Florida History Network - Your one-stop source for celebrating and preserving Florida's past, today
  • Home
  • Florida History Today
    • TB Times: St. Augustine coming to grips with civil rights history
    • Strawberry Festival organizers collecting material for new history book
    • Tarpon Springs' Greektown added to National Register as Traditional Cultural Property
    • Volunteers begin cleanup of historic Ocala cemetery
    • Jax museum presents 'Megalodon,' biggest-ever shark
    • Proposed museum switch generates anger in St. Pete
    • Report: Ocala's original cemetery lying in ruins
    • Rock and Roll Hall of Fame seeking camera-wielding Elvis fans
    • Service of Florida Jews in World War II focus of new WLRN doc
    • Seventeen honored for Big Bend preservation efforts
    • Long dresses, long pants, no shorts: Life before AC was uncool
    • Sunken shipwrecks are being turned into "parks" off Florida coast
    • Run-down Dunedin hotel to be rebuilt in same architectural style
    • Painting at Ringling Museum leads scholar to discover slavery roots of Spanish painter Juan de Pareja
    • Hampton Inn in downtown Bradenton gets state historic preservation award
    • Civil War re-enactment draws criticism in Holly Hill
    • New documentary spotlights Anna Maria Historic Green Village
    • Tampa-area NAACP launching effort to save historic rooming house
    • Ride on "America's Movie Train" this weekend in Ocoee, Winter Garden
    • Tampa's historic Kress building set for reimagination
    • 67-year-old shipwreck off Florida identified
    • Florida History Today - Project studies South Florida native communites
    • Florida History Today - Tarpon Springs halts Sponge Docks upgrades
    • Florida History Today - Compromise reached on Tequesta circles preservation
    • Florida History Today - Sears homes remembered in Sanibel
  • On this day in Florida history - August
    • Aug. 15, 1887 - Eatonville becomes one of first all-black towns in U.S.
    • Aug. 13, 2004 - Hurricane Charley kicks off unusually active 'cane year
    • Aug. 12, 1981 - Developed in Boca Raton, first PC released by IBM
    • Aug. 11, 1987 - Santeria church vows to sacrifice animals despite Hialeah ban
    • Aug. 10, 1981 - Tragic discovery confirms death of missing Adam Walsh, 6
    • Aug. 9, 1956 - Reporters look down noses covering Elvis in Daytona Beach
    • Aug. 8, 1896 - Cross Creek, Yearling author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings born
    • Aug. 6, 1868 - Great Seal of the State of Florida adopted by Legislature
    • Aug. 5, 1763 - Britain takes over Pensacola, expands slavery over two-decade Fla. rule
    • Aug. 4, 1842: U.S. gives free Florida land to settlers willing to fight Seminoles
    • Aug. 1, 1939 - Florida Highway Patrol formed; to begin with 60 troopers
  • On this day in Florida history - July
    • July 31, 1962 - Actor, tax evader Wesley Snipes born in Orlando
    • July 30, 1956: Delta Burke, star of tabloids and television, born in Orlando
    • July 28, 1896: With railroad into town, city of Miami incorporated
    • July 27, 1816: U.S. forces obliterate 300+ free blacks, Indians at 'Fort Negro'
    • July 26, 1876 - Daytona incorporated, named after founder Matthias Day
    • July 25, 1884 - St. Petersburg Times debuts as West Hillsborough Times
    • July 25, 1957 - Country star, actress Pam Tillis born in Plant City
    • July 23, 1836 - Cape Florida Lighthouse attacked by Seminoles
    • July 22, 1964 - First 536 home lots sold in new city of Coral Springs
    • July 21, 1821 - St. Johns and Escambia become first two Florida counties
    • July 20, 1969 - U.S. astronauts walk on the moon
