- Palmetto berries
- Coco-plums
- Pigeon plums
- Hog plums
- Sea grapes
- Prickly pears
- Gopher apples
- Palm nuts
- Cabbage palm
What did the Tequesta eat in Florida?
The Tequesta also gathered palmetto berries, coco plums, sea grapes, and palm nuts to eat. In the Everglades, they hunted bear, deer, wild boar, and small mammals.
What did the Tequesta tribe do for a living?
The interesting thing about the Tequesta tribe is that they didn't need to practice any significant form of agriculture or farming. This was because the area that we now know as Biscayne Bay (including Miami) would have been sufficiently rich in edible vegetation growing naturally.
What kind of clothing did the Tequesta wear?
They wore light clothing The men wore a sort of loincloth made from deer hide while the women wore skirts of spainsh or plant fibers hanging from a belt. The Tequesta native American tribe were hunters and gatherers. They relied mainly on fish, shellfish, nuts, and berries for food.
What tools did the Tequesta use?
The Tequesta used shells and sharks' teeth for a variety of tools. These included hammers, chisels, fishhooks, drinking cups, and spearheads.
What did the Tequesta tribe hunt?
The Tequesta also gathered palmetto berries, coco plums, sea grapes, and palm nuts to eat. In the Everglades, they hunted bear, deer, wild boar, and small mammals. The Tequesta made flour by grinding up the roots of certain plants.
What did the Tequesta wear?
Clothing was minimal. The men wore a sort of loincloth made from deer hide, while the women wore skirts of Spanish moss or plant fibers hanging from a belt.
What language did the Tequesta tribe speak?
The Tequesta Indians were a tribe of eastern Florida, closely connected with the Ais. Their language was never recorded.
What did the Tequesta live in?
And they stretched their encampments west across the Everglades, to places we now call Weston, Pine Island Ridge and Miramar. But their largest populations settled on Biscayne Bay, at the mouth of the Mayami - Tequesta for "sweet water" - as the Miami River was then known.
What games did the Tequesta tribe play?
What kinds of games did Tequestas play? skit-ball, where you hit a ball and it bounces off a wall before you hit it! They also played a game with a stick called wee.
What does the name Tequesta mean?
The Tequesta (tuh-KES-tuh) were a small, peaceful, Native American tribe. They were one of the first tribes in South Florida and they settled near Biscayne Bay in the present-day Miami area. They built many villages at the mouth of the Miami River and along the coastal islands.
Who lived in Florida first?
Humans first inhabited Florida around 12,000 years ago near the end of the Ice Age, according to the Museum of Florida History, a project of the Florida Department of State. Florida's earliest history involved prehistoric groups of Native Americans like the Timucua, Calusa and Apalachee.
What county is Tequesta Florida in?
Palm Beach CountyTequesta / County
What was the name or term for the leader of the Tequesta tribe?
They built many villages at the mouth of the Miami River and along the coastal islands. A village had been at that site at least since 1200. The tribal chief was also called Tequesta. The chief lived in the main village at the mouth of the Miami River.
Is Tequesta in Martin County?
On the southern border of Martin County sits Tequesta. It is rich in history and Florida lore, with the earliest known records of the Jupiter Inlet dating back to 1565.
What did the Calusa tribe wear?
Clothing and personal decoration The Calusa wore little clothing. The men wore a deerskin breechcloth. The Spanish left less description on what the Calusa women wore. Among most tribes in Florida for which there is documentation, the women wore skirts made of what was later called Spanish moss.
What did the Tequesta and Tocobaga tribes have in common?
What did the Tequesta and Tocobaga tribes have in common? They both used shells and bones to make useful tools.
What did the Tequestas eat?
The Tequestas did not practice any form of agriculture. They fished, hunted, and gathered the fruit and roots of local plants. Most of their food came from the sea. Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, who lived among the tribes of southern Florida for seventeen years in the 16th century, described their "common" diet as "fish, turtle and snails, whale, ; the "sea-wolf" ( Caribbean monk seal) was reserved for the upper classes. According to Fontaneda, a lesser part of the diet consisted of trunkfish and lobster. The "fish" caught included manatees, sharks, sailfish, porpoises, stingrays, and small fish. Despite their local abundance, clams, oysters and conches were only a minor part of the Tequesta diet (their shells are much less common at Tequesta archeological sites than they are at Calusa or Jaega sites). Venison was also popular; deer bones are frequently found in archeological sites, as are terrapin shells and bones. Sea turtles and their eggs were consumed during the turtles' nesting season.
What kind of fish did the Tequesta catch?
The "fish" caught included manatees, sharks, sailfish, porpoises, stingrays, and small fish. Despite their local abundance, clams, oysters and conches were only a minor part of the Tequesta diet (their shells are much less common at Tequesta archeological sites than they are at Calusa or Jaega sites).
How many Tequesta were there in Florida?
Estimates of the number of Tequesta at the time of initial European contact range from 800 to 10,000, while estimates of the number of Calusa on the southwest coast of Florida range from 2,000 to 20,000.
Why did the Tequestas bury their chiefs?
