The Icafui (also Ycafui, Icafi, Ycafi) people were a Timucua people of southeastern Georgia,[1] who were closely related if not synonymous with the Cascangue people.[2][3] Exceptionally little is known about the Icafui, other than their general location and the fact that they spoke a dialect of Timucua called "Itafi" along with the Ibi.[4]
 A map of the Timucua chiefdoms of mainland southeast Georgia, including the Icafui (orange). | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| Extinct as tribe | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Southeastern inland Georgia | |
| Languages | |
| Timucua language, Itafi dialect | |
| Religion | |
| Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Timucua |
The Icafui are described living on the mainland east of the Ibi, Yufera, and Oconi, which would correspond to a homeland on or not far inland from the Georgia coast between the mouths of the Satilla and Altamaha Rivers.[5][6] This region is associated with Savannah-culture artifacts.[5] Deagan specifically narrows this range to the mainland opposite to Jekyll Island, with a northern boundary in the vicinity of the Turtle River.[3]
The villages of Xatalano, Heabono, Aytire, Lamale, Acahono, Tahupa, Punhuri, Talax, Panara, Utayne, and Huara[5] are named as settlements "of the pine forests of the interior lands who are subjects of Doña Maria (of Tacatacuru on Cumberland Island)"[3] which may have been affiliated with the Icafui, but could also have been Mocama.[5]
During the Spanish colonial period, the Icafui did not receive a mission of their own, but interacted with Mocama missions such as San Pedro de Mocama.[2] The tribe is not mentioned post 1604, and was likely destroyed or displaced by the Yamasee in the early 17th century.[3]
References
edit- ^ Jerald T. Milanich, The Timucua (1996; repr., Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1999), 49.
- ^ a b John E Worth, The Timucuan Chiefdoms of Spanish Florida: Assimilation, vol. 1 (University Press of Florida, 1998), 58–60.
- ^ a b c d Kathleen A. Deegan, “Cultures in Transition: Fusion and Assimilation among the Eastern Timucua,” in Tacachale (University Press of Florida, 2017), 97–98.
- ^ Julian Granberry, A Grammar and Dictionary of the Timucua Language, 3rd ed. (University of Alabama Press, 1993), 7.
- ^ a b c d Jerald T. Milanich, “‘A Very Great Harvest of Souls’: Timucua Indians and the Impact of European Colonization,” in Anthropology, History, and American Indians: Essays in Honor of William Curtis Sturtevant (Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002), 116.
- ^ John H. Hann, A History of the Timucua Indians and Missions (University Press of Florida, 1996), 11.