| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII | HTML | PDF ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: The Seminole Indians of Florida - Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the - Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1883-84, - Government Printing Office, Washington, 1887, pages 469-532
Author: MacCauley, Clay, 1843-1925
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Seminole Indians of Florida - Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the - Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1883-84, - Government Printing Office, Washington, 1887, pages 469-532" ***
by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at
http://gallica.bnf.fr
* * * * *
Smithsonian Institution--Bureau of Ethnology.
THE SEMINOLE INDIANS OF FLORIDA.
by
CLAY MacCAULEY.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
Page.
Letter of transmittal 475
Introduction 477
CHAPTER I.
Personal characteristics 481
Physical characteristics 481
Physique of the men 481
Physique of the women 482
Clothing 482
Costume of the men 483
Costume of the women 485
Personal adornment 486
Hairdressing 466
Use of beads 487
Silver disks 488
Ear rings 488
Finger rings 489
Silver vs. gold 489
Crescents 489
Me-le 489
Psychical characteristics 490
Ko-nip-ha-tco 492
Intellectual ability 493
CHAPTER II.
Seminole society 495
The Seminole family 495
Courtship 496
Marriage 496
Divorce 498
Childbirth 497
Infancy 497
Childhood 498
Seminole dwellings--
I-ful-lo-ha-tco’s house 499
Home life 503
Food 504
Camp fire 505
Manner of eating 505
Amusements 506
The Seminole gens 507
Fellowhood 508
The Seminole tribe 508
Tribal organization 508
Seat of government 508
Tribal officers 509
Name of tribe 509
CHAPTER III.
Seminole tribal life 510
Industries 510
Agriculture 510
Soil 510
Corn 510
Sugar cane 511
Hunting 512
Fishing 513
Stock raising 513
Koonti 513
Industrial statistics 516
Arts 516
Industrial arts 516
Utensils and implements 516
Weapons 516
Weaving and basket making 517
Uses of the palmetto 517
Mortar and pestle 517
Canoe making 517
Fire making 518
Preparation of skins 518
Ornamental arts 518
Music 519
Religion 519
Mortuary customs 520
Green Corn Dance 522
Use of Medicines 523
General observations 523
Standard of value 523
Divisions of time 524
Numeration 525
Sense of color 525
Education 526
Slavery 526
Health 526
CHAPTER IV.
Environment of the Seminole 527
Nature 527
Man 529
ILLUSTRATIONS
Plate XIX. Seminole dwelling 500
Fig. 60. Map of Florida 477
61. Seminole costume 483
62. Key West Billy 484
63. Seminole costume 485
64. Manner of wearing the hair 486
65. Manner of piercing the ear 488
66. Baby cradle or hammock 497
67. Temporary dwelling 502
68. Sugar cane crusher 511
69. Koonti log 514
70. Koonti pestles 514
71. Koonti mash vessel 514
72. Koonti strainer 515
73. Mortar and pestle 517
74. Hide stretcher 518
75. Seminole bier 510
76. Seminole grave 521
77. Green Corn Dance 523
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
Minneapolis, Minn., _June_ 24,1884.
SIR: During the winter of 1880-’81 I visited Florida, commissioned by
you to inquire into the condition and to ascertain the number of the
Indians commonly known as the Seminole then in that State. I spent part
of the months of January, February, and March in an endeavor to
accomplish this purpose. I have the honor to embody the result of my
work in the following report.
On account of causes beyond my control the paper does not treat of these
Indians as fully as I had intended it should. Owing to the ignorance
prevailing even in Florida of the locations of the homes of the Seminole
and also to the absence of routes of travel in Southern Florida, much
of my time at first was consumed in reaching the Indian country. On
arriving there, I found myself obliged to go among the Indians ignorant
of their language and without an interpreter able to secure me
intelligible interviews with them except in respect to the commonest
things. I was compelled, therefore, to rely upon observation and upon
very simple, perhaps sometimes misunderstood, speech for what I have
here placed on record. But while the report is only a sketch of a
subject that would well reward thorough study, it may be found to
possess value as a record of facts concerning this little-known remnant
of a once powerful people.
I have secured, I think, a correct census of the Florida Seminole by
name, sex, age, gens, and place of living. I have endeavored to present
a faithful portraiture of their appearance and personal characteristics,
and have enlarged upon their manners and customs, as individuals and as
a society, as much as the material at my command will allow; but under
the disadvantageous circumstances to which allusion has already been
made, I have been able to gain little more than a superficial and
partial knowledge of their social organization, of the elaboration among
them of the system of gentes, of their forms and methods of government,
of their tribal traditions and modes of thinking, of their religious
beliefs and practices, and of many other things manifesting what is
distinctive in the life of a people. For these reasons I submit this
report more as a guide for future investigation than as a completed
result.
At the beginning of my visit I found but one Seminole with whom I could
hold even the semblance of an English conversation. To him I am indebted
for a large part of the material here collected. To him, in particular,
I owe the extensive Seminole vocabulary now in possession of the Bureau
of Ethnology. The knowledge of the Seminole language which I gradually
acquired enabled me, in my intercourse with other Indians, to verify and
increase the information I had received from him.
In conclusion, I hope that, notwithstanding the unfortunate delays which
have occurred in the publication of this report, it will still be found
to add something to our knowledge of this Indian tribe not without value
to those who make man their peculiar study.
Very respectfully,
CLAY MacCAULEY.
Maj. J. W. POWELL,
_Director Bureau of Ethnology._
* * * * *
SEMINOLE INDIANS OF FLORIDA.
By Clay MacCauley.
INTRODUCTION.
[Illustration: Fig. 60. Map of Florida.]
