Calusa Indians And Their Masking Ceremonies Summary

The Calusa Indians and Their Masking Ceremonies
The southwest coast of Florida used to be inhabited by the Calusa. “It seemed that by any contemporary measure the Calusa Indian people had been complex when Spaniards arrived in the 1500’s…The Calusa king ruled over all of South Florida from his capital town on Mound Key. According to Spanish accounts, the Calusa had permanent towns, tributary relations, wealth accumulation, social stratification, royal sibling marriage, an elite military, human sacrifice, engineered canals, high mounds, well-developed art and music, and a religion that included elaborate rituals, a trinity of spirits, and life after death” (Marquardt 2)
During the time that Spain ruled Florida, the Spanish explorers

kept notes about the Calusa. We have our information about the Calusa through these detailed notes that were kept and through archaeological work that was done in Florida. Calusa descendants may still be alive today. Some Calusas were enslaved by the Spanish and sent to Cuba in the 1500's, and others

traveled there in the late 1600's and early 1700's, because of the disease and fighting there at the time. Some Calusas were absorbed into the Seminole tribe. We are fortunate to have some notes and the archeology that has been done on this tribe, otherwise the Calusa history would be completely lost.
Unlike the other Indians there at the time, the Calusa’s livelihood was primarily the sea. The men went out and caught fish on the water, the women gathered conch, oysters, clams and other shellfish in the shallow water. Their diet was mainly seafood and fruit. The Calusa utilized the shell heaps they were left with to build their homes on higher ground. The Calusa built islands from oyster and whelk shells. These mounds put them up above sea-level which gave them relief from bugs, and kept them dry. The Calusa territory runs from Tampa Bay south to the Ten Thousand Islands. Although the Calusa houses were simple with roofs of palm leaves which were suspended from wooden poles, Calusa villages were definitely more complicated to build. Virtually everything was built out of shells, i.e. seawalls, piers, and even temple foundations.
Besides knowing their building techniques, many artifacts have been discovered to give us more clues. The Calusa were tool makers and these tools were mostly made out of shell,
not stone. They created tools to assist them with their livelihood commodity which was
fishing. They made tools for net making, carving wood, and creating fishing hooks.

Their pottery skills were limited, making some simple bowls and jars.
In 1896, archeologist Frank Cushing was in search of artifacts from the Calusa Indians. The excavation took place on Key Marco, FL. He discovered weapons, utensils, tools, wood carvings, and masks. Shark teeth tools were used to carve into the wood. I was definitely interested in learning more about the masks. “The word “mask” has a wide range of meanings. Its most common meaning in western cultures is that of an artificial face worn for purposes of disguise, whether that disguise is effective or an “open secret.” But “mask” in its broadest sense may signify anything that disguises or transforms an individual’s identity, such as face and body paint, headdresses, costumes, or even the mimetic transformation of one’s features and behavior (Crumrine 1983:1; Tooker 1983:15-16). The term can also refer to crafted faces worn elsewhere on the body—as ear ornaments, gorgets, or hung at the beltline—or displayed not on the human body at all, but mounted on walls or ceremonial staffs. In this chapter I employ “mask” in this general sense, because I am considering not only the artifacts of Southwest Florida, but also the Spanish accounts of Calusa masking activities that may have included the full range of disguisings and mask usages listed above”(Clark 621). Masks were used both for spiritual reasons as well as for entertainment. In 1566, the Spanish established a military fortress and Jesuit mission in Calusa. The mission’s spiritual leader, Father Juan Rogel, spoke of masked

dancers carrying figurines, who gave performances in the plazas.

Rogel called the Calusa masked displays fraudulent and revealed the secrets of the masked performers. Like Oz was revealed in the Wizard of Oz, the Calusa characters were revealed to show dancers hiding behind costumes. He almost started a battle over this revelation.
In 1697, another Christian mission of Franciscan priests attempted to set up shop in Calusa Territory. Father Lopez, the mission’s leader, described seeing a “house of masks”. I will discuss, and give details of, a mask found at Pineland Site Complex later in this paper. During the Franciscan’s short stint in Calos, the Calusa were observed participating in their masked
performances every three nights, inside the house of masks. It appeared to be group theater.
The Spanish missionaries tried to convert the Calusa to Christianity for years. They realized that converting the Calusa was a hopeless battle in the end. They said the Calusa were idol-worshippers, who kept their idols in temples. The missionaries were obviously looking through a spiritual lens. Maybe they were just masks in a communal building. Remember masks were used for a wide array of reasons, from performing spiritual embodiment to the joyfulness of nonspiritual amusement. If the Calusa account was given to us by someone other than

Spanish
missionaries, would the account be recorded differently? Absolutely. The historical literature

could have included humorous entertainments and not just supposed idol-worshipping and blasphemy. Seems that it was easier for them to condemn all masked ceremonies that to try to
separate the spiritual from the secular ceremonies. “But, alas, while ultimate meaning may in
some fashion be intrinsic to physical objects such as the facemasks and figureheads, I suspect that much (or all) of what we call meaning is provided for a given object by any person who lends it even a single thought. The commissioning patron of a mask has in mind certain symbolisms at the outset. The artist attempts to communicate those symbolisms, and elaborates upon them, sometimes utilizing traditional iconography and sometimes creating new forms. Perhaps the owner puts the artifact to use to symbolize something never originally
intended. The performer adds flourishes that enliven the symbolic qualities of the piece and the members of the audience are stirred by their dramatic experience, but perhaps come away
with widely varying interpretations. An enemy who invades and destroys the community
brings to the object his or her ethnographic knowledge and experience, and later readers of the
archaeologist’s report do likewise” (Clark 645).