Anthropology

FASA Colloquium on Oct. 17th. with Dr. Broadwell

The Timucua people were the original inhabitants of Gainesville and nearby parts of North Florida.  Although the Timucua are now gone and their language is extinct, we can still learn about Timucua knowledge of the environment from the documents they left behind.  In this respect, the 1627  Catecismo en lengua timuquana y castellana, is a previously unrecognized source of great value. The 1627 Catechism details the creation of the world in substantial detail, and the Timucua language portions of the book are two or three times as long as the corresponding Spanish.  
Dr. Broadwell will argue in this talk that previously untranslated Timucua portions of this work, there are long lists of birds, sea creatures, snakes, and other animals.  These lists function as a partial inventory of 17th century Timucua knowledge of the environment.