There were in Florida, October 1, 1880, of the Indians commonly known as
Seminole, two hundred and eight. They constituted thirty-seven families,
living in twenty-two camps, which were gathered into five widely
separated groups or settlements. These settlements, from the most
prominent natural features connected with them, I have named, (1) The
Big Cypress Swamp settlement; (2) Miami River settlement; (3) Fish
Eating Creek settlement; (4) Cow Creek settlement; and (5) Cat Fish Lake
settlement. Their locations are, severally: The first, in Monroe County,
in what is called the “Devil’s Garden,” on the northwestern edge of the
Big Cypress Swamp, from fifteen to twenty miles southwest of Lake
Okeechobee; the second, in Dade County, on the Little Miami River, not
far from Biscayne Bay, and about ten miles north of the site of what
was, during the great Seminole war, Fort Dallas; the third, in Manatee
County, on a creek which empties from the west into Lake Okeechobee,
probably five miles from its mouth; the fourth, in Brevard County, on a
stream running southward, at a point about fifteen miles northeast of
the entrance of the Kissimmee River into Lake Okeechobee; and the fifth,
on a small lake in Polk County, lying nearly midway between lakes Pierce
and Rosalie, towards the headwaters of the Kissimmee River. The
settlements are from forty to seventy miles apart, in an otherwise
almost uninhabited region, which is in area about sixty by one hundred
and eighty miles. The camps of which each settlement is composed lie at
distances from one another varying from a half mile to two or more
miles. In tabular form the population of the settlements appears as
follows:
--------------+---+-------------------------------------------------
| | Population.
| +-------------------------------------+------+----
| | Divided according to age and sex. | | T
| C | | | o
| a +-----+-----+-----+-----+-------+-----+Résumé| t
| m |Below| | | | | Over| by | a
Settlements | p | 5 | 5-10|10-15|15-20| 20-60 | 60 | sex. | l
| s | yrs.| yrs.| yrs.| yrs.| yrs. | yrs.| | s
+---+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+----+--+--+---+--+----
|No.|M.|F.|M.|F.|M.|F.|M.|F.|M.| F. |M.|F.| M.|F.|Tot.
--------------+---+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+----+--+--+---+--+----
1. Big Cypress|10 | 4| 5|a2| 2|10| 4| 9| 2|15|b15 | 2| 3| 42|31|73
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
2. Miami River| 5 | 5| 4| 4| 4| 5| 3| 7| 5|10| 13 | 1| 2| 32|31|63
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
3. Fish Eating| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Creek | 4 |a1| 1|--| 2|a2|--| 3| 1|a5|ab10| 4| 3| 15|17|32
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
4. Cow Creek | 1 | 2| 1|--|--| 1|--|--| 1| 4| 3 |--|--| 7| 5|12
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
5. Cat Fish | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Lake | 2 |--| 2| 3| 2| 4| 1| 4| 1|a4|ab5 | 1| 1| 16|12|28
--------------+---+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+----+--+--+---+--+----
Totals {| |12|13| 9|10|22| 8|23|10|38| 46 | 8| 9|112|96|208
{| +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+----+--+--+---+--+----
{|22 | 25 | 19 | 30 | 33 | 84 | 17 | 208 |
--------------+---+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+----+--+--+---+--+----
_a_ One mixed blood.
_b_ One black.
Or, for the whole tribe--
Males under 10 years of age 21
Males between 10 and 20 years of age 45
Males between 20 and 60 years of age 38
Males over 60 years of age 8
-- 112
Females under 10 years of age 23
Females between 10 and 20 years of age 18
Females between 20 and 60 years of age 46
Females over 60 years of age 9
-- 96
---
208
In this table it will be noticed that the total population consists of
112 males and 96 females, an excess of males over females of 16. This
excess appears in each of the settlements, excepting that of Fish Eating
Creek, a fact the more noteworthy, from its relation to the future of
the tribe, since polygamous, or certainly duogamous, marriage generally
prevails as a tribal custom, at least at the Miami River and the Cat
Fish Lake settlements. It will also be observed that between twenty and
sixty years of age, or the ordinary range of married life, there are 38
men and 46 women; or, if the women above fifteen years of age are
included as wives for the men over twenty years of age, there are 38 men
and 56 women. Now, almost all these 56 women are the wives of the 38
men. Notice, however, the manner in which the children of these people
are separated in sex. At present there are, under twenty years of age,
66 boys, and, under fifteen years of age, but 31 girls; or, setting
aside the 12 boys who are under five years of age, there are, as future
possible husbands and wives, 54 boys between five and twenty years of
age and 31 girls under fifteen years of age--an excess of 23 boys. For a
polygamous society, this excess in the number of the male sex certainly
presents a puzzling problem. The statement I had from some cattlemen in
mid-Florida I have thus found true, namely, that the Seminole are
producing more men than women. What bearing this peculiarity will have
upon the future of these Indians can only be guessed at. It is beyond
question, however, that the tribe is increasing in numbers, and
increasing in the manner above described.
There is no reason why the tribe should not increase, and increase
rapidly, if the growth in numbers be not checked by the non-birth of
females. The Seminole have not been at war for more than twenty years.
Their numbers are not affected by the attacks of wild animals or noxious
reptiles. They are not subject to devastating diseases. But once during
the last twenty years, as far as I could learn, has anything like an
epidemic afflicted them. Besides, at all the settlements except the
northernmost, the one at Cat Fish Lake, there is an abundance of food,
both animal and vegetable, easily obtained and easily prepared for
eating. The climate in which these Indians live is warm and equable
throughout the year. They consequently do not need much clothing or
shelter. They are not what would be called intemperate, nor are they
licentious. The “sprees” in which they indulge when they make their
visits to the white man’s settlements are too infrequent to warrant us
in classing them as intemperate. Their sexual morality is a matter of
common notoriety. The white half-breed does not exist among the Florida
Seminole, and nowhere could I learn that the Seminole woman is other
than virtuous and modest. The birth of a white half-breed would be
followed by the death of the Indian mother at the hands of her own
people. The only persons of mixed breed among them are children of
Indian fathers by negresses who have been adopted into the tribe. Thus
health, climate, food, and personal habits apparently conduce to an
increase in numbers. The only explanation I can suggest of the fact that
there are at present but 208 Seminole in Florida is that at the close of
the last war which the United States Government waged on these Indians
there were by no means so many of them left in the State as is popularly
supposed. As it is, there are now but 17 persons of the tribe over sixty
years of age, and no unusual mortality has occurred, certainly among the
adults, during the last twenty years. Of the 84 persons between twenty
and sixty years of age, the larger number are less than forty years old;
and under twenty years of age there are 107 persons, or more than half
the whole population. The population tables of the Florida Indians
present, therefore, some facts upon which it may be interesting to
speculate.
