Chief Tomokie Statue

The Invincible Chief Tomokie -
This 45-foot-high sculpture depicts the legendary Timucuan Indian chief and usurper of the sacred drink cup, who couldn't be stopped until lovely maiden Oleeta took aim.

The 1957 statue by artist Fred Dana Marsh, has not been well maintained and is slowly crumbling. It is situated in the Tomoka State Park in Ormond Beach, Florida. Go and see it before it is reduced by nature to a pile of rubble.

In June, 1995, The Orlando Sentinel published this article entitled - CHIEF TOMOKIE STATUE PORTRAYS MYTH, NOT MAN:

It's hard to imagine a more noble monument to the Timucua natives of the Volusia area than the stately Chief Tomokie sculpture in Tomoka State Park. Here, the stone chief stands majestic, reaching toward the sky, surrounded by a bevy of bow-wielding Timucua braves and Oleeta, the delicate princess. Surely, as evocative as it is, the scene must typify the lifestyles of the Timucua who once lived here.
But it doesn't. The sculpture in all of its folksy grandeur characterizes little of the habits and customs of Volusia's first people.

Yet in deference to its creator, the late Fred Dana Marsh, the Tomokie statue probably never was intended to be true to history. It is just that many of its viewers have interpreted it to be historically right. Marsh's work was designed after a little-known fictional account of a fierce Indian chief and the Princess Oleeta. Both are mythical characters, contrary to popular belief. The romantic story is but one in a long series of fanciful tales and mistruths that surround the Timucua.

First, there was no Chief Tomokie. And, for the record, there were no Tomoka Indians, despite some well entrenched local folklore. The word Tomoka is a corruption of Timucua, the name of the indigenous peoples of Northeast Florida. Spanish and French explorers, early on having trouble pronouncing Native American words, concocted the misnomer.

But what better leader to preside over the mythical Tomoka tribe than the fictional Chief Tomokie?. History tells us that there were many powerful Timucua chiefs, like Outina and Saturiba, who were, in their own right, worthy of literary account. But Tomokie wasn't one of them.

It was probably Marsh's bigger-than-life creation of Tomokie and his followers that more recently fueled the centuries-old legend of 7-foot-tall Timucua warriors who reigned superior to their Old World counterparts.

This tall tale is nothing more than an exaggeration of Native American stature by diminutive Spanish explorers. Accounts of the New World life by early European discoverers and artists were often embellished for Old World audiences, who were captivated by the Americas and its strange native people.


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