Grade Level: 2nd through 12th, Grades
Subject: Social Studies, Art, Language Arts
Duration: 45 minutes
Materials: Clipboard, pencil, Native American Story Form
Florida Sunshine State Standards: SS.A.2.2.5, SS.A.2.3.4, SS.A.4.3.1, SS.A.6.2.6, SS.B.2.2.2, LA.B.1.2.1, LA.B.2.2.1, LA.B.2.2.3, LA.C.1.2.1,
Overview: Using their imagination and guided by storytelling, students will live a day in the life of a local Native American child 1000 years ago. The story follows a child on his first hunt for oysters and tells a creation myth of the local tribe. Optional: students taste smoked mullet.
Objectives: Students will listen to a storyteller and then begin their own story of a day at the Emerson Point Ceremonial Complex. Students will use creative thinking to demonstrate comprehension of facts.
Background:
Exploring the temple mound and shell middens at Emerson Point is a fascinating excursion into Manatee County’s past, even before the time of recorded history. Once home to thriving communities of American Indians, the area includes the largest remaining ceremonial mound in the Tampa Bay region. Because these people lived here before the time of European exploration of Florida, their real names and traditions are lost to us.
Try to imagine what life here was like 1,000 years ago. The heavy growth of trees would not have covered everything. The shell mounds would have gleamed white in the sun, topped and surrounded by thatched houses. Smoke from cooking fires drifted skyward as people worked at their daily tasks and children played. Canoes of returning hunting parties landed along the shore to unload the day’s catch while the air filled with an irregular rhythm on conch shell hammers tapping open shellfish…
Everyone wants to know what tribe was here at Emerson Point. The Tocobago (or Tocobaga) were a group of prehistoric and historic Native Americans living near Tampa Bay (and probably north of this area) until roughly 1760. The archaeological name for this and adjacent groups of their time is the Safety Harbor culture. Spanish records often refer to villages and chiefs with the same name. Some of the names we hear attributed to the Tampa Bay area are “Ucita”, Hirrihigua”, “Mocoso”, “Tocobaga” and “Pohoy”. These chiefs, known as caciques (ca-see-cays), an Arawak word used by the Spaniards, were not all prominent or active at the same time. Many years separated their presence in Tampa Bay.
The peoples of Tampa Bay were not part of the Timucua culture which usually only extended as far south as modern day Ocala. Neither were they part of the Calusa, which may have extended into southern Sarasota County. Both of these powerful cultures, Timucua (under chief Urriparacoxi) and Calusa (under chief Calos), did have interactions at times with the Safety Harbor cultures.
The story that follows is a modern creation of what one particular day in the life of a young Native American may have been like.
Suggested Procedure:
1. Read the “Eating History in Tampa Bay” story, going slowly at first to allow the students to adjust to the mood of the tale.
2. After you have read the story, read the follow-up information about environmental factors and seafood harvested by Native Americans of the estuary.
3. Optional: share a taste of smoked mullet with the students.
4. Have students begin a story, or outline what they might include in their own “day in the life” story.
5. Give Native American Story Form to teachers.