    • July 19, 1952 - Skynyrd guitarist Allen Collins is born; stardom and tragedy await
    • July 18, 1940 - Winners of St. Pete mayor's safety slogan contest announced
    • July 17, 1821 - Spain officially transfers Florida to United States
    • July 16, 1943 - Former 'Canes, Dolphins, Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson born
    • July 15, 1997 - Killer gigolo guns down Gianni Versace at South Beach mansion
    • July 14, 1921 - Florida's most famous 'cracker cowboy' dies at 58
    • July 13, 1927: Officials dump $250k in liquor into Gulf Stream
    • July 10, 1972 - First of two major party conventions opens in Miami Beach
    • July 9, 1957 - Pass-a-Grille and three other towns form St. Pete Beach
    • July 8, 2011 - Last space shuttle launched from Cape Canaveral
    • July 7, 1983 - 'Operation Everglades' drug bust rocks Everglades City
    • July 6, 2003 - 'Hillbillies' star Buddy Ebsen, raised in Orlando, dies at 95
    • July 5, 1928 - Elks begin arriving for 1st Florida national convention
    • July 4: Florida celebrates America's Independence Day
    • July 3, 1971 - Doors singer, Melbourne native Jim Morrison dies
    • July 2, 1961: Key West icon Ernest Hemingway dies; cats live on
    • July 1, 1951: St. Pete woman's burning death baffles investigators
  • On this day in Florida history - June
    • June 1, 1937 - Amelia Earhart leaves Miami to begin final voyage
    • June 2, 2008 - Bo Diddley, 79, dies at his home in Archer
    • June 3, 1961 - Arrest made in case that leads to 'right to an attorney'
    • June 4, 1939 - Jewish refugee ship turned away from Florida coast
    • June 5, 2013 - Zephyrhills woman, 84, claims $590 million Powerball jackpot
    • June 6, 1990 - Broward Judge rules 2 Live Crew album 'obscene'
    • June 7, 1928 - Two elections workers shot in Tampa ballot box heist
    • June 8, 1888 - First train rolls into terminus "St. Petersburg"
    • June 9, 1903 - Flagler's Breakers Hotel burns down in Palm Beach
    • June 10, 1991 - South Florida learns it will get new major league baseball team
    • June 11, 1953 - Sabal Palmetto palm becomes Florida's state tree
    • June 12, 1913: With first bridge, Miami Beach is open for business
    • June 13, 1974 - Askew appoints first female Cabinet member
    • June 14, 1966 - FSL's Miami and St. Pete set record for longest baseball game
    • June 15, 1822: City of Jacksonville founded, named after Andrew Jackson
    • June 16, 1955 - Judge Chillingworth and wife go missing
    • June 17. 1942 - German U-boat saboteurs land at Ponte Vedra Beach
    • June 18, 1983 - Sally Ride becomes first American woman in space
    • June 19, 1972 - Hurricane Agnes makes landfall in Panhandle
    • June 20, 2003 - Non-profit Wikipedia established in St. Petersburg
    • June 21, 1926 - Miami barbers don't want to be called 'chirotonsors'
    • June 22, 1990 - Florida bans thong bikinis in state parks
    • June 23, 1938 - Marine Studios, 'world's first oceanarium,' opens
    • June 24, 1987 - S. Fla's most famous resident, Jackie Gleason, dies at 71
    • June 25, 1981 - Dolphins QB Bob Griese retires after 14 seasons
    • June 26, 1964 - Governor orders extra police to riot-torn St. Augustine
    • June 27, 1964 - State tells Daytona: Stop price-gouging your tourists
    • June 28, 1911 - Big Cypress Indian Reservation created by President Taft
    • June 29, 1931 - Monticello hits 109 degrees -- hottest-ever for Florida
    • June 30, 1975 - Cher marries Daytona Beach's favorite son Gregg Allman
  • On this day in Florida history - May
    • May 1, 1562 - Jean Ribault arrives at St. Johns River, claims Florida for France
    • May 2, 1936 - Panama City Beach incorporated in Bay County
