Abstract
Based on sources located in archives and special collections located in Mexico, and the US, and employing the social, cultural, and ethnohistorical methodologies, this dissertation represents the first profound examination the Florida Timucuans’ cosmology. I argue that although the Timucuan worldview fits well within indigenous Southeastern belief systems structured around purity and pollution, the Timucuan view of the cosmos did not function within an oppositional binary system of “positive” purity and “negative” pollution. Instead, Timucuans conceived of purity and pollution as a complementary system. Pure and polluted were both linked to the sacred, and must be conceived as as halves of a whole, sacred/pure and sacred/polluted. Moreover, these symbolic units corresponded to aspects of the cosmos: the sacred/pure with the Upper World, the sacred/polluted with the Under World. This study reconstructs the Timucuan worldview through examinations of rituals and belief systems, including rituals of food, healing and curing, death and blood sacrifice rituals, magical practices, and the reading of omens. It also discusses Timucua gender systems of male, female, and Two Spirits. The dissertation explores how Franciscan friars perceived Timucuan beliefs, and the evolving relationship between the two groups on the missions.
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