CHAPTER I.
Personal Characteristics.
It will be convenient for me to describe the Florida Seminole as they
present themselves, first as individuals, and next as members of a
society. I know it is impossible to separate, really, the individual as
such from the individual as a member of society; nevertheless, there is
the man as we see him, having certain characteristics which, we call
personal, or his own, whencesoever derived, having a certain physique
and certain, distinguishing psychical qualities. As such I will first
attempt to describe the Seminole. Then we shall be able the better to
look at him as he is in his relations with his fellows: in the family,
in the community, or in any of the forms of the social life of his
tribe.
Physical Characteristics.
Physique of the Men.
Physically both men and women are remarkable. The men, as a rule,
attract attention by their height, fullness and symmetry of development,
and the regularity and agreeableness of their features. In muscular
power and constitutional ability to endure they excel. While these
qualities distinguish, with a few exceptions, the men of the whole
tribe, they are particularly characteristic of the two most widely
spread of the families of which the tribe is composed. These are the
Tiger and Otter clans, which, proud of their lines of descent, have been
preserved through a long and tragic past with exceptional freedom from
admixture with degrading blood. Today their men might be taken as types
of physical excellence. The physique of every Tiger warrior especially I
met would furnish proof of this statement. The Tigers are dark,
copper-colored fellows, over six feet in height, with limbs in good
proportion; their hands and feet well shaped and not very large; their
stature erect; their bearing a sign of self-confident power; their
movements deliberate, persistent, strong. Their heads are large, and
their foreheads full and marked. An almost universal characteristic of
the Tiger’s face is its squareness, a widened and protruding
under-jawbone giving this effect to it. Of other features, I noticed
that under a large forehead are deep set, bright, black eyes, small, but
expressive of inquiry and vigilance; the nose is slightly aquiline and
sensitively formed about the nostrils; the lips are mobile, sensuous,
and not very full, disclosing, when they smile, beautiful regular teeth;
and the whole face is expressive of the man’s sense of having
extraordinary ability to endure and to achieve. Two of the warriors
permitted me to manipulate the muscles of their bodies. Under my touch
these were more like rubber than flesh. Noticeable among all are the
large calves of their legs, the size of the tendons of their lower
limbs, and the strength of their toes. I attribute this exceptional
development to the fact that they are not what we would call “horse
Indians” and that they hunt barefoot over their wide domain. The same
causes, perhaps, account for the only real deformity I noticed in the
Seminole physique, namely, the diminutive toe-nails, and for the heavy,
cracked, and seamed skin which covers the soles of their feet. The feet
being otherwise well formed, the toes have only narrow shells for nails,
these lying sunken across the middles of the tough cushions of flesh,
which, protuberant about them, form the toe-tips. But, regarded as a
whole, in their physique the Seminole warriors, especially the men of
the Tiger and Otter gentes, are admirable. Even among the children this
physical superiority is seen. To illustrate, one morning Ko-i-ha-tco’s
son, Tin-fai-yai-ki, a tall, slender boy, not quite twelve years old,
shouldered a heavy “Kentucky” rifle, left our camp, and followed in his
father’s long footsteps for a day’s hunt. After tramping all day, at
sunset he reappeared in the camp, carrying slung across his shoulders,
in addition to rifle and accouterments, a deer weighing perhaps fifty
pounds, a weight he had borne for miles. The same boy, in one day, went
with some older friends to his permanent home, 20 miles away, and
returned. There are, as I have said, exceptions to this rule of unusual
physical size and strength, but these are few; so few that, disregarding
them, we may pronounce the Seminole men handsome and exceptionally
powerful.
Physique of the Women.
The women to a large extent share the qualities of the men. Some are
proportionally tall and handsome, though, curiously enough, many,
perhaps a majority, are rather under than over the average height of
women. As a rule, they exhibit great bodily vigor. Large or small, they
possess regular and agreeable features, shapely and well developed
bodies, and they show themselves capable of long continued and severe
physical exertion. Indeed, the only Indian women I have seen with
attractive features and forms are among the Seminole. I would even
venture to select from among these Indians three persons whom I could,
without much fear of contradiction, present as types respectively of a
handsome, a pretty, and a comely woman. Among American Indians, I am
confident that the Seminole women are of the first rank.
Clothing.
But how is this people clothed? While the clothing of the Seminole is
simple and scanty, it is ample for his needs and suitable to the life he
leads. The materials of which the clothing is made are now chiefly
fabrics manufactured by the white man: calico, cotton cloth, ginghams,
and sometimes flannels. They also use some materials prepared by
themselves, as deer and other skins. Of ready made articles for wear
found in the white trader’s store, they buy small woolen shawls,
brilliantly colored cotton handkerchiefs, now and then light woolen
blankets, and sometimes, lately, though very seldom, shoes.
[Illustration: Fig. 61. Seminole costume.]
Costume of the Men.
The costume of the Seminole warrior at home consists of a shirt, a
neckerchief, a turban, a breech cloth, and, very rarely, moccasins.
