the field, and cut down any brush wood. This was done that the fire might not spread to the surrounding timber, nor out on the prairie. Prairie fires and forest fires are even yet not unknown on our reservation.
Planting season having come, the women of the household planted the field in corn. The hills were in rows, and about four feet or a little less apart. They were rather irregularly placed the first year. It was easy to make a hill in the ashes where a brush heap had been fired, or in soil that was free of roots and stumps; but there were many stumps in the field, left over from the previous summer’s clearing. If the planter found a stump stood where a hill should be, she placed the hill on this side [of] the stump or beyond it, no matter how close this brought the hill to the next in the row. Thus, the corn hills did not stand at even distances in the row the first year; but the rows were always kept even and straight.
While the corn was coming up, the women worked at clearing out the roots and smaller stumps between the hills; but a stump of any considerable size was left to rot, especially if it stood midway between two corn hills, where it did not interfere with their cultivation.
My mothers and I used to labor in a similar way to enlarge our fields. With our iron hoes we made hills along the edge of the field and planted corn; then, as we had opportunity, we worked with our hoes between the corn hills to loosen up the soil.
Although our tribe now had iron axes and hoes from the traders, they still used their native made rakes. These were of wood (Figure 1.1), or of the antler of a black-tailed deer (Figure 1.2). It was with such rakes that the edges of a newly opened field were cleaned of leaves for the firing of the brush, in the spring.
Figure 1.1 Drawn from specimen made by Yellow Hair. Length of specimen, following curvature of tines, 36 1/2 inches.
Figure 1.2 Drawn from specimen made by Buffalo Bird Woman. Length of wooden handle, 42 inches; spread of tines of antler, 15 1/2 inches.
Trees in the Garden
Trees were not left standing in the garden, except perhaps one to shade the watchers’ stage. If a tree stood in the field, it shaded the corn; and that on the north side of the tree never grew up strong, and the stalks would be yellow.
Cottonwood trees were apt to grow up in the field, unless the young shoots were plucked up as they appeared ….
The Watchers
The season for watching the fields began early in August when green corn began to come in; for this was the time when the ripening ears were apt to be stolen by horses, or birds, or boys. We did not watch the fields in the spring and early summer, to keep the crows from pulling up the newly sprouted grain; such damage we were content to repair by replanting.
Girls began to go on the watchers’ stage to watch the corn and sing when they were about 10 or 12 years of age. They continued the custom even after they had grown up and married; and old women, working in the garden and stopping to rest, often went on the stage and sang.
Two girls usually watched and sang together. The village gardens were laid out close to one another; and a girl of one family would be joined by the girl of the family who owned the garden adjoining. Sometimes three, or even four, girls got on the stage and sang together; but never more than four. A drum was not used to accompany the singing.
The watchers sometimes rose and stood upon the stage as they looked to see if any boys or horses were in the field, stealing corn. Older girls and young married women, and even old women, often worked at porcupine embroidery as they watched. Very young girls did not embroider.
Boys of nine to eleven years of age were sometimes rather troublesome thieves. They were fond of stealing green ears to roast by a fire in the woods. Sometimes – not every day, however – we had to guard our corn alertly. A boy caught stealing was merely scolded. “You must not steal here again!” we would say to him. His parents were not asked to pay damage for the theft.
We went to the watchers’ stage quite early in the day, before sunrise, or near it, and we came home at sunset.
The watching season continued until the corn was all gathered and harvested. My grandmother, Turtle, was a familiar figure in our family’s field, in this season. I can remember her staying out in the field daily, picking out the ripening ears and braiding them in a string.
Images of Florida Indians Planting and Making an Offering of a Stag to the Sun
(Extract from Trustees of the British Museum, The Work of Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, Vols I and II. London: British Museum Publications, 1977.)
The remaining items are engravings and captions by a Flemish artist, Theodore de Bry, who based his images on paintings by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, an artist who accompanied a French expedition to Florida in the 1560s. Le Moyne had come to know the Timucua people, who are the subject of these images. De Bry published these engravings in 1591, with the captions presented here. Look for the ways that different features of Timucuan economy connect to each other and to the earth. The first image (Figure 1.3) is of Timucuan men and women planting a field. Although the engraving is not always accurate (since these people did not have plows, the field would have been planted in hillocks, not rows), it remains one of the best pieces of evidence we have about Indians and the earth in the 1500s. How did men assist women in the preparation of these fields? Note the way that men fashioned hoes from fish bone. Who did the fishing? To what degree was fishing a vital part of the economy of these people as a source of food, and as a source of farm implements?
Figure 1.3 Method of tilling the ground and sowing seed. The Indians cultivate the soil carefully. The men know how to construct hoes out of fish bones for this purpose, to which wooden handles are fitted, and they dig the ground easily enough since it is rather light. Then, when it is thoroughly broken up and levelled, the women sow beans and millet or maize, several of them going ahead and making holes by prodding a stick into the ground, into which are dropped beans and millet grains. The sowing finished, they leave the fields in order to avoid the winter time which is rather cold – inasmuch as the region lies between west and north – and lasts for about three months from December 24 to March 15. Since they go naked they take themselves off to the woods. When winter is over they go back home and wait for the crops to ripen. After gathering the harvest they store the produce for consumption all the year round, not using it for any commercial purpose except perhaps bartering it for some common household article. H.S. Photos/Alamy Stock Photo.
Then note the second image (Figure 1.4), which depicts a ceremonial offering. Here, the Indians have filled the body of a deer with produce and raised it to the spirits in hopes that the spirits will respond by making “grow again in their kingdom good things similar to those offered.” Notice how the hunting of deer (these people were superlative hunters and farmers) is vital to the success of the harvest. Without hunting, there would be no offering to the spirits who make the crops grow. Without farming, there would be no gifts to place inside the offering. In this way, Native