    • May 3, 1901 - Jacksonville burns to the ground
    • May 4, 1990 - Execution goes awry as flames, smoke shoot from head
    • May 5, 1961 - Alan Shepard becomes first American in space
    • May 6, 1965 - Rolling Stones play Clearwater, write 'Satisfaction' riff
    • May 7, 1940 - Voting machine shortages create long wait at polls
    • May 8, 1923 - Killings of work camp prisoners detailed in hearing
    • May 9, 1981 - Sinkhole swallows house, five Porsches in Winter Park
    • May 10, 1781 - Spanish Gen. Bernardo de Gálvez captures Pensacola
    • May 11, 1996 - ValuJet Flight 592 crashes into Everglades
    • May 12, 1997 - Tornado hits Miami, poses for photos, videos
    • May 13, 1955 - Jax fans chase Elvis after show, tear off his clothes
    • May 14, 1973 - Skylab launches new era of space study...and toys
    • May 15, 1947 - Florida State College for Women goes co-ed, renamed FSU
    • May 16, 1929 - Lake City mob lynches grocer after wife shoots chief
    • May 17, 1980 - Not guilty verdict triggers three days of rioting in Miami
    • May 18, 1955 - Educator Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune dies
    • May 19, 2004 - Drugstore chain owner Jack Eckerd dies at 91
    • May 20, 1913: Henry Morrison Flagler dies in his home at Palm Beach
    • May 21, 1956 - Police close beach after catching black, white teens talking
    • May 22, 1931 - Canned rattlesnake goes on sale from Arcadia
    • May 23, 1898 - School for Deaf & Blind issues first diplomas
    • May 24, 1931 - Writer develops Planet of the Apes storyline for Miami
    • May 25, 1961 - JFK challenges nation to land on moon within decade
    • May 26, 1845 - Florida holds first statewide election
    • May 27, 1965 - Mysterious land deal near Orlando revealed
    • May 28, 1935 - Now controversial "Old Folks At Home" becomes state song
    • May 29, 1967 - Woman jailed after 25 kids found in station wagon
    • May 30, 1989: Claude Pepper dies after 60 years of public service
    • May 31, 1539 - DeSoto comes to Florida, changes continent forever
  • On this day in Florida history - April
    • April 1, 1926 - Air Mail service begins in four Florida cities
    • April 2, 1513 - Juan Ponce de Leon lands in Florida
    • April 3, 2006 - Gators basketball team win first-ever national title
    • April 4, 1933 - NASCAR 2nd generation leader Bill France Jr. is born
    • April 5, 1925 - 'Great Miami Tornado' kills 5, destroys 250 homes
    • April 6, 1959 - Seminole Tribe votes to support building "Alligator Alley"
    • April 7, 1890 - Author, Everglades crusader Marjorie Stoneman Douglas born
    • April 8, 1923 - News of "lost" Tamiami trail blazers heats up
    • April 9, 1921 - Whites kicked out of West Palm Beach "colored" town
    • April 10, 1766 - John Bartram ends journey through Carolinas, Ga., Florida
    • April 11, 1986 - FBI shootout in Dade prompts cops' need for more powerful guns
    • April 12, 1981 - Space Shuttle launched for first time
    • April 13, 1951 - Marion County sheriff killed by forged check suspect
    • April 14, 1528 - Bumbling conqueror Pánfilo de Narváez lands near Tampa
    • April 15, 1896 - Henry Flagler's railroad arrives in Miami for first time
    • April 16, 1915 and 1917 - Aviation takes two steps forward
    • April 17, 1961 - U.S. launches failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba
    • April 18, 1957 - Florida to U.S.: Integration ruling unconstitutional
    • April 19, 1930 - First Publix store incorporated in Winter Haven
    • April 20, 1967 - Orange Juice becomes official state beverage
    • April 21, 1924 - NY's infamous 'Bobbed Haired Bandit' caught in Jax
