Anthropology of the Calusa of Florida

 North American Indians

The Calusa of what is now Florida, USA

                A great people who deserve more talk and understanding.

                I haven't yet written much of the early peoples of North America, but if I live long enough I intend to write much more.

                    

            The words I now write of the Calusa are few. Even so I expect that will be sufficient to fix the Calusa  people and the name Calusa in the minds of a few our readers.

                    In the 1500s the Calusa still controlled much of  the southwest of Florida. They defended their land against the aggression  of other peoples including European explorers.  The Spaniards knew them as fierce. The Caloosahatchee River, with its mouth on the southwest of  Florida, was theirs.

                They lived mostly along the inland waterways and developed them for transportation and food production. The sea was also a source of food for them. They left middens of seashells large enough in size to compete with their great mounds and other earthworks. The fished with nets and tapped fish.

                The Calusa had a strong influence on the tribes around them. That influence may be because of their wide trading. They typically used dugouts for use at sea and along their inland waterways. They also built  and used larger vessels. They visited Cuba regularly and probably sailed much farther into the Caribbean.

                Their homes were built on platforms on pilings over the water. Their buildings had particularly handsome roofing of palmetto leaves. It is said that some of their 'houses' were large enough to easily accommodate 2000 persons!

                They were excellent wood workers and they also did some fine wood carving. They were excellent farmers, sailors, fishermen, and traders, They are probably responsible for the construction of what we have called bayous.

                The apex of their culture probably dates well before 100 BC. Their middens and and earth works have been dated to that time.

                We have much to learn from and about the Calusa. Please feel free to extend and correct our knowledge of them.

                What is you interest in American Indians? Help me write to your interests.

                Thank you for reading.

                

                                                                                                by R.C.S.

 

 

 

Memories of Covid 19

 Faith, Governance, This Virus, and Lessons To Be Learned

            Poor health is keeping me from posting much these days, but just now I feel stirred to write and publish this post.

            The genesis of this stirring seems to start as follows: Yesterday evening I watched a bit of a YouTube video by Richard Wolff. I suspect that I did not even watch it to its end. Last night I had dreams about our wars and dreams about our political beginnings. Vietnam seems to have dominated those about our wars and that dreams of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.

            This morning I awoke slowly, feeling weak, fatigued, and exhausted as has been usual in recent weeks. However, I soon remembered something of my dreams and tried to remember more of them with little success. Then I began to recall a bit of the Wolff video to which I had not paid close attention.

            It seems from my present perspectives that the video was about Lessons Learned (or learnable) from our Covi experience. I have not tried to revisit that video as I believe I would have in other days; so, some of what I write now may be more Sheehan than Wolff.

            As I remember, Mr. Wolff chose the following countries useful for comparing the quality of their dealings with The Virus. The countries he chose as good examples of dealing effectively with Covi: China and New Zealand, Taiwan and South Korea, Cuba and Vietnam. The two countries he chose for dealing poorly with that virus were the United Kingdom and the United States. Wolf, it seemed, felt that he saw evidence that the people of the first six countries also had more faith in their government than the last two I mentioned.

               I believe that such comparing of the governance of a people with their ability to deal with This Virus, could aid us in learning an important lesson or two.

            Wolf himself seemed to believe that he had evidence that the people of the first six countries demonstrated a belief that their government had the power and ability to deal well with the Virus and so cooperated in that dealing. Wolff also seemed to have thought that the people of The U.K. and The U.S. did not have faith that, at this time, their government was ready, willing, and able to deal with This Virus successfully. 

            Do you think that our dealing with The Virus has to do with our faith in our government/governance? What do you think we might learn from our experience with the Virus? What is the state of our faith in our government? What would you like the nature of our governance to be? What is our responsibility for the nature of our government? What important governance might we be able to learn? What would be a good simple measure of the quality of our dealing with this Virus? Would the % of deaths or the number of deaths per hundred be a useful measure? What could we learn, that is useful, by looking at more successful dealing with the Virus as compared with the real nature of governance of, say, 100 countries? How might the U.N. be useful in this effort? Why? How might my going back to bed and forgetting about all this be helpful?

            My questions above may be taken as rhetorical, but there is a window below called "comments" and sometimes "no comments!" I that window you may put questions of your own, or answer mine, or make comments, or one comment.

            Thanks for reading.

 

 

                                                                                        RCS