By one account, when the Tequestas for a tradition buried their chiefs, they buried the small bones with the body , and put the large bones in a box for the village people to adore and hold as their gods. Another account says that the Tequestas stripped the flesh from the bones, burning the flesh, and then distributed the cleaned bones to the dead chief's relatives, with the larger bones going to the closest relations.
Where did the Tequesta live?
Location and extent. The Tequesta lived in the southeastern parts of present-day Florida. They had lived in the region since the 3rd century BCE (the late Archaic period of the continent ), and remained for roughly 2,000 years, having disappeared by the time that Spanish Florida was traded to the British, who then established the area as part ...
How many words are there in Tequesta?
There are only ten words from the languages of those tribes for which meanings were recorded. The Tequesta were once thought to be related to the Taino, the Arawakan people of the Antilles, but most anthropologists now doubt this, based on archaeological information and the length of their establishment in Florida.
How many Indians were taken to Cuba in 1710?
In 1710, 280 Florida Indians were taken to Cuba, where almost 200 soon died. The survivors were returned to the Keys in 1716 or 1718. In 1732 some Indians fled from the Keys to Cuba. In early 1743 the Governor of Cuba received a petition from three Calusa chiefs who were visiting in Havana.
Where did the Tequesta live?
The Tequesta (tuh-KES-tuh) were a small, peaceful, Native American tribe. They were one of the first tribes in South Florida and they settled near Biscayne Bay in the present-day Miami area.
What tools did the Tequesta use?
The Tequesta used shells and sharks' teeth for a variety of tools. These included hammers, chisels, fishhooks, drinking cups, and spearheads. Sharks' teeth were used to carve out logs to make canoes. During the 1500s, Europeans began arriving in Florida.
How did the Tequesta make flour?
The Tequesta made flour by grinding up the roots of certain plants. Unfortunately, these food sources were not very plentiful along the southern coast, so the Tequesta never became a large or powerful tribe compared to their western neighbors, the Calusa. The Tequesta used shells and sharks' teeth for a variety of tools.
What did the men catch in Biscayne Bay?
The men caught sharks, sailfish, sea cows, and porpoises in the waters of Biscayne Bay and the Miami River, while the women and children collected clams, conchs, oysters, and turtle eggs in the shallow waters. The sea cow (manatee) was considered a delicacy and served mainly to the chiefs and other prominent leaders.
Overview
Diet
The Tequestas did not practice any form of agriculture. They fished, hunted, and gathered the fruit and roots of local plants. Most of their food came from the sea. Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, who lived among the tribes of southern Florida for seventeen years in the 16th century, described their "common" diet as "fish, turtle and snails, and tunny and whale"; the "sea-wolf" (Caribbean monk seal) was reserved for the upper classes. According to Fontaneda, a lesser part of the die…
Location and extent
The Tequesta lived in the southeastern parts of present-day Florida. They had lived in the region since the 3rd century BCE (the late Archaic period of the continent), and remained for roughly 2,000 years, By the 1800s, most had died as a result of settlement battles, slavery, and disease. The Tequesta tribe had only a few survivors by the time that Spanish Florida was traded to the British, who then established the area as part of the province of East Florida.
Origins and language
The archaeological record of the Glades culture, which included the area occupied by the Tequestas, indicates a continuous development of an indigenous ceramics tradition from about 700 BCE until after European contact. The Tequesta language may have been closely related to the language of the Calusas of the southwest Florida coast and the Mayaimis who lived around Lake Okeechobee in the middle of the lower Florida peninsula. There are only ten words from the lang…
Housing, clothing and tools
Briton Hammon reported that the Tequesta lived in "hutts". Other tribes in southern Florida lived in houses with wooden posts, raised floors, and roofs thatched with palmetto leaves, something like the chickees of the Seminoles. These houses may have had temporary walls of plaited palmetto-leaf mats to break the wind or block the sun.
Clothing was minimal. The men wore a sort of loincloth made from deer hide, while the women w…
Customs
By one account, when the Tequestas for a tradition buried their chiefs, they buried the small bones with the body, and put the large bones in a box for the village people to adore and hold as their gods. Another account says that the Tequestas stripped the flesh from the bones, burning the flesh, and then distributed the cleaned bones to the dead chief's relatives, with the larger bones going to the closest relations.
Miami Circle
The Miami Circle is located on the site of a known Tequesta village south of the mouth of the Miami River (probably the town of Tequesta). It consists of 24 large holes or basins, and many smaller holes, which have been cut into bedrock. Together these holes form a circle approximately 38 feet in diameter. Other arrangements of holes are apparent as well. The Circle was discovered during an archeological survey of a site being cleared for construction of a high …
Post-European-contact
In Juan Ponce de León stopped at a bay on the Florida coast that he called Chequesta, which apparently was what is now called Biscayne Bay. In 1565 one of the ships in Pedro Menéndez de Avilés' fleet took refuge from a storm in Biscayne Bay. The main Tequesta village was located there, and Menéndez was well received by the Tequestas. The Jesuits with him took the Tequesta chief's nephew with them back to Havana, Cuba, to be educated, while the chief's brother went to