The Cross and the Mask: How the Spanish 'Discovered' Florida - and a Proud Native Nation

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Preface

In the year 1547 Ivan IV crowned himself the first tsar of Moscow and would soon be known as Ivan the Terrible. In France, another new monarch, Henry II, set out to conquer every Italian city-state in his warpath. In England, nine-year-old Edward VI succeeded Henry VIII and was soon betrothed to Mary, Queen of Scots. She was five.

Nearly everything else, from the Netherlands south through the Iberian Peninsula, paid allegiance to Charles V, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. But keeping the balky confederation intact meant maintaining a military colossus to combat the spread of the Protestant Heresy in northern Europe and of Islam on his southern shores.

In fact, Charles’ patchwork empire would quickly tatter and fray were it not for the regular convoys of ships arriving with gold and silver from the mines of Mexico and South America. Hernando Cortés, the soldier of fortune who made it all possible thirty years beforehand by subduing the mighty Aztecs of Mexico, had just paid a king’s ransom for his success. Having been deemed so rich and powerful that he might pose a threat to the monarchy, Cortés was nudged into retirement on his estate near Seville, where he finally sulked to death on September 2, 1547.

Meanwhile, the treasure fleet continued to bring Spain and Charles the precious metals that would be forged into the currencies that bought everything from shields and swords to goblets and tapestries. But crossing the Atlantic in a ship a hundred or so feet in length was neither routine nor predictable. August through October was hurricane season, and when the ungainly cargo ships emerged north of Cuba and into the narrow Bahamas Channel, they faced high winds, angry waves and the menace of smaller, swifter French corsairs and English privateers that preyed like leopards on a herd of zebra. All too many men and treasures were washed up on the reefs and sandy shores of Florida or the Bahamas, never to be seen again.

At that time, the term Florida applied to everything from Key West to Newfoundland.

Might some outposts be established along this coast to rescue Spanish sailors and salvage their ships? Might this mysterious Florida also contain precious metals? Along this narrow peninsula, might there be an inside waterway to the Gulf of Mexico that would shorten the long trip around the Florida Straits on the way to South America? Might the naked savages who shook their spears at passing ships actually have souls that might be saved for Jesus Christ and the Roman Catholic Church? And/or....might these natives also be potential labor for the silver mines of Mexico or haciendas of Cuba?

The first attempts to answer these questions were in vain. In 1513, Juan Ponce de León, then governor of Puerto Rico, probed the east coast of Florida. He dispatched a landing party in what is Jupiter Inlet today. The foragers had begun collecting fresh water and firewood on shore when two of the men were hit by arrows tipped with sharpened bones and fish spines. They barely escaped out the inlet.

But Ponce was undaunted. In 1521 he sailed into southwestern Florida waters, only this time with 200 men, priests, horses, cows, sheep, goats and all the tools needed to begin a farming settlement. While still dropping anchor in what is now Charlotte Harbor, the Spaniards were driven off by hundreds of warriors in catamaran canoes firing arrows that could pierce metal armor. Ponce de León himself took an arrow in the thigh that would produce enough gangrene to end his life back in Cuba a few weeks later.

During the next thirty or so years, other bold Spanish adventurers would meet the same fate. Sometimes they would land and be lured inland with promises of trade, only to vanish from the crews waiting on ship for their return. Father Luis Cáncer de Barbastro, a Dominican priest, was even braver. Convinced that the sight of Spanish weapons had ignited the natives' furor, he asked to be put ashore unarmed. There on the beach he knelt with his crucifix raised in prayer so that any Indians who watched from behind the nearby dunes could witness and understand his godly intent.

As he prayed, Indians rushed out and bludgeoned Father Cáncer to death with whelk hammers.

Wild and naked as they appeared to Spanish eyes, the Indians who first greeted Ponce and others in South Florida were part of a strong tribal network generally controlled by and named for the Calusa. In 1547, when Moscow was just coalescing into Russia, when the term France as nation had barely been a concept for a thousand years, when Spain was still a confederation of small kingdoms, indigenous Indians could claim to have occupied South Florida for 12,000 years. They had been a cohesive people called the Calusa for at least 1,000 years before the first Spanish ship appeared on the horizon.

The stronghold of the Calusa lay on the southwest coast, ranging southward from today’s Big Pine Island to Charlotte Harbor to the Ten Thousand Islands in the Florida Straits. At its core, and home to the royal family, was Mound Key, today a seldom-visited Florida State Park off the south end of Fort Myers Beach.