On but one Indian in camp did I see more than this; on many, less. The
shirt is made of some figured or striped cotton cloth, generally of
quiet colors. It hangs from the neck to the knees, the narrow, rolling
collar being closely buttoned about the neck, the narrow wristbands of
the roomy sleeves buttoned about the wrists. The garment opens in front
for a few inches, downward from the collar, and is pocketless. A belt of
leather or buckskin usually engirdles the man’s waist, and from it are
suspended one or more pouches, in which powder, bullets, pocket knife,
a piece of flint, a small quantity of paper, and like things for use in
hunting are carried. From the belt hang also one or more hunting knives,
each nearly 10 inches in length. I questioned one of the Indians about
having no pockets in his shirt, pointing out to him the wealth in this
respect of the white man’s garments, and tried to show him how, on his
shirt, as on mine, these convenient receptacles could be placed, and to
what straits he was put to carry his pipe, money, and trinkets. He
showed little interest in my proposed improvement on his dress.
Having no pockets, the Seminole is obliged to submit to several
inconveniences; for instance, he wears his handkerchief about his neck.
I have seen as many as six, even eight, handkerchiefs tied around his
throat, their knotted ends pendant over his breast; as a rule, they are
bright red and yellow things, of whose possession and number he is quite
proud. Having no pockets, the Seminole, only here and there, one
excepted, carries whatever money he obtains from time to time in a
knotted corner of one or more of his handkerchiefs.
The next article of the man’s ordinary costume is the turban. This
is a remarkable structure and gives to its wearer much of his unique
appearance. At present it is made of one or more small shawls. These
shawls are generally woolen and copied in figure and color from the
plaid of some Scotch clan. They are so folded that they are about 3
inches wide and as long as the diagonal of the fabric. They are then,
one or more of them successively, wrapped tightly around the head, the
top of the head remaining bare; the last end of the last shawl is tucked
skillfully and firmly away, without the use of pins, somewhere in the
many folds of the turban. The structure when finished looks like a
section of a decorated cylinder crowded down upon the man’s head. I
examined one of these turbans and found it a rather firm piece of work,
made of several shawls wound into seven concentric rings. It was over 20
inches in diameter, the shell of the cylinder being perhaps 7 inches
thick and 3 in width. This head-dress, at the southern settlements, is
regularly worn in the camps and sometimes on the hunt. While hunting,
however, it seems to be the general custom, for the warriors to go
bareheaded. At the northern camps, a kerchief bound about the head
frequently takes the place of the turban in everyday life, but on
dress or festival occasions, at both the northern and the southern
settlements, this curious turban is the customary covering for the head
of the Seminole brave. Having no pockets in his dress, he has discovered
that the folds of his turban may be put to a pocket’s uses. Those who
use tobacco (I say “those” because the tobacco habit is by no means
universal among the red men of Florida) frequently carry their pipes and
other articles in their turbans.
[Illustration: Fig. 62. Key West Billy.]
When the Seminole warrior makes his rare visits to the white man’s
settlements, he frequently adds to his scanty camp dress leggins and
moccasins.
In the camps I saw but one Indian wearing leggins (Fig. 62); he,
however, is in every way a peculiar character among his people, and is
objectionably favorable to the white man and the white man’s ways. He
is called by the white men “Key West Billy,” having received this name
because he once made a voyage in a canoe out of the Everglades and along
the line of keys south of the Florida mainland to Key West, where he
remained for some time. The act itself was so extraordinary, and it was
so unusual for a Seminole to enter a white man’s town and remain there
for any length of time, that a commemorative name was bestowed upon him.
The materials of which the leggins of the Seminole are usually made is
buckskin. I saw, however, one pair of leggins made of a bright red
flannel, and ornamented along the outer seams with a blue and white
cross striped braid. The moccasins, also, are made of buckskin, of
either a yellow or dark red color. They are made to lace high about the
lower part of the leg, the lacing running from below the instep upward.
As showing what changes are going on among the Seminole, I may mention
that a few of them possess shoes, and one is even the owner of a pair
of frontier store boots. The blanket is not often worn by the Florida
Indians. Occasionally, in their cool weather, a small shawl, of the kind
made to do service in the turban, is thrown about the shoulders. Oftener
a piece of calico or white cotton cloth, gathered about the neck,
becomes the extra protection against mild coolness in their winters.
[Illustration: Fig. 63. Seminole costume.]
Costume of the Women.
The costume of the women is hardly more complex than that of the men. It
consists, apparently, of but two garments, one of which, for lack of a
better English word, I name a short shirt, the other a long skirt. The
shirt is cut quite low at the neck and is just long enough to cover the
breasts. Its sleeves are buttoned close about the wrists. The garment is
otherwise buttonless, being wide enough at the neck for it to be easily
put on or taken off over the head. The conservatism of the Seminole
Indian is shown in nothing more clearly than in the use, by the women,
of this much abbreviated covering for the upper part of their bodies.
The women are noticeably modest, yet it does not seem to have occurred
to them that by making a slight change in their upper garment they might
free themselves from frequent embarrassment. In going about their work
they were constantly engaged in what our street boys would call “pulling
down their vests.” This may have been done because a stranger’s eyes
were upon them; but I noticed that in rising or in sitting down, or at
work, it was a perpetually renewed effort on their part to lengthen by a
pull the scanty covering hanging over their breasts. Gathered about the
waist is the other garment, the skirt, extending to the feet and often
touching the ground. This is usually made of some dark colored calico or
gingham. The cord by which the petticoat is fastened is often drawn so
tightly about the waist that it gives to that part of the body a rather
uncomfortable appearance. This is especially noticeable because the
shirt is so short that a space of two or more inches on the body is left
uncovered between it and the skirt. I saw no woman wearing moccasins,
and I was told that the women never wear them. For head wear the women
have nothing, unless the cotton cloth, or small shawl, used about the
shoulders in cool weather, and which at times is thrown or drawn over
the head, may be called that. (Fig. 63.)
