Early on in my research on the Calusa tribe, I read on several sources that people often referred to them as “fierce people”, including a webpage titled The Calusa: the Shell Indians sponsored by The University of South Florida. I have always been drawn to reading about aggressive warriors and athletes and even politicians (Teddy Roosevelt is my favorite example), and I became curious about the Calusas.
Then I read about how they attacked the Spaniards when they arrived in Estero Bay and how they hit Ponce de Leon with and arrow that eventually killed him.
I’m currently reading a book titled Discovering Florida: First-Contact Narratives from Spanish Expeditions along the Lower Gulf Coast by John E. Worth. He describes the Calusas in the following lines: “a people very harsh and very savage and warlike and ferocious and indomitable, and not accustomed to quietude, or to abandoning their liberty so easily upon the discretion or foreign will of other men…”
Words really do matter, and Worth makes a strong point by using so many adjectives in his description. I’m working on including their ferocity on my novel Calusa Gold. As my Calusa warriors encounter Montezuma and the Aztec empire, they will show no fear nor will they bow down to the Aztecs. In my mind, this how the Calusas would have acted. They will be even more hostile towards the Conquistadors.
The many stories I’ve read about the Calusas remind me of a line often used by podcaster Dan Carlin when describing the Japanese people: “They are just like everybody else, only more so." I interpret this as saying the Calusas were similar to their neighbors in some ways yet also uniquely capable in others. The Calusas were powerful and controlled a vast portion of Florida, yet they did not have a massive advantage in population, nor did they have better technology. They had some intangible quality that gave them an edge.
So what could this have been? When thinking about the Calusas and other tribes, one major difference was in their food. The Calusas mostly relied on fish and shellfish for their nutrition, not agriculture like so many others. Did this higher protein intake make them bigger and stronger? Maybe someday scientists will have have the answer, but for my historical fiction novel, I am going to use this, especially to give the Calusas a size and strength advantage over the Aztecs and Conquistadors.
So do any of you know about the impact of diet on different cultures, especially for warriors? I’m going to do some more reading and see what I can find.
I'm buying lots of books and traveling all over SW Florida to visit Calusa sites for my upcoming novel Calusa Gold. I'm not going to charge for subscriptions, but if you like what I'm posting, please buy me a coffee. I need the coffee so I can stay up late working!