The People lived beside the inlet. They lived well; the waters were bountiful and the forest teemed with game. They decorated their bodies with soot and feathers and bead necklaces made from the vertebrae of fish. Lacking stone, they made tools from seashells. From oysters, horse conchs and lightning whelks they made scrapers and projectile points, ladles, awls and spoons. They fastened shells to sticks, to make axes, picks and hammers. From the biggest shells they took the heavy spines, the columellae. These they fashioned into chisels, “pounders,” to crack open clams and turtle shells.
They lived this way for countless generations, trading with some clans, skirmishing with others. Then one day a messenger brought word of a strange new enemy; a tribe of bearded men, their skins pale as the inside of an oyster. They bore sticks of fire, and were obsessed with gold.
When the strangers finally came, the chief greeted them warmly.
“We, as you can plainly see, are exceedingly poor,” he said. “But our neighbors, far to the north (a treacherous lot, rumored to hold both you and your sovereign in very low esteem) are always bragging about their gold, which, regretably, they refuse to share with us.”
“But, you look hungry -would you care for some seaweed?”
As they rowed back to their ship, the Spaniards looked around in disgust. There was nothing here, nothing but mangroves, naked savages and sea-cockroaches, their name for horseshoe crabs. Henceforth, their maps would refer to the inlet as Cockroach Bay.
-walkin' tree
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