    • April 22, 2000 - Elian Gonzalez seized in raid, returned to Cuba
    • April 23, 1982 - Keys secede from Union, create Conch Republic
    • April 24, 1965 - Orlando honors hometown astronaut with John Young Day
    • April 25, 1966 - Gov. Haydon Burns says his plane trailed by UFO
    • April 26, 1920 - Crop shippers seizing ice, creating shortage
    • April 27, 1969 - 1,000 students help during FSU admin building fire
    • April 28, 1985 - World's tallest sand sculpture built at Treasure Island
    • April 29, 1980 - U.S. braces for magnitude of Mariel Boatlift
    • April 30, 1915 - Broward County created, named after former governor
  • Hontoon Changling: The ancient owl carving that represents the wrong tribe
  • The Fierce Competition for Rollins College
  • The Hidden History of Everglades City
  • The Legend of Jose Gaspar
  • Burdine's: Sunshine Fashions & The Florida Store
  • Follow the Dollar - Horse breeding brings big money to Central Florida
  • In Cassadaga, the Seance Room is where they talk to the dead
  • St. Petersburg leaders worked overtime to promote their city
  • Paradise for Sale: Florida's Booms and Busts
  • Feature - The Curtiss-Bright Cities
  • Feature - Collected Works of South Florida pioneer Byrd Spilman Dewey
  • Facebook links - Spring Breakers riot in Fort Lauderdale
  • Features Index
  • Secret Florida life of the author of one of SF's greatest novels
  • Casey Stengel was a Daytona Beach troublemaker
  • True stories about The Real McCoy
  • Daytona's Deadliest Air Crash: Aug. 10, 1937
  • Blog - Zora Neale Hurston's Life on Florida's East Coast
  • Blog - Florida's Worst Freezes
  • Blog - Washtub baths and pot-bellied stoves in 1930s Florida
  • Found on the Web
  • Florida History Videos
  • Historical societies and museums
  • Destinations - Central
  • Destinations - North
  • Destinations - South
  • Destinations - Southwest
  • Events - Fairs and Festivals
  • Events - Exhibits and Presentations
  • Florida history resources and links
  • Florida History Network - Announcements
    • Orange County History Center: 75th anniversary of Gone With The Wind
    • Adopt Your Duck at Dunedin History Museum
    • Mandarin Museum Welcomes Military Families as a Blue Star Museum
    • Orange County History Center seeking submissions for icons exhibition
    • Museum of Seminole County History announces Paranormal Tour
    • Florida Living History Inc. presents
    • Dunedin Museum Timeline - May 2014
    • School District of Palm Beach County - Hatian Heritage Month events planned
    • Fort Lauderdale Historical Society - launches effort to save 1905 New River Inn
    • Orange County Regional History Center honoring Judge Belvin Perry Jr. at John Young History Maker Awards
    • Fort Lauderdale Historical Society - New Exhibit shows how South Floridans Beat the Heat before AC
    • Orange County Regional History Center - Events and Exhbitions
    • Lake County Historical Society Grand Opening
    • Mandarin Historical Society - The Maple Leaf 150th Anniversary Exhibit
    • Miami Design Preservation League newsletter
    • Orange County Regional History Center events
    • Amelia Island Museum of History wants to show off your collection
    • Dunedin Museum Timeline
    • Amelia Island Museum of History's Patron Perks Tour Going to Sapelo Island, Georgia
    • Historical Society of Central Florida's honors Judge Belvin Perry Jr.
    • Orange County Regional History Center events
    • Debunking the Pocahontas Myth
    • King Cromartie House preservation
    • Feature - Mandarin Historical Society seeks help to save one-room schoolhouse
  • Preservation Projects
  • Business Directory
  • About/Contact Us
Picture