In the outer Calusa orbit were vassal chiefdoms whose loyalties waxed and waned over the centuries. These were the Mayaimi around Lake Okeechobee, the Ais of the Indian River and Hutchinson Island to the east, and below them the Jeaga, clustered mainly around Jupiter Inlet. A hundred miles further south were the Tequesta of Key Biscayne and today’s Miami.

Altogether, archeologists more or less agree that the population of the Calusa realm in South Florida at this time may have been roughly 25,000 to 50,000. Immediately to the north of the Calusa were their eternal enemies, the Tocobaga. Clustered around Tampa Bay, they probably spoke the same language as the Timucuans who inhabited the middle of Florida from coast to coast.

Despite the fact that it is a 130-mile trek between South Florida’s two coasts, people could move between them by canoe through a labyrinth of natural waterways and ancient canals. Because they did not tend any large-scale crops, the Calusa fished and foraged according to the seasons and available food supply. For example, the villagers around Lake Okeechobee (then called Mayaimi) would probably have come to the eastern seaside in summer when their homeland could be inundated by summer floods and infested with mosquitoes. But in winter the coastal-based people might come to the warmer interior to hunt game and dig for roots that could be ground into flour. As part of all this intermingling, villages traded and chiefs—called caciques—arranged marriages to strengthen political ties just as did the aristocratic families of sixteenth century Europe.

Although you will find this book in the fiction shelves of libraries, it is important to note that it adheres to actual people, events and dates that are well documented in the archives of Spain. However, anyone attempting to present the Indian perspective must resort to the fiction genre simply because the Indians of Florida, despite living there for thirty times longer than the United States has been a nation, left no written records. With great help from the spadework of dedicated archeologists, I have attempted to cast some light into that void.

I also offer three observations before you plunge into the sixteenth century.

First, because we know only a few Calusa names for lakes, rivers and other sites, I have used modern ones wherever possible to make it easier for you to recognize places that may be familiar today.

Second, be aware that the geographical makeup of South Florida was markedly different than today’s engineered version. For example, there was no dike to hold back the water spilling over Lake Okeechobee (then called Mayaimi Lake) and flowing south. In the rainy summer season, this river of grass—along with narrow canals carved out over thousands of years—made canoe travel possible between the east and west coasts. By the same token, the estuary that flowed between the mainland and barrier islands of Florida's east coast (named the Long River in this book) was shallow, full of mangrove islands, and bore little relation to the Intracoastal Waterway scoured out by government contractors at the turn of the twentieth century.

Finally, do not confuse the Calusa with the Seminoles. The latter, an amalgam of South Atlantic Indians and runaway slaves from southern plantations, began appearing in Florida at the dawn of the nineteenth century. This was at least fifty years after the last remnants of the once-mighty Calusa had all but vanished from Florida.

But in 1547 the Calusa were still venerable and vibrant, with a new king. His name was Calus, and at age nineteen he was taller and more powerfully built than any European noble.

CHAPTER ONE

The Great Gathering

November, 1547

Red Hawk crouched at the opening to the smoking oven, wiped the sweat from his brow, and pushed in another rack of half-grilled manatee. It was early afternoon on this clear November day on the River of Turtles. Ordinarily Red Hawk would be smoking the catch from the spectacular fall mullet run upriver. Today he was mid-way through slicing, grilling and smoking the 700-pound manatee he had killed with his atlatl-propelled darts in the river that flowed past Jeaga Town. All around, villagers were grinding, pounding, peeling or primping as preparations for the Great Gathering of Calusa-aligned tribes neared their final hours.

Across from the huts of Jeaga Town that lined the river, Red Hawk could make out young men on ladders laying in sabal palm leaves to finish the new thatched roof of the Great House. Beneath it women were stacking clay bowls and carrying in jugs of water. Unseen, the old shaman and his acolytes were no doubt busy wiping down the old and sacred masks that had been in storage since the last Gathering at Jeaga Town five years before.

All around him Red Hawk heard the voices of women—some in the midst of boiling palmetto berry tea, shucking oysters or comparing the jewelry they would wear at tonight's opening ceremonies. The most excitement came from within his own hut, where his wife and married daughter chirped and fussed over a young girl who sat in silence, biting her lip. He understood. His youngest daughter, Morning Dove, would soon be married. To a man she'd never seen.

