In the sixteenth century the Timucua inhabited the northern and middle
portion of the peninsula of Florida, and although their exact limits
to the north are unknown, they held a portion of Florida bordering on
Georgia, and some of the coast islands in the Atlantic Ocean, as Guale
(then the name of Amelia) and others. The more populous settlements of
these Indians lay on the eastern coast of Florida, along the St.
John's river and its tributaries, and in the northeastern angle of the
Gulf of Mexico. Their southernmost villages known to us were
Hirrihigua, near Tampa Bay, and Tucururu, near Cape Cañaveral, on the
Atlantic Coast.
The people received its name from one of their villages called
Timagoa, Thimagoua (_Timoga_ on De Bry's map), situated on one of the
western tributaries of St. John's river, and having some political
importance. The name means _lord, ruler, master_ [atimuca "waited
upon (muca) by servants (ati)];" and the people's name is written
Atimuca early in the eighteenth century. We first become acquainted
with their numerous tribes through the memoir of Alvar Nuñez Cabeça de
Vaca, the three chroniclers of de Soto's expedition, and more fully
through Réné de Laudonnière (1564). Two missionaries of the Franciscan
order, Francisco Pareja (1612 sqq.) and Gregorio de Mouilla (1635),
have composed devotional books in their vocalic language. De Bry's
_Brevis Narratio_, Frankfort a. M., 1591, contains a map of their
country, and engravings representing their dwellings, fights, dances
and mode of living.
A few words of their language (_lengua timuquana_ in Spanish) show
affinity with Maskoki, others with Carib. From 1595 A. D. they
gradually became converted to Christianity, revolted in 1687 against
their Spanish oppressors, and early in the eighteenth century (1706)
were so reduced in number that they yielded easily to the attacks of
the Yámassi Indians, who, instigated by English colonists, made
incursions upon their villages from the North. Their last remnants
withdrew to the Mosquito Lagoon, in Volusia County, Florida, where the
name of the Tomoco river still recalls their tribal name.
In 1564, Réné de Laudonnière heard of five head chiefs (paracusi) of
confederacies in the Timucua country, and from Pareja we can infer
that seven or more dialects were spoken in its circumference. The five
head chiefs, Saturiwa, Holata Utina, Potanu, Onethcaqua and Hostaqua
are only tribal names (in the second, Utina is the tribal
appellation), and the dialects, as far as known, were those of
Timagoa, Potanu, Itafi, the Fresh-Water district, Tucururu, Santa
Lucia de Acuera, and Mocama ("on the coast"). The last but one
probably coincided with that of Aïs.
The _Aïs Indians_, who held the coast from Cape Cañaveral, where the
Spaniards had the post Santa Lucia, to a lagoon once called
Aïsahatcha (viz., _Aïs river_), were considered as a people distinct
from the Timucua. They worshiped the sun in the shape of a stuffed
deer raised upon the end of a high beam planted in the ground; this
gave, probably, origin to their name Aïs, for B. Romans interprets
Aïsahatcha by _Deer river_ (itchi, itche _deer_, in Creek and
Seminole). Their territory formed the northern part of the "province"
of Tequesta. Cf. B. Romans, East and West Florida (New York, 1775),
pp. 2. 260. 273. 281. Herrera, Dec. IV, 4, 7. Barcia, Ensayo, p. 118.