means "fierce people". The Calusa tribe is described as warlike.

The Spanish began exploring southwest Florida early in the 16th Century and quickly encountered resistance. The explorer and discoverer of Florida, Juan Ponce de Leon, died of a wound received from a Calusa arrow in 1521. However, the best information about the Calusas comes from the Memoir of Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda. Fontaneda was shipwrecked on the east coast of Florida, likely in the Keys, about 1550, when he was thirteen years old. Although many others survived the shipwreck, only Fontaneda was spared by the tribe in whose territory he had been shipwrecked. He lived with various tribes in southern Florida for the next seventeen years before being found by a Spanish expedition.

The Calusa were not agricultural. Their diet included a lot of seafood. Net sinkers have been found in archeological sites, and shell middens and shell mounds of large size are found throughout Calusa territory. Such mounds can still be seen on Mound Key, in Estero Bay near Fort Myers, and near Everglades City, Florida. Deer, turtle and other animal bones have also been found in the mounds. Projectile points of stone have been found, as well as tools of bone, shell, and turtle shell. The Calusa built their homes on stilts without any walls and used woven palmetto leaves for the roofs. A number of wooden objects have been found in Calusa archaeological sites, mainly of cypress and pine. Artifacts of wood that have been found include dugout canoes, bowls, both plain and adorned with carvings of animals, masks, plaques, "ornamental standards," and a finely carved deer head. The plaques were often painted.

Calusa society had two levels, and possibly a slave class. The chief was powerful (the Spanish called Carlos, leader at the time of contact, the "king"). Kings were supposed to marry their sister, and would take other wives, as well.

[edit] References

Bullen, Adelaide K. 1965. "Florida Indians of Past and Present", in Carson, Ruby Leach and Tebeau, Charlton. Florida from Indian trail to space age: a history. (Vol. I, pp. 317-350). Southern Publishing Company.
Goggin, John M., and William C. Sturtevant. "The Calusa: A Stratified, Nonagricultural Society (With Notes on Sibling Marriage)." In Explorations in Cultural Anthropology: Essays Presented to George Peter Murdock. Ed. Ward H. Goodenough. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964, 179-219.
Hann, John, ed. & trans. Missions to the Calusa. University of Florida Press, 1991.
Macmahon, Darcie A. Macmahon and William H. Marquardt. The Calusa And Their Legacy: South Florida People And Their Environments. University of Florida Press, 2004.
Marquardt, William H. ed. Culture and Environment in the Domain of the Calusa. Institue of Archaeology and Paleoenvironmental Studies Monograph #1. University of Florida, 1992.
Widmer, Randolph J. The Evolution of the Calusa: A Nonagricultural Chiefdom on the Southwest Florida Coast. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1988.