Red Hawk smirked to himself as he realized that carving and smoking meat wasn't what the thirty-six-year-old head of the Mako Shark Clan ought to be seen doing, but it was wise that he had stayed quiet, as his wife had counseled. Anhinga, who now came outside to scoop up more saw palmetto berries, also saw the need to feed Red Hawk's male ego. Your finding that manatee in the river was a sign of favor from Taku, she soothed, just when we were all wondering if there would be enough to feed three hundred or so visitors. No three women could skin, carve and cook that giant. Besides, King Calus should find it a delightful surprise; they don't have that many manatees over on the other coast.

Red Hawk grunted. And if the king should ask who wrestled such a big prize to shore, wouldn't it make his eyes bulge if I stood up?

They laughed, but it was strained and nervous, for many reasons. First, even though a Gathering brought games, songs, dances and marriages, preparing for one as the host tribe always brought anxiety. Oh there was always a pompous pronouncement by whoever was king about the need to celebrate the peace and unity that exists among us, but the bonds of unity were in fact more like a fish trap woven by Calusa conquest and sustained over centuries by a web of intertwined obligations. The Jeaga people, for example, were expected first to watch for and plunder Spanish ships that wrecked on the beach or tried to send rowed boats into their inlet seeking fresh water and game.

But even before there were Spanish ships the Jeaga performed a valuable service for their Calusa masters. Each winter pods of right whales would head south from their feeding grounds in icy northern waters and some would glide into Jeaga Inlet to bear calves or make new ones. Jeaga warriors could earn new tattoos by heaving their spears into a forty-foot-long whale's back and then leaping on to stab vital organs. Once the meat was sliced up and the blubber boiled into oil, one-half of the processed catch would be taken across the Florida peninsula to the Calusa king to parcel among the noble families. Still, the remainder from a catch of just one or two whales would be enough to sustain the vassal tribes of Jeaga, Mayaimi, Ais and Tequesta with enough to stave off a lean winter.

And what did the Jeaga get in return? They got the right not to be extinguished by the much larger force from the southwest. And they had a punishing protector in case the Ais, Tequesta, or Mayaimi should ever become too large or quarrelsome.

Even the Gathering itself embodied the balance of power. The Calusa had long made it a tradition that no vassal tribe could send a delegation of more than fifty. The Calusa, however, might arrive with 150 or 250, and always weighted heavily with warriors.

Red Hawk stiffened up as the wind shifted and surrounded him with smoke from the racks of steaming cutlets. I wonder if this king will be trying the old game of trading us things we don’t want, he said absentmindedly. Anhinga sat silently over her pile of palmetto berries. It was an old lament and she didn't want to encourage any more of it.

We produce shark skin that they need, he muttered. We get sore backs digging coontie root that they hardly have over there. We produce oysters that make theirs look like coquinas. So in turn they 'trade' us fish nets and forbid us from making our own when we could make them just as well. And they send us chert arrowheads that they get from up north and yet deny us the right to trade with those same tribes!

Red Hawk was beginning to generate more steam than his smoke house and Anhinga already had too much of it. All this is putting you in no proper mood for this evening, she scolded. Take a rest, get your pipe and smoke something better than that manatee.

Both knew they'd gotten to the core of his distemper.

How strange, he said, stretching his back, sore from bending over the low smoke house. "For all the reasons I just mentioned—and for his own selfish reasons—Eagle Feather starts talking rebellion. I walk and paddle a canoe for three days to tell King Calus about it, and he rewards me with insult to me and my clan. Now we have less independence."

Anhinga stirred her pot in silence lest her husband's own cauldron boil over.

The core of his distemper was first ignited some two years before at Mound Key, the seat of the Calusa kingdom on the peninsula's west coast. At that time, the aging Great Cacique had been unable to produce a son despite the exhaustive efforts of three wives and all the shaman's special roots, herbs, talismans and incantations. After the god Taku appeared to him in a dream to say that his time on earth was running out, he adopted Escampaba, the son of his chief warrior, and betrothed him to his own daughter.

When the old king died, Escampaba was not yet old enough to assume the throne, so the head shaman, Senquene, agreed to serve as regent until the lad came of age. But when the patient Escampaba reached the agreed-upon age, the regent stunned the Calusa by installing his own son, Calus, as king.

It is likely that the lesser Calusa chiefs and vassal tribes would have risen up against Calus—had they sufficient time to organize. Calus and his inner circle knew it, too. When word reached the new Great Cacique on Mound Key that three village chiefs to the north were about to strike an alliance with the hated Tocobaga of Tampa Bay, Calus immediately dispatched fifty warriors in a dozen war canoes and beheaded all three within a single day. The message was not lost on the outlying Mayaimi, Ais, Jeaga and Tequesta. Soon, all four sent delegations to Mound Key with supplications to the man whose very name meant cruel or fierce.