Buy Volusia County's West Side and get a free Florida t-shirt

Picture

This Mayacan owl represents 
the wrong tribe

But the carving found in 1955 isn't the only example of misrepresentation of Timucuan Indians at historical sites in Florida  

Excerpt from book available
in the new Florida History Bookstore
Picture
Photo: State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory
By Ronald Williamson
Originally published in 2003-04

O
n a grassy rise of oak and sabal palm, where the river forks to surround Hontoon Island, is a remarkable effigy, a powerful predator from another time. Its feathered body, curved talons and unblinking eyes have been part of this place for centuries.

   People call it the owl totem because scholars once thought it represented a clan. But today, those who study these things say it's neither a totem nor clan emblem. 

   It's something else, they say, something with long-lost primal meanings and potent magic. 

   Word traveled fast. People started showing up, wanting to see the owl, take snapshots. Two days later, an archaeologist hauled the carving to Gainesville.  The owl never returned. 

   What is standing on the St. Johns River island between Lake Monroe and Lake George west of Daytona Beach is a replica of the largest wooden effigy ever recovered from a North American archaeological site. That's the way archaeologist Barbara Purdy put it in one of her books about Hontoon Island artifacts.

   Native American artisans made it with tools of shark's teeth, stone and shell. Its age is estimated at 700-800 years, about the time the Renaissance began to dawn in Europe. 
   Modern civilization disturbed its long rest on Wednesday, June 27, 1955. 

   "I found it," said Victor Roepke, 90. 

   He stopped work at the Habitat for Humanity Bargain Barn in DeLand and sat in the shade with me. Back in the mid-1950s, Roepke owned a mostly wet mile of riverfront on the south end of Hontoon Peninsula, a long stone’s throw from the island. That summer he was turning it into high and dry building lots, using dirt from a canal and the river.

   Building land, he called it.

   "I had a dragline working down there on the banks, digging out, making higher ground. They pulled it out of the river," he said. “It” was a 12-foot timber thick with black mud. 

   "After I got it washed off enough so I could see it, I knew what it was," Roepke said. "It had to be a totem pole." 

   Word traveled fast. People started showing up, wanting to see the owl, take snapshots. Two days later, an archaeologist from the Florida Museum of Natural History drove down and hauled the carving to Gainesville in the back of a truck. 

   The owl never returned. 

   A few years later, when Hontoon Island became a state park, the full-sized fiberglass replica was erected. But the real Hontoon owl is a centerpiece at the visitors center at Fort Caroline National Monument, part of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve near the mouth of the St. Johns River east of Jacksonville. 

   The carving is flanked by large colorful murals of what a native village near the river’s mouth may have looked like in 1564 when French settlers sailed into the north-flowing stream to found a settlement. 

   But the owl isn’t a Timucuan object and Timucuan artisans didn’t create the owl. It’s not a thing of the people who lived near the river’s mouth. It was created by Mayacan tribesmen who lived near the river’s belly, on Hontoon Island.

   The first Europeans weren't welcome on the middle St. Johns River. They were met by large numbers of armed men who threatened to kill them if they didn’t leave.

   The confrontation occurred south of Lake George near Astor, where State Road 40 crosses the river. And, despite erroneous information that abounds about American Indians here, the warriors were not Timucuans, but Mayacans. 

   Cautious Timucuans did greet French and Spanish explorers on the St. Johns River near Jacksonville and Palatka and St. Augustine. They were generally friendly, willing to trade and carefully solicitous of the formidable strangers, if only to have them as allies or gain valuable objects.

   But feelings were far different when Pedro Menendez and 50 soldiers crossed Lake George in 1566 and entered Mayaca, today's western Volusia County. 

   Mayacans spoke a different language, were culturally different and allegiant to different chiefdoms than Timucuans. They lived between lakes George and Monroe, and weren't interested in friendly relations with Europeans, no matter how powerful they were or how valuable their goods. 

   Florida's foremost scholars on tribes at the time of European contact say the culture of Timucua ended at Lake George. Other tribes lived south of Lake George on the river, and south of Ponce de Leon Inlet on the coast. 

   Nonetheless, the outdated notion that Timucuans lived around Hontoon Island is perpetuated in literature, at state parks and many other places. Even the Web sites for the City of Deltona and the Sanford Historical Society say Timucuans were the native Americans who lived around Lake Monroe.

   Hontoon Island State Park is one of the best (or worst) examples of outdated information. A new museum there has numerous references to Timucuans inhabiting the island and credits their artisans with making marvelous animal effigies found there. Signs on the island refer to Timucuans, too.

   Mayacan people aren’t mentioned. Not once, not even indirectly. It's as though they never existed. 

   "The Mayaca and other tribes living in interior Florida are among the state's least known tribes," John Hann told me. He’s a research historian at Tallahassee's San Luis Archaeological and Historic Site and a leading scholar on contact-era tribes. 

   "The Mayaca have often been considered to have been Timucua, despite evidence otherwise," he said.

   Coastal tribes and their languages and cultures were far better known because they had more contact with early Europeans. Interior tribes weren't encountered until much later. 
   American Indians disappeared at an alarming rate in the first centuries after contact with Europeans, primarily from disease.

   There are no numbers for Mayacans, but another leading scholar, Jerald Milanch, archaeological curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, says Timucuan population dropped from an estimated 200,000 in the year 1500, to 1,000 in 1700. When Spain lost Florida in 1763, he said, only one Timucuan was listed among refugees.