Girls from seven to ten years old are clothed with only a petticoat
and boys about the same age wear only a shirt. Younger children are,
as a rule, entirely naked. If clothed at anytime, it is only during
exceptionally cool weather or when taken by their parents on a journey
to the homes of the palefaces.
Personal Adornment.
The love of personal adornment shows itself among the Seminole as among
other human beings.
[Illustration: Fig. 64. Manner of wearing the hair.]
Hair Dressing.
The coarse, brilliant, black hair of which they are possessors is taken
care of in an odd manner. The men cut all their hair close to the head,
except a strip about an inch wide, running over the front of the scalp
from temple to temple, and another strip, of about the same width,
perpendicular to the former, crossing the crown of the head to the nape
of the neck. At each temple a heavy tuft is allowed to hang to the
bottom of the lobe of the ear. The long hair of the strip crossing to
the neck is generally gathered and braided into two ornamental queues.
I did not learn that these Indians are in the habit of plucking the hair
from their faces. I noticed, however, that the moustache is commonly
worn among them and that a few of them are endowed with a rather bold
looking combination of moustache and imperial. As an exception to the
uniform style of cutting the hair of the men, I recall the comical
appearance of a small negro half breed at the Big Cypress Swamp. His
brilliant wool was twisted into many little sharp cones, which stuck out
over his head like so many spikes on an ancient battle club. For some
reason there seems to be a much greater neglect of the care of the hair,
and, indeed, of the whole person, in the northern than in the southern
camps.
The women dress their hair more simply than the men. From a line
crossing the head from ear to ear the hair is gathered up and bound,
just above the neck, into a knot somewhat like that often made by the
civilized woman, the Indian woman’s hair being wrought more into the
shape of a cone, sometimes quite elongated and sharp at the apex. A
piece of bright ribbon is commonly used at the end as a finish to the
structure. The front hair hangs down over the forehead and along the
cheeks in front of the ears, being what we call “banged.” The only
exception to this style of hair dressing I saw was the manner in which
Ci-ha-ne, a negress, had disposed of her long crisp tresses. Hers was
a veritable Medusa head. A score or more of dangling, snaky plaits,
hanging down over her black face and shoulders gave her a most repulsive
appearance. Among the little Indian girls the hair is simply braided
into a queue and tied with a ribbon, as we often see the hair upon the
heads of our school children.
Ornamentation Of Clothing.
The clothing of both men and women is ordinarily more or less
ornamented. Braids and strips of cloth of various colors are used and
wrought upon the garments into odd and sometimes quite tasteful shapes.
The upper parts of the shirts of the women are usually embroidered with
yellow, red, and brown braids. Sometimes as many as five of these braids
lie side by side, parallel with the upper edge of the garment or
dropping into a sharp angle between the shoulders. Occasionally a very
narrow cape, attached, I think, to the shirt, and much ornamented with
braids or stripes, hangs just over the shoulders and back. The same
kinds of material used for ornamenting the shirt are also used in
decorating the skirt above the lower edge of the petticoat. The women
embroider along this edge, with their braids and the narrow colored
stripes, a border of diamond and square shaped figures, which is often
an elaborate decoration to the dress. In like manner many of the shirts
of the men are made pleasing to the eye. I saw no ornamentation in
curves: it was always in straight lines and angles.
Use Of Beads.
My attention was called to the remarkable use of beads among these
Indian women, young and old. It seems to be the ambition of the Seminole
squaws to gather about their necks as many strings of beads as can be
hung there and as they can carry. They are particular as to the quality
of the beads they wear. They are satisfied with nothing meaner than a
cut glass bead, about a quarter of an inch or more in length, generally
of some shade of blue, and costing (so I was told by a trader at Miami)
$1.75 a pound. Sometimes, but not often, one sees beads of an inferior
quality worn.
These beads must be burdensome to their wearers. In the Big Cypress
Swamp settlement one day, to gratify my curiosity as to how many strings
of beads these women can wear, I tried to count those worn by “Young
Tiger Tail’s” wife, number one, Mo-ki, who had come through the
Everglades to visit her relatives. She was the proud wearer of certainly
not fewer than two hundred strings of good sized beads. She had six
quarts (probably a peck of the beads) gathered about her neck, hanging
down her back, down upon her breasts, filling the space under her chin,
and covering her neck up to her ears. It was an effort for her to move
her head. She, however, was only a little, if any, better off in her
possessions than most of the others. Others were about equally burdened.
Even girl babies are favored by their proud mammas with a varying
quantity of the coveted neck wear. The cumbersome beads are said to be
worn by night as well as by day.
Silver Disks.
Conspicuous among the other ornaments worn by women are silver disks,
suspended in a curve across the shirt fronts, under and below the beads.
As many as ten or more are worn by one woman. These disks are made by
men, who may be called “jewelers to the tribe,” from silver quarters and
half dollars. The pieces of money are pounded quite thin, made concave,
pierced with holes, and ornamented by a groove lying just inside the
circumference. Large disks made from half dollars may be called “breast
shields.” They are suspended, one over each breast. Among the disks
other ornaments are often suspended. One young woman I noticed
gratifying her vanity with not only eight disks made of silver quarters,
but also with three polished copper rifle shells, one bright brass
thimble, and a buckle hanging among them. Of course the possession of
these and like treasures depends upon the ability and desire of one and
another to secure them.
[Illustration: Fig. 65. Manner of piercing the ear.]
Ear Rings.
Ear rings are not generally worn by the Seminole. Those worn are usually
made of silver and are of home manufacture. The ears of most of the
Indians, however, appear to be pierced, and, as a rule, the ears of the
women are pierced many times; for what purpose I did not discover. Along
and in the upper edges of the ears of the women from one to ten or more
small holes have been made. In most of these holes I noticed bits of
palmetto wood, about a fifth of an inch in length and in diameter the
size of a large pin. Seemingly they were not placed there to remain only
while the puncture was healing. (Fig. 65.)
