Hispaniola
An Arawak/Taíno home consisted of a circular building with woven straw and palm leaves as covering. Most individuals slept in fashioned hammocks, but grass beds were also used. The cacique lived in a different structure with larger rectangular walls and a porch. The Taíno village also had a flat court used for ball games and festivals. Religiously, the Arawak/Taíno people were polytheists, and their gods were called zemí. Religious worship and dancing were common, and medicine men or priests also consulted the zemí for advise in public ceremonies. For food, the Arawak/Taíno relied on meat and fish as a primary source for protein; some small mammals on the island were hunted such as rats, but ducks, turtles, snakes, and bats as a common food source. The Taíno also relied on agriculture as a primary food source. The indigenous people of Hispaniola raised crops in a conuco, which is a large mound packed with leaves and fixed crops to prevent erosion. Some common agricultural goods were cassava, maize, squash, beans, peppers, peanuts, cotton, and tobacco, which was used as an aspect of social life and religious ceremonies.
Indigenous people of the Everglades region
The first contact with Spanish explorers occurred in 1513 when Juan Ponce de León stopped at a bay he called "Chequescha", or Biscayne Bay. Finding the Tequesta unwelcoming, he left to make contact with the Calusa. Menéndez met the Tequesta in 1565 and maintained a friendly relationship with them, building some houses and setting up a mission. He also took the chief's nephew to Havana to be educated, and the chief's brother to Spain. After Menéndez visited, there are few records of the Tequesta: a reference to them in 1673, and further Spanish contact to convert them. The last reference to the Tequesta during their existence was written in 1743 by a Spanish priest named Father Alaña, who described their ongoing assault by another tribe. The survivors numbered only 30, and the Spanish transported them to Havana. In 1770 a British surveyor described multiple deserted villages in the region where the Tequesta had lived. Archeologist John Goggin suggested that by the time European Americans settled the area in 1820, any remaining Tequesta were assimilated into the Seminole people. Common descriptions of Native Americans in Florida by 1820 identified only the "Seminoles".