Later that same year, 130 miles to the east of the Calusa center, a Spanish galleon with a crew of forty toppled in a hurricane and broke apart on the beach a mile south of Jeaga Inlet. As drowned bodies began to wash in with the tide, the Jeaga rounded up eleven survivors, killed three to demonstrate their ferocity, and set off with the others towards Mound Key as they were supposed to do. They were to learn later that eight other exhausted survivors had dragged themselves above the dune line and staggered up the beach that night, only to be captured by the Ais as dawn broke over St. Lucie Inlet.

When the tide receded, Jeaga youths had scoured the broken hull and forecastle. They dragged out a wooden chest and filled it with gold and silver bars from the hull until even four men couldn't lift it. Beside it they heaped up piles of cups, forks, mirrors, jugs, clothing and other remnants of life aboard ship.

When the Jeaga council met to discuss the matter, it was already a formality, as Red Hawk and the others soon found. Old, rotund Eagle Feather was patriarch of the Gray Panther clan and cacique of the Jeaga. He ruled the council sternly with his arrogant son, Coral Snake. Eagle Feather surveyed the sacks of gold and silver that had been brought before the council and said with a crooked smile: I think it's simply too heavy to carry all the way to Mound Key. The old cacique was already wearing a dead Spaniard's blue cotton shirt, gathered at the waist with a thick black belt, and seemed even fuller of himself than usual.

With so many survivors, the ‘Hairy Faces’ may send another ship to save them and all these metal pieces they prize so much, he said. "If so, we can trade them for things of real worth and then give some of that to the Great Cacique.

Eagle Feather spoke with a bemused smirk. Besides, he said, "let us just keep it here for now until we see how long this boy Calus will really be our king."

Red Hawk held his tongue because he knew that neither he nor anyone in Mako Shark clan ever delivered an opinion that counted with Eagle Feather. But the old Jeaga cacique was playing with fire and Red Hawk decided that this time he would get burned. From everything Red Hawk had heard, the new Great Cacique was no timid boy. He just might be the bow to shoot the arrow that would rid the Mako Shark clan and the rest of Jeaga Town from the insufferable old codger and his overbearing son.

A week later Red Hawk packed his atlatl, bow and arrows and shoved off in his canoe before dawn, telling his wife to say he'd gone off deer hunting if anyone asked.

In two days Red Hawk had reached the town of Guacata, the largest town on Lake Mayaimi and the gateway to a chain of ponds and streams that linked the big lake to the Calusahatchee River and Florida’s west coast. In another day he had canoed into Estero Bay and on the late afternoon of the fourth was raising his hand in a peace greeting to the three men in a war canoe who patrolled the small beach at Mound Key. Even the head of a loyal clan could not escape the scowls and suspicious stares of the Great Cacique's protective circle. As they climbed uphill to the Great House that he'd come to know from attending previous Gatherings, Red Hawk wondered, Why is it that everyone here seems a head taller than our own people? The pure or aristocratic Calusa at the center of power exceeded six feet in height and were more muscular—and that alone was enough to convey a menacing air of superiority.

Heaped on that was the suffocating air of pomposity, mixed with a malevolent miasma that hung about the place—one conveying a cruelty that might be unleashed on anyone at any time.

As he climbed the steep hill, Red Hawk felt the sea breeze grow cooler. Across from this mound he could see the adjoining hilltop where the Great Cacique's family lived, and through its shield of sea grapes and gumbo limbo trees he could glimpse forms of women and servants moving about in their daily chores. When he looked back, he could share briefly the cacique's commanding view of the mangrove islands in Estero Bay and, beyond that, the glistening Gulf of Mexico.

Red Hawk already knew that Calus would not be at the top to greet him. It was part of a Great Cacique's mystique never to be seen with any subject on what might be taken as equal footing. No, Calus would be seated on a dais at the far end of the tall-roofed Great House that dominated this particular mound. Red Hawk could see the backs of men standing as they waited their turn to see the king.

At the end of their climb, he was motioned to wait while one of the Mound Key guardsmen disappeared into the long thatched building that contained a huge, soot-stained feasting hall with small rooms for guests along its perimeter. He soon emerged with two servants—no doubt slaves—who ushered the visitor into one of the small guest rooms. It was now evident that Red Hawk would not see Calus that afternoon and that his bare guest room was more a detention cell. But the Jeaga's fatigue outweighed the insult. After being brought a meal of grilled fish, root cakes and papayas, he spread out his deerskin blanket on the floor and fell dead asleep.