Piercing the ears excepted, the Florida Indians do not now mutilate
their bodies for beauty’s sake. They no longer pierce the lips or the
nose; nor do they use paint upon their persons, I am told, except at
their great annual festival, the Green Corn Dance, and upon the faces of
their dead.
Finger Rings.
Nor is the wearing of finger rings more common than that of rings for
the ears. The finger rings I saw were all made of silver and showed good
workmanship. Most of them were made with large elliptical tablets on
them, extending from knuckle to knuckle. These also were home-made.
Silver vs. Gold.
I saw no gold ornaments. Gold, even gold money, does not seem to be
considered of much value by the Seminole. He is a monometalist, and his
precious metal is silver. I was told by a cattle dealer of an Indian who
once gave him a twenty dollar gold piece for $17 in silver, although
assured that the gold piece was worth more than the silver, and in my
own intercourse with the Seminole I found them to manifest, with few
exceptions, a decided preference for silver. I was told that the
Seminole are peculiar in wishing to possess nothing that is not genuine
of its apparent kind. Traders told me that, so far as the Indians know,
they will buy of them only what is the best either of food or of
material for wear or ornament.
Crescents, Wristlets, and Belts.
The ornaments worn by the men which are most worthy of attention are
crescents, varying in size and value. These are generally about five
inches long, an inch in width at the widest part, and of the thickness
of ordinary tin. These articles are also made from silver coins and are
of home manufacture. They are worn suspended from the neck by cords,
in the cusps of the crescents, one below another, at distances apart of
perhaps two and a half inches. Silver wristlets are used by the men for
their adornment. They are fastened about the wrists by cords or thongs
passing through holes in the ends of the metal. Belts, and turbans too,
are often ornamented with fanciful devices wrought out of silver. It is
not customary for the Indian men to wear these ornaments in everyday
camp life. They appear with them on a festival occasion or when they
visit some trading post.
Me-Le.
A sketch made by Lieutenant Brown, of Saint Francis Barracks, Saint
Augustine, Florida, who accompanied me on my trip to the Cat Fish Lake
settlement, enables me to show, in gala dress, Me-le, a half breed
Seminole, the son of an Indian, Ho-laq-to-mik-ko, by a negress adopted
into the tribe when a child.
[Transcriber’s Note:
The picture described does not appear in the printed text, and is not
included in the List of Illustrations.]
Me-le sat for his picture in my room at a hotel in Orlando. He had just
come seventy miles from his home, at Cat Fish Lake, to see the white man
and a white man’s town. He was clothed “in his best,” and, moreover, had
just purchased and was wearing a pair of store boots in addition to his
home-made finery. He was the owner of the one pair of red flannel
leggins of which I have spoken. These were not long enough to cover the
brown skin of his sturdy thighs. His ornaments were silver crescents,
wristlets, a silver studded belt, and a peculiar battlement-like band of
silver on the edge of his turban. Notice his uncropped head of
luxuriant, curly hair, the only exception I observed to the singular cut
of hair peculiar to the Seminole men. Me-le, however, is in many other
more important respects an exceptional character. He is not at all in
favor with the Seminole of pure blood. “Me-le ho-lo-wa kis” (Me-le is
of no account) was the judgment passed upon him to me by some of the
Indians. Why? Because he likes the white man and would live the white
man’s life if he knew how to break away safely from his tribe. He has
been progressive enough to build for himself a frame house, inclosed on
all sides and entered by a door. More than that, he is not satisfied
with the hunting habits and the simple agriculture of his people, nor
with their ways of doing other things. He has started an orange grove,
and in a short time will have a hundred trees, so he says, bearing
fruit. He has bought and uses a sewing machine, and he was intelligent
enough, so the report goes, when the machine had been taken to pieces in
his presence, to put it together again without mistake. He once called
off for me from a newspaper the names of the letters of our alphabet,
and legibly wrote his English name, “John Willis Mik-ko.” Mik-ko has a
restless, inquisitive mind, and deserves the notice and care of those
who are interested in the progress of this people. Seeking him one day
at Orlando, I found him busily studying the locomotive engine of the
little road which had been pushed out into that part of the frontier
of Florida’s civilized population. Next morning he was at the station
to see the train depart, and told me he would like to go with me to
Jacksonville. He is the only Florida Seminole, I believe, who had at
that time seen a railway.
Psychical Characteristics.
I shall now glance at what may more properly be called the psychical
characteristics of the Florida Indians. I have been led to the
conclusion that for Indians they have attained a relatively high degree
of psychical development. They are an uncivilized, I hardly like to call
them a savage, people. They are antagonistic to white men, as a race,
and to the white man’s culture, but they have characteristics of their
own, many of which are commendable. They are decided in their enmity to
any representative of the white man’s government and to everything which
bears upon it the government’s mark. To one, however, who is acquainted
with recent history this enmity is but natural, and a confessed
representative of the government need not be surprised at finding in the
Seminole only forbidding and unlovely qualities. But when suspicion is
disarmed, one whom they have welcomed to their confidence will find them
evincing characteristics which will excite his admiration and esteem.
I was fortunate enough to be introduced to the Seminole, not as a
representative of our National Government, but under conditions which
induced them to welcome me as a friend. In my intercourse with them, I
found them to be not only the brave, self reliant, proud people who have
from time to time withstood our nation’s armies in defense of their
rights, but also a people amiable, affectionate, truthful, and
communicative. Nor are they devoid of a sense of humor. With only few
exceptions, I found them genial. Indeed, the old chief, Tûs-te-nûg-ge,
a man whose warwhoop and deadly hand, during the last half century, have
often been heard and felt among the Florida swamps and prairies, was the
only one disposed to sulk in my presence and to repel friendly advances.
He called me to him when I entered the camp where he was, and, with
great dignity of manner, asked after my business among his people.