   Mayacans suffered the same fate, despite the lack of documentation. Hann said some interior Florida tribes may have become extinct before Europeans encountered them, or before they even knew their names.

Perhaps the most remarkable Mayaccan creation on Earth stands in a museum of Timucuan culture at Fort Caroline.

   But in 1566, the Mayacans were alive and well and had a decidedly different attitude about Menendez' boats coming into the “land of Macoya,’’ according to Bartolome Barrientos, using one of several variations of the name. He wrote a 1567 biography of the bold man who in one bloody month in 1565 captured the French Fort Caroline, killed hundreds of Huguenots at Matanzas Inlet, and founded St. Augustine.

   Barrientos described the first attempt to explore south of Lake George. Not far past the lake, Spaniards found a large village.

   Scholars suggest it was near today's Volusia and Astor. It could have been on either side of the river, or both sides. Large shell mounds once flanked the stream there.

   The villagers fled, but the chief, Mocoya, sent word through an interpreter that the Spaniards had entered his land without permission and must leave or die. 

   Menendez ignored the warning and cautiously continued upriver, says Barrientos. 

   Quickly, the riverbanks filled with "large bands of agitated Indians armed with bows and arrows. On arriving at a narrow place in the river, he found the way blocked by a row of stakes." When he broke through, even more Mayacans appeared and said they would kill him if he continued. 

   At first Menendez seemed determined to pass, but after spending a dangerous night on the river, he reconsidered his precarious situation and retreated. The exact place of that decisive confrontation is not known, but it is likely a little south of the S.R. 40 bridge, perhaps a mile or two, or less.

   "No one really even heard of the Mayaca before the 1990s," Milanch told me. "Until recent years, the prevailing academic view was that Timucua-speaking Indians lived all through north and central peninsula Florida. But now, thanks largely to new research and reinterpretation of old documents, we've fine-tuned our interpretations." 

   Archaeologist Barbara Purdy, who conducted excavations on Hontoon Island in the 1980s, said it's important for present-day residents to take pride in past cultures of the places we live -- especially because there are no Mayacans to keep their traditions alive. 

   "Who we Floridians are today and what Florida is today, are based in part on our shared heritage," Milanch said. "The good news is that we're learning more all the time. The bad thing is that agencies hate to change signs." 

   Hann is more critical of incorrect signs and exhibits like those on Hontoon Island. "If they're not correct, they're wasting people's time," he told me. "They should not go on perpetuating earlier errors." 

   Certainly the signs should be changed. Current scholarship ought to be reflected on Hontoon Island and other interpretative sites in what was once the land of Mayaca. As Purdy says, there are no Mayacans to speak of their life and culture, so we must speak for them. 

   It's a shame, and a disservice to our own culture, to ignore their existence. 

   And yet, perhaps the most remarkable Mayacan creation on Earth stands in a museum of Timucuan culture at Fort Caroline.

     "It's probably the most talked about piece in the visitors center," said Craig Morris, a veteran ranger at Fort Caroline. The mural incorporates the carving into a charnel house scene because, he said, it's believed to have been a supernatural creature watching over generations of ancestral bones at Hontoon Island. 

   "This is not a totem. It has human eyes, as well as round bird eyes. It has five claws; owls have four. It's a symbol of a human turning itself into an owl," he said. Or an owl turning into a human.

   Owls are prominent figures in the myths and religion of pre-Columbian Florida natives. The predator bird is the night spirit's messenger and protector of shaman priests. A disturbed owl is a sign of trouble in the natural world. That's what they say at the Museum of Natural History. 

   The primitive image of a supernatural owl helps visitors grasp one aspect of the deep, profound relationship the Hontoon people had with the natural world, Morris said. Some visitors are awed.

   "I think it's a sense of wonder," Morris said slowly, grasping for words. "... that this isn't just an owl. No. It's an owl that represents ..." He stopped grasping. 

   "We'll never know what its real function was. Never. It's the only thing in the museum that cannot be explained."


To read more about historic West Volusia, click here to purchase
Volusia County's West Side: Steamboats and Sandhills