Late the next morning Red Hawk found himself before the Great Cacique in the Great House and immediately sensed that his gamble against Eagle Feather had been a smart one. Calus stood something like six foot three, with a pile of bobbed hair on top that added six more inches. With a massive chest and thick biceps covered with heavy black and red body paint, he resembled more an ageless, powerful god of war than a youth of nineteen summers. This was clearly a king who would not yield his throne without slicing the hearts from a gaggle of village caciques like the blustery, bluffing Eagle Feather.

A somber, older councilor stood on each side of Calus as Red Hawk knelt. When he had finished relating his story of the shipwreck and Eagle Feather's greed, the king stood to his full height and glared down at the Jeaga for the longest five seconds of his life. Then he smiled as if a plate of succulent oysters had been placed before him. Ah, then, he said, we will soon dance with his head.

Just as quickly, one of the advisers stepped from the wings, whispered something to the Great Cacique, and said to Red Hawk evenly, You will return to our guest quarters. We will discuss this and inform you of our decision.

For a long day and night the visitor from Jeaga Town agonized in silence under the watchful gaze of his two slave-servants—one a gaunt leathery Spaniard and one a short Indian no doubt captured from some hostile northern tribe. As a guest, Red Hawk could roam within the ceremonial house, but his status was too unclear to risk venturing beyond it. So, alone with his thoughts, he re-lived the audience. There had been no thanks, no hint of making him cacique of the Jeaga after they danced with Eagle Feather's head. Had he insulted Calus? Had his clan somehow offended the Calusa at some previous meeting? Might the Calusa decide simply to obliterate the Jeaga and re-settle the inlet with their own people?

On the morning of the next day the same adviser who whispered in the king's ear appeared at the opening of Red Hawk's sleeping room as the guest sat on a low stool drinking palmetto tea.

Do you have daughters? he asked.

Startled, Red Hawk stammered, Yes, two.

And married?

Uh...one.

How old is the other one?

Seventeen...next summer.

And she is, ah.... The man searched awkwardly.

Yes, comely. Beautiful. Very healthy. Good teeth, too.

The councilor nodded and walked away without another word.

"Good teeth? Why did I say that?" Red Hawk scolded himself in angry silence. Then the man re-appeared suddenly in his doorway.

Her name? he asked.

Er, Morning Dove.

Then he was gone again. Red Hawk's eyes followed him as he strode evenly from the ceremonial hall, across the broad courtyard and into the Great House where Calus no doubt waited.

The morning of the next day Red Hawk, by now uncertain that his own life was safe, again found himself before the stiff and august Calus. With no flicker of emotion, the Great Cacique said Yesterday we sent warriors to Jeaga Town. They will remove the three you told us about and come back to Mound Key with the tribute from the ship. You will stay until they return to Mound Key with the treasures you told us about. If your story is true, you should have no trouble.

Have no trouble? Replacing Eagle Feather or just being allowed to live?

Red Hawk was on one knee with his eyes lowered as were all supplicants to the Great Cacique. He had to learn more before he left. "You said removed?" he asked.

Removed, echoed Calus, As in removing their heads. And with that he let out a half-roar, half-laugh.

Who will replace them? Will the Jeaga Council...

No, interrupted the same adviser from the wings. The king will replace the chief. The new cacique can choose his advisers. And as if to anticipate the next question, the elder said, It cannot be you. While your, ah, efforts are proper and appreciated, it is not wise to name as cacique one who has conspired or sworn against the former one. It makes for bad blood. Under the circumstances, we will appoint a new chief from another Calusa clan. But in recognition of your loyalty and service, we will arrange a marriage between that chief and your daughter.

Morning Dove?

Morning Dove.

Red Hawk could feel his time before the king elapsing. But he also knew that if his life could be prolonged here, it could also be cut short by a revengeful Gray Panther clan back in Jeaga Town.

Great Cacique, will the Jeaga know who it is who has come to you?

Calus was silent until he could feel that fear had seeped into every pore of Red Hawk's body. No, he said at last. "As long as you and your daughter are loyal to your new chief, no one need know who informed me. I told my warriors that Taku told me about all this in a dream, and that is what they will tell your people."

Now, more than a year of unease had gone by in Jeaga Town with no new chief and no recrimination against himself and Mako Clan. Even though Red Hawk had brought back a dressed deer, displayed it prominently along the riverside and feigned outrage at the surprise attack by the Calusa, he could feel the eyes of Gray Panthers burning holes inside him. They were stopped from doing anything more, he reasoned, by the fact that Red Hawk himself had been doomed to spend the rest of his life in homage to a young cacique from outside. If I had told this to Calus, he was prepared to argue with anyone who accused him, why didn’t he make me chief of the Jeaga as a reward?

