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Ancient Native Americans Collected Poisonous Fish, but for What Purpose? | Ancient Origins
ancient Native Americans collected poisonous fish but for what purpose? The Colusa people, an ancient Native American population that occupied the lands of modern-day Florida and pre-Columbian times, engaged in a most unusual practice. It seems they harvested enormous quantities of a fish that couldn't be eaten because it produced a toxic compound that was deadly to humans. So, the question is, what exactly were they doing with this poisonous fish? Recent excavations at the Mount Key Archaeological Site in Southwestern Florida have unearthed extensive deposits of the bones of burfish, a species that survives to this day but has never been used as a source of food. Burfish produce a poison known as tetrodoxin, which can kill a person within an hour of consumption causing gastrointestinal distress, paralysis, and respiratory failure. Species of burfish have been identified in archaeological deposits throughout the Americas and in the Caribbean, but only on Mount Key have their remains been found in large quantities, making it clear that they were desirable to the Colusa for reasons that remain obscure. In an article just published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, a researcher who specializes in the study of the Colusa culture proposes that these industrious people found a way to make use of these fish for non-food purposes. Penn State University anthropologist Isabelle Holland-Lulwex admits that she does not know what those purposes might have been, at least not yet. She plans to investigate this question thoroughly in the upcoming years, but they are undoubtedly grounded in the cultural practices of a people that came to rely on aquatic resources of all types to ensure their survival. Ancient people consumed highly toxic blowfish as an aphrodisiac. Romans are said to have ingested fish brains that caused hallucinations, introducing the industrious Colusa. The Colusa people lived in southwestern Florida in pre-Columbian times, emerging as a distinct group around 500 AD. Choosing a non-agricultural pathway that was highly unusual at the time, they built a thriving culture and economy that was organized around the exploitation of marine resources harvested from the sea and from Florida's Charlotte-Harber estuarine system, reaching the peak of their sophistication and societal development between the 9th and 15th centuries AD. The Colusa built a series of settlements that provided homes for as many as 5,000 to 10,000 people, which made them the most populous indigenous group living in pre-Columbian Florida. They built an extensive network of canals that connected their various settlements in the area around the Charlotte-Harber estuarine system, the outlines of which are still visible in many places. Ingeniously engineered water courts fueled Florida's Colusa kingdom. The Colusa people, a lost tribe of Florida that early explorers wrote home about. Like many ancient indigenous people in the Americas, the Colusa ultimately did not survive their encounters with the Spanish, and by the 18th century disease and assimilation had essentially wiped out their culture. But up until their disastrous contact with Europeans, they were a dominant force in their region, and it was their creative and relentless approach to using the marine resources surrounding them that allowed them to thrive. Mount Key Island, which is located in the Estero Bay just south of the city of Fort Myers, is a true engineering marvel and a testament to the ingenuity of the Colusa people. This 126 acre, 51 hectare, island is entirely man-made, having been created by the Colusa through the systematic deposit of shells, fish bones, rocks, and other recycled materials over the course of many centuries. Once the Colusa had built the island to rise well above sea level, they built a settlement there, turning it into their political capital and ceremonial center. It was also on Mount Key Island that they apparently perfected the art of large-scale burfish harvesting, as the recent discoveries there reveals. The Colusa were known for the mass harvesting and mass consumption of many different species of fish and shellfish. But when archaeologists began to uncover vast collections of the buried remains of burfish, this was considered a major surprise, as these toxic creatures could not be eaten, solving the Colusa burfish mystery. On Mount Key Island, the Colusa constructed a complex settlement interspersed with canals, causeways, burial mounds, refuse mounds, and small blocked off reservoirs known as water courts, help them direct and control the movements of the fish and other sea creatures. Then and now burfish were common in the brackish waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and the Colusa would have had no difficulty collecting them. But unlike the captains of modern fishing boats, the Colusa didn't throw these toxic fish back into the sea. They collected as many burfish as they could instead, using them for something. But what was that something? This is not an easy question to answer. While the global ethnographic record contains references to conspicuous uses of burfishes, like the Melanesian war helmets, such highly visible uses would have likely been included in Spanish descriptions of the Colusa, but none have been identified to date Isabelle Holland-Lulwex noted in her study. She wrote that other researchers have suggested use of spines for bloodletting practices, though they could have also been used in tattoo kits, as arrow or spear points, or for any number of other uses. The Colusa could have utilized the properties of the tetrodotoxin in medicinal, ritual, or even military contexts, but again evidence for such use has not been identified. Holland-Lulwex proposes that the Colusa used these fish for the mass production of some kind of non-food product, made from some combination of the fish's sharp exterior spines, skins, bones, and innards. This product could have been used for construction, or ceremonial purposes, or for making some type of collectible. As of now the actual reason why the Colusa coveted the burfish remains a mystery, but it is a mystery that should eventually be solved, once the experts have had more time to examine the context within which the remains of these fish were found, to determine how their body parts might have been integrated into Colusa economic and cultural practices. Source - Atlantic Oceanographic Meteorological Laboratory / Public Domain by Nathan Folt