After listening, through my interpreter, to my answers to his questions,
he turned from me and honored me no further. I call the Seminole
communicative, because most with whom I spoke were eager to talk, and,
as far as they could with the imperfect means at their disposal, to give
me the information I sought. “Doctor Na-ki-ta” (Doctor What-is-it) I was
playfully named at the Cat Fish Lake settlement; yet the people there
were seemingly as ready to try to answer as I was to ask, “What is it?”
I said they are truthful. That is their reputation with many of the
white men I met, and I have reason to believe that the reputation is
under ordinary circumstances well founded. They answered promptly and
without equivocation “No” or “Yes” or “I don’t know.” And they are
affectionate to one another, and, so far as I saw, amiable in their
domestic and social intercourse. Parental affection is characteristic of
their home life, as several illustrative instances I might mention would
show. I will mention one. Täl-la-häs-ke is the father of six fine
looking boys, ranging in age from four to eighteen years. Seven months
before I met him his wife died, and when I was at his camp this strong
Indian appeared to have become both mother and father to his children.
His solicitous affection seemed continually to follow these boys,
watching their movements and caring for their comfort. Especially did he
throw a tender care about the little one of his household. I have seen
this little fellow clambering, just like many a little paleface, over
his father’s knees and back, persistently demanding attention but in
no way disturbing the father’s amiability or serenity, even while the
latter was trying to oblige me by answering puzzling questions upon
matters connected with his tribe. One night, as Lieutenant Brown and
I sat by the campfire at Täl-la-häs-ke’s lodge--the larger boys, two
Seminole negresses, three pigs, and several dogs, together with
Täl-la-häs-ke, forming a picturesque circle in the ashes around the
bright light--I heard muffled moans from the little palmetto shelter on
my right, under which the three smaller boys were bundled up in cotton
cloth on deer skins for the night’s sleep. Upon the moans followed
immediately the frightened cry of the baby boy, waking out of bad dreams
and crying for the mother who could not answer; “Its-ki, Its-ki”
(mother, mother) begged the little fellow, struggling from under his
covering. At once the big Indian grasped his child, hugged him to his
breast, pressed the little head to his cheek, consoling him all the
while with caressing words, whose meaning I felt, though I could not
have translated them into English, until the boy, wide awake, laughed
with his father and us all and was ready to be again rolled up beside
his sleeping brothers. I have said also that the Seminole are frank.
Formal or hypocritical courtesy does not characterize them. One of my
party wished to accompany Ka-tca-la-ni (“Yellow Tiger”) on a hunt. He
wished to see how the Indian would find, approach, and capture his game.
“Me go hunt with you, Tom, to-day?” asked our man. “No,” answered Tom,
and in his own language continued, “not to-day; to-morrow.” To-morrow
came, and, with it, Tom to our camp. “You can go to Horse Creek with me;
then I hunt alone and you come back,” was the Indian’s remark as both
set out. I afterwards learned that Ka-tca-la-ni was all kindness on the
trail to Horse Creek, three miles away, aiding the amateur hunter in his
search for game and giving him the first shot at what was started. At
Horse Creek, however, Tom stopped, and, turning to his companion,
said, “Now you hi-e-pus (go)!” That was frankness indeed, and quite
refreshing to us who had not been honored by it. But equally outspoken,
without intending offense, I found them always. You could not mistake
their meaning, did you understand their words. Diplomacy seems, as yet,
to be an unlearned art among them.
Ko-Nip-Ha-Tco.
Here is another illustration of their frankness. One Indian,
Ko-nip-ha-tco (“Billy”), a brother of “Key West Billy,” has become so
desirous of identifying himself with the white people that in 1879 he
came to Capt. F. A. Hendry, at Myers, and asked permission to live with
him. Permission was willingly given, and when I went to Florida this
“Billy” had been studying our language and ways for more than a year.
At that time he was the only Seminole who had separated himself from his
people and had cast in his lot with the whites. He had clothed himself
in our dress and taken to the bed and table, instead of the ground and
kettle, for sleep and food. “Me all same white man,” he boastfully told
me one day. But I will not here relate the interesting story of
“Billy’s” previous life or of his adventures in reaching his present
proud position. It is sufficient to say that, for the time at least,
he had become in the eyes of his people a member of a foreign community.
As may be easily guessed, Ko-nip-ha-tco’s act was not at all looked upon
with favor by the Indians; it was, on the contrary, seriously opposed.
Several tribal councils made him the subject of discussion, and once,
during the year before I met him, five of his relatives came to Myers
and compelled him to return with them for a time to his home at the Big
Cypress Swamp. But to my illustration of Seminole frankness: In the
autumn of 1880, Mat-te-lo, a prominent Seminole, was at Myers and
happened to meet Captain Hendry. While they stood together “Billy”
passed. Hardly had the young fellow disappeared when Mat-te-lo said to
Captain Hendry, “Bum-by. Indian kill Billy.” But an answer came. In this
case the answer of the white man was equally frank: “Mat-te-lo, when
Indian kill Billy, white man kill Indian, remember.” And so the talk
ended, the Seminole looking hard at the captain to try to discover
whether he had meant what he said.
Intellectual Ability.
In range of intellectual power and mental processes the Florida Indians,
when compared with the intellectual abilities and operations of the
cultivated American, are quite limited. But if the Seminole are to be
judged by comparison with other American aborigines, I believe they
easily enter the first class. They seem to be mentally active. When the
full expression of any of my questions failed, a substantive or two, an
adverb, and a little pantomime generally sufficed to convey the meaning
to my hearers. In their intercourse with one another, they are, as a
rule, voluble, vivacious, showing the possession of relatively active
brains and mental fertility. Certainly, most of the Seminole I met
cannot justly be called either stupid or intellectually sluggish,
and I observed that, when invited to think of matters with which they
are not familiar or which are beyond the verge of the domain which
their intellectual faculties have mastered, they nevertheless bravely
endeavored to satisfy me before they were willing to acknowledge
themselves powerless. They would not at once answer a misunderstood or
unintelligible question, but would return inquiry upon inquiry, before
the decided “I don’t know” was uttered. Those with whom I particularly
dealt were exceptionally patient under the strains to which I put their
minds. Ko-nip-ha-tco, by no means a brilliant member of his tribe, is
much to be commended for his patient, persistent, intellectual industry.