And now all of Red Hawk's anxieties would soon converge. At the Great Gathering of tribes today, the Calusa king was coming to Jeaga Town to demonstrate his complete control of the kingdom, bringing with him an outsider cacique to marry a girl who had no idea of what he even looked like.

Cruel, scheming scoundrel, this Calus! Or am I just a small scoundrel who got swallowed by a bigger one?

The sun was about to set on this late afternoon as Red Hawk looked up from the last of his meat cutting and saw two young boys shouting as they ran breathlessly up the row of huts overlooking the river. In a few seconds women were poking their heads out and passing on the news faster than the boys could run. His party is coming. They just crossed the Southwest Fork. They'll be here soon!

But Red Hawk knew they wouldn't— not just yet. Although Calus' entourage was only two miles west, the Mako Shark elder knew the king's scouts would bring his catamaran to a halt in the water until the vassal tribes appeared first. Across the river in the Great House, the last of the ladders had been removed and celebrants could look forward to the smell of clean palm thatch and no bugs to fall into one's bowl in the middle of a meal. Inside his own hut, Morning Dove's mother licked her finger to wipe away a smudge on her daughter's cheek and placed on her bare neck the same polished shell necklace she had worn as a bride.

Just then an excited shout went up as the delegation from the Ais appeared to the north where Long River met the River of Turtles. Within minutes lookouts from Jeaga Inlet reported excitedly that ten canoes had appeared in the ocean carrying the Tequesta from the south. Red Hawk instinctively looked to the east, recalling the stories of how even the Lucayans once would cross the fifty-mile-wide Bahamas Channel in their outrigger canoes to pay homage to the Calusa. But their numbers had been depleted by a mysterious plague in recent decades and no Lucayan canoes had appeared during Red Hawk's lifetime.

So where were the Mayaimi? Once the Tequesta had entered the inlet and made their way across the river to the Gathering Place, Red Hawk heard the sound of conch horns to the west. Then, emerging from the setting sun above the riverside trail came a great canoe convoy of warriors, bearers and important personages.

So many Calusa? No, wait. They were Mayaimi as well, mixed together. At the center he could easily pick out the red-black painted figure of King Calus. In another sedan chair in the catamaran behind him was a smaller, stockier young warrior of maybe twenty-five years, seated next to a woman. I know him, but where from? Where? Where? Ah, from the Mayaimi town of Guacata, the gateway to the Calusahatchee River.

His mind raced on.

Ah ha! He would have to be the Guacata cacique's youngest son. A strategic town to Calus. Guardian of the waterways that led from Lake Mayaimi to the Calusahatchee. The first defense against any Spaniards who might try to sneak up on Mound Key from inland. Inspectors and customs collectors of northern trading missions to the Calusa. Youngest son can't become cacique, so send him to Jeaga Town as Calus' surrogate! Then marry him into Mako Shark clan, which must support him or have its hearts cut out by the Gray Panther clan. Brilliant! That scheming slimy son of a salamander!

One thing didn’t add up. Who is the handsome woman in that other catamaran behind Calus? Not a wife. Not a mother. Older than the usual bride. Adorned with bracelets and pendants. But who....and why?

The retinue of King Calus had begun at Mound Key and was joined at the mouth of the Calusahatchee by delegations from Sanibel Island, Pine Island, Cayo Costa and other major towns. Together they had canoed eastward for seventy miles through the Calusahatchee and the waterways that led to Guacata at the entrance to Lake Mayaimi. There they camped and reconnoitered with the chiefs of the lakeside towns known collectively as The Mayaimi, the remnants of a people who had existed perhaps even longer than the Calusa.

On the trip upriver King Calus had sat upon a wide woven seat that sprawled across two war canoes lashed together and paddled by four warriors.

Directly behind the Great Cacique's catamaran canoe came the leading family of Guacata. They included the cacique, Alligator Teeth, his wife Night Heron, Deerstalker, the youngest of two sons, and eldest daughter Bright Moon. All in the entourage knew by now that Deerstalker would be installed as chief of the Jeaga. Few knew that the king had selected Bright Moon to accompany her older brother to Jeaga Town and that the king himself would marry her there. As her anxious father had explained, Trying to install an outsider as cacique there would be too precarious unless the king also placed a member of the royal family to strengthen the alliance. After all, great caciques traditionally married the sisters of leading vassal chiefs—sometimes two or three at once at the Calusa Gathering.

