The Tequesta Indians

The Tequesta Indians had no domesticated plants or beasts. Animals, especially those that inhabited the waters, provided most of their diet, and the pursuit kept them on the move. About the only time they could stay put was during the fall, when the fruits they ate were most plentiful, and the winter, when the roots of the coontie plant were swollen with starch. For ages the Tequesta and their ancestors had made a starchy porridge from those roots, which yielded a substance similar to the arrowroot of South America.

The Miami River yielded sunfish, bowfin, and gar. Biscayne Bay gives the Tequesta Indians large quantities of sea catfish, plus snapper, toad-fish, and turtles. The shallow ocean beyond Key Biscayne produced grunt, barracuda, porgy, jack, and grouper. But the big prizes are the sharks and the whales, found both in the bay and in the ocean. They yield far more meat than any other source, at sea or on land, but the hunt is both difficult and dangerous.

The Tequesta Indians prefer to hunt in the bay, because the animals could not dive deep to escape capture. The Tequesta Indians would pole their canoes into known shark and whale areas and wait for an animal to swim by. At this point, the technique differed depending on whether the prey is a shark or a whale. With a shark, the hunt leader could drive a spear with a rope attached into its skin. He would hold on tightly until the shark stopped struggling, which meant it had drowned, and then the Tequesta Indians could pull it to the shore for butchering.

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