I kept the young fellow busy for about a fortnight, from half-past eight
in the morning until five in the afternoon, with but an hour and a
half’s intermission at noon. Occupying our time with inquiries not very
interesting to him, about the language and life of his people, I could
see how much I wearied him. Often I found by his answers that his brain
was, to a degree, paralyzed by the long continued tension to which it
was subjected. But he held on bravely through the severe heat of an
attic room at Myers. Despite the insects, myriads of which took a great
interest in us and our surroundings, despite the persistent invitation
of the near woods to him to leave “Doctor Na-ki-ta” and to tramp off in
them on a deer hunt (for “Billy” is a lover of the woods and a bold and
successful hunter), he held on courageously. The only sign of weakening
he made was on one day, about noon, when, after many, to me, vexatious
failures to draw from him certain translations into his own language of
phrases containing verbs illustrating variations of mood, time, number,
&c., he said to me: “Doctor, how long you want me to tell you Indian
language?” “Why?” I replied, “are you tired, Billy?” “No,” he answered,
“a littly. Me think me tell you all. Me don’t know English language.
Bum-by you come, next winter, me tell you all. Me go school. Me learn.
Me go hunt deer to-mollow.” I was afraid of losing my hold upon him, for
time was precious. “Billy,” I said, “you go now. You hunt to-day. I need
you just three days more and then you can hunt all the time. To-morrow
come, and I will ask you easier questions.” After only a moment’s
hesitation, “Me no go, Doctor; me stay,” was his courageous decision.
CHAPTER II.
Seminole Society.
As I now direct attention to the Florida Seminole in their relations
with one another, I shall first treat of that relationship which lies
at the foundation of society, marriage or its equivalent, the result
of which is a body of people more or less remotely connected with one
another and designated by the term “kindred.” This is shown either in
the narrow limits of what may be named the family or in the larger
bounds of what is called the clan or gens. I attempted to get full
insight into the system of relationships in which Seminole kinship is
embodied, and, while my efforts were not followed by an altogether
satisfactory result, I saw enough to enable me to say that the Seminole
relationships are essentially those of what we may call their “mother
tribe,” the Creek. The Florida Seminole are a people containing, to some
extent, the posterity of tribes diverse from the Creek in language and
in social and political organization; but so strong has the Creek
influence been in their development that the Creek language, Creek
customs, and Creek regulations have been the guiding forces in their
history, forces by which, in fact, the characteristics of the other
peoples have yielded, have been practically obliterated.
I have made a careful comparison of the terms of Seminole relationship I
obtained with those of the Creek Indians, embodied in Dr. L. H. Morgan’s
Consanguinity and Affinity of the American Indians, and I find that, as
far as I was able to go, they are the same, allowing for the natural
differences of pronunciation of the two peoples. The only seeming
difference of relationships lies in the names applied to some of the
lineal descendants, descriptive instead of classificatory names being
used.
I have said, “as far as I was able to go.” I found, for example, that
beyond the second collateral line among consanguineous kindred my
interpreter would answer my question only by some such answer as “I
don’t know” or “No kin,” and that, beyond the first collateral line of
kindred by marriage, except for a very few relationships, I could obtain
no answer.
The Seminole Family.
The family consists of the husband, one or more wives, and their
children. I do not know what limit tribal law places to the number of
wives the Florida Indian may have, but certainly he may possess two.
There are several Seminole families in which duogamy exists.
Courtship.
I learned the following facts concerning the formation of a family:
A young warrior, at the age of twenty or less, sees an Indian maiden of
about sixteen years, and by a natural impulse desires to make her his
wife. What follows? He calls his immediate relatives to a council and
tells them of his wish. If the damsel is not a member of the lover’s
own gens and if no other impediment stands in the way of the proposed
alliance, they select, from their own number, some who, at an
appropriate time, go to the maiden’s kindred and tell them that they
desire the maid to receive their kinsman as her husband. The girl’s
relatives then consider the question. If they decide in favor of the
union, they interrogate the prospective bride as to her disposition
towards the young man. If she also is willing, news of the double
consent is conveyed through the relatives, on both sides, to the
prospective husband. From that moment there is a gentle excitement in
both households. The female relatives of the young man take to the house
of the betrothed’s mother a blanket or a large piece of cotton cloth and
a bed canopy--in other words, the furnishing of a new bed. Thereupon
there is returned thence to the young man a wedding costume, consisting
of a newly made shirt.
Marriage.
Arrangements for the marriage being thus completed, the marriage takes
place by the very informal ceremony of the going of the bridegroom, at
sunset of an appointed day, to the home of his mother-in-law, where he
is received by his bride. From that time he is her husband. The next
day, husband and wife appear together in the camp, and are thenceforth
recognized as a wedded pair. After the marriage, through what is the
equivalent of the white man’s honeymoon, and often for a much longer
period, the new couple remain at the home of the mother-in-law. It is
the man and not the woman among these Indians who leaves father and
mother and cleaves unto the mate. After a time, especially as the family
increases, the wedded pair build one or more houses for independent
housekeeping, either at the camp of the wife’s mother or elsewhere,
excepting among the husband’s relatives.
Divorce.
The home may continue until death breaks it up. Sometimes, however,
it occurs that most hopeful matrimonial beginnings, among the Florida
Seminole, as elsewhere, end in disappointment and ruin. How divorce
is accomplished I could not learn. I pressed the question upon
Ko-nip-ha-tco, but his answer was, “Me don’t know; Indian no tell me
much.” All the light I