Bright Moon, who learned of all this only a week before, said little and thought much. When she had first married Black Crow at age fifteen, she had assumed that her destiny was to mother a large family on Mayaimi Lake. But then her young husband left for the north with a trading party and just simply vanished. No word, no hint. Only shrugs from other traders who came to Guacata.

Now, just having passed her twentieth summer, Bright Moon was restless. Her father had hotly discouraged any suitors because it was still assumed that Black Crow would re-appear one day. Now Calus had put an end to that fiction. Should she be grateful?

As the Calusa canoe caravan wound its way over the ancient trail that cut through the saw palmetto and pine forest, Calus swayed back and forth in front of her on his platform, the sunlight playing off the golden clasp that bound his topknot. A bracelet taken from a Spanish ship? How it glittered as the sun moved in and out of the clouds! And wrapped around his neck were three strands of a gold chain that must be very long when stretched out. Bright Moon fingered her polished shell necklace and earrings. All the jewelry she owned was of stone or shell and kept in one small box. Yes, she wanted to wear jewelry like his, wanted to wear the red ocher that signified royal blood, wanted servants to fetch her water.

Above all, her body yearned to bear children before she was consigned to delivering other babies and helping the old women of Guacata sew and weave. She did not yet know if Calus had other wives and her father simply shrugged when she asked. If she were the first, might she give birth to the next king?

More torment. Would the royal family accept her? The women of Mound Key were taller and more graceful than the shorter, stouter Mayaimi. Calus himself stood more than a head taller than she. He was bound to be large between the legs and she hadn't been with a man for four years. Oh Mother of Taku, what am I getting into? she agonized to herself. I am afraid of this person, even though he is a year younger. He has a fearsome demeanor and gives off a scent of contempt. They say he personally kills servants who displease him. He has not so much smiled at me or uttered a kind word.

Deerstalker sat beside her lost in his own thoughts. Has he talked to you much, brother? she whispered behind the swaying hulk.

Not much, he said without a glance. He said I have to show strength as cacique. I asked how. He said 'I don't know. Kill someone and eat his heart.' I don't know if he was joking, but I didn't ask any more.

Actually, Deerstalker was not in the same distress as his sister. To be installed as a cacique at age twenty two by the king was an intriguing prospect for a young warrior who would have always languished in the shadows of his older brother back home. Now he would have his own kingdom, one even larger than his father's town of Guacata.

Besides, he had pleasant memories of Jeaga Town. In many summer months heavy rains would turn everything alongside Lake Mayaimi into steamy marshes. When all Guacata became too soggy to find bread root and one couldn't take a breath without inhaling a mosquito, her father would lead his people to the seashore near Jeaga Town. There they'd swim, fish in the ocean and luxuriate in the cool night breezes.

You should like Jeaga Town, Deerstalker said absentmindedly. Remember the summers? The constant breezes that kept the bugs from us?

I do, but I don't know how I'll like it in winter when those breezes become biting winds, she said. If you try to warm yourself by a fire, the wind changes and suddenly your skirt goes up in flames and your hair gets singed.

Both laughed, then lapsed into their own thoughts again. Going to a place for a month or so is different than trying to live there all the time, mused Bright Moon. But could she do this for months on end? The Mayaimi were used to their bread root, fruits, deer, turtle, alligator, and large luscious eels from the rivers. The Jeaga lived mostly on oysters, fish, and dried whale meat. They liked sea grapes and prickly pear. They chewed sassafras root and swore that it cured all sorts of ailments. But it was the saw palmetto berries that made her nose wrinkle to think about. Some of the Jeaga were so addicted to chewing them that they had permanent purple stains around their mouths.

And what awaited her in Jeaga Town? How long must she support her brother as chief before she was called by the king to Mound Key? How strong and friendly was the Mako Shark clan? Would she be accepted as this new bride of the king?

Amidst her inner disquiet, the only thing Bright Moon clung to for self-confidence was her unmatched skill as a weaver of cloth and basketry. In the large deerskin sack in the supply canoe behind her was a basket made from split palmetto stems, a second basket tightly wound with sabal palm roots, and a lovely small one artistically woven from grapevine. Also in the sack was her dismantled loom along with several wooden spools, each wound with fibers such as mulberry bark, cypress bark, and sabal palm trunk.

Yes, they have baskets and fiber in Jeaga Town, Bright Moon said out loud, but when the women see mine they will know at once that their new cacique doesn't have an idle ignoramus for a sister.

