Florida's Lost Tribes

Florida's Lost Tribes. THEODORE MORRIS, with commentary by Jerald T. Milanich. University Press of Florida, Gainesville, 2004. 70 pp. (48 pp. of plates), ill. (some color). $29.95 (cloth), ISBN: 0-8130-2739-x.Morris and Milanich's Florida's Lost Tribes accomplishes two goals in the course of 65 short pages. First, Theodore Morris's beautiful paintings portraying individuals from some of Florida's lost Indian tribes, capture their humanity and symbiotic relationship with nature. Second, Jerald T. Milanich's narrative commentary elucidates for the lay reader Florida's prehistoric past and the cultural groups that transformed over time to become the lost Indian tribes of Florida. The book is not a scholarly monograph but is geared more to a lay readership less familiar with Florida's prehistoric past or the Native American groups that comprised the state's more recent history. In fact, although it is not stated in the book, the large majority of Milanich's text in Chapters 2 and 3 is a condensed version of his earlier Archaeology of Precolumbian Florida (1994). Morris's paintings are the central focus of the book.Florida's Lost Tribes has several positive attributes that should spark an interest in the lay readership. First, Morris's paintings accomplish what the artist intends: They are vibrant and engaging depictions of what he thinks Florida's Indians may have looked like. With six exceptions, the illustrations feature the subject facing the reader or in some way giving the impression of being present to the reader. This aspect highlights the humanity and dignity of the subject. Another aspect that Morris does well is the inclusion of numerous archaeological artifacts into the paintings. His art benefits from his working closely with archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians (pp. 11-13). Every painting includes some artifact or ethnographic detail, including jewelry, tattooing, masks and religious paraphernalia, projectile points, feathers, pipes, and clothing, just to name a few. Furthermore, the paintings strive to place the subject in a natural setting apart from the chaos and activity of habitation sites, something Morris intended and mentions several times in the accompanying captions to the paintings. Finally, Morris's use of vibrant colors (especially on the masks and tattooing) is supposed to enhance our view of the faded and monochromatic artifacts that we encounter in museum exhibitions.As enjoyable and aesthetically pleasing as these paintings may be, there are two distractions that detract from their impact. First, as mentioned above, Morris has placed all but one of the subjects within natural environments divorced from any kind of anthropogenic influence. From the paintings alone, one might get the impression that all the Indians of Florida did was sit around and commune with nature, as opposed to engaging in social interactions and significantly altering the landscape (as in the case of shell mounds or canals). …