Deerstalker didn't comprehend, but didn't bother. He smiled and patted his younger sister on the knee.

The strange woman that Red Hawk spotted from his riverfront mound was seated in the middle of a strung-out convoy now crossing the river to the Great Gathering Place. In the lead canoes were the hunter-scouts, followed by warriors, the large catamaran with the raised figure of Calus, the honored guests from Guacata, the royal householders and personal servants, bearers with ceremonial gifts, and more bearers with camping supplies.

The Mayaimi chiefs and families came last. Half-way across the river they veered off towards a shore a half-mile from where the Calusa delegation landed. There they would set up their camp, the last night Bright Moon would spend with her mother and family. The large Calusa force made its camp surrounding the Great House and the base of the nearby mound topped by The Place of Sun and Moon. Upon this fifty-foot high natural dune, the Great Cacique and his shamans would greet the sun each day and summon its power to flow into the spirit that dwelt within the king's heart. When he had received the strength to sustain his superiority for the day, the other caciques would be invited into the sun's presence—but only if they faced away from it lest they receive more power than the king.

On the final night of the Great Gathering the Place of Sun and Moon would be the site of an altogether different ceremony.

See, the moon is full tonight, said Night Heron to her daughter as their canoe nosed into the landing across the river. A good omen for someone named Bright Moon. Now the Council House loomed large above the waterfront, its far wall of warrior masks and animal carvings casting eerie shadows in the light of many torches. Hungry travelers from all over South Florida ware inhaling the smoke and addictive aroma of sizzling meats and fish.

The Gathering would not officially begin until the caciques paid tribute to their king, but the grassy plaza in front of them was crowded with men, some in earnest discussion, some hawking trade offers.

Arrowheads! Finest from the land of stone, shouted a young Ais warrior, showing a basket full of sharpened chert pieces.

Best hammers you can have! said a Tequesta holding up a conch mallet fastened to a wood handle.

One Mayaimi joined in as soon as feet had touched the shore. Deerskins. Deerskins. Big ones for your hut, medium ones for cloaks. Little ones for the baby. Winter's coming. Don't be cold.

For the men there, the Gathering offered a chance to trade for things that could make their lives a little easier. But for caciques and their families, it was a rare time in which to negotiate marriages and forge agreements. Some of the latter centered on rights to fishing spots or oyster beds or groves of rare trees.

Not discussed on this informal evening were clan blood feuds, unpunished murders, charges of adultery and the like. They would arise the next day. Resolving disputes was a big reason why Gatherings were held and why a Great Cacique was needed to settle them.

But tonight was for tired travelers to feast and rejuvenate. Calus sat at the far end on a raised seat covered with deerskin and rimmed with polished shells, the tall shadow behind him dancing in the torchlight each time he moved. He hadn't changed dress; but his face was now painted in streaks of red, white and black. And now Bright Moon could see the long yellow chain more fully as it hung across his bare chest. It had a cross at the end that shone in the sunlight like the gold clasp around his topknot.

Along the walls sat caciques. Their families sprawled into the middle, leaving only a small dancing space in front of the king. Outside along the partially open walls stood warriors and servants looking on and eating quietly. Bright Moon and her mother nudged each other when someone pointed out that among the Jeagas seating themselves along the opposite wall was the family of Red Hawk.

Deerstalker on her other side strained to get the first look of his intended bride. Bright Moon saw a seated girl beside Red Hawk and a woman who had to be their mother. She looked like a child. Ah, that must be your Morning Dove, she said with another poke in his side. Deerstalker gawked and said nothing. Neither wedding couple nor their families were permitted to converse until the next night at the wedding feast, but Bright Moon thought she saw the mother give her a demur nod of welcome. She nodded back, thankful for any sign that the Jeaga weren't waiting to murder her in her sleep.

Food! Platters of it! A giant grilled grouper sprawled and sliced on a single pallet. Stacks of smoked manatee cakes. Mullet filets. Oysters of all sizes and ways of preparation. Delicious root bread, papayas, sliced prickly pears, hog plums, muscadine grapes and, wherever one looked, large baskets of purplish black palmetto berries. By the time King Calus stood to speak the room was so smoky from the torches and pipes being lit that some in the back could hardly see him. They could only hear snippets of speech, which seemed to be all about Calusa family unity and Taku's blessing. But what they cheered most was his call to music and dance.

With that two flute players began piping. Another man kept time by beating conch hammers on a loggerhead tortoise shell. Another pounded a deerskin drum. Calus had also brought some of the women singers and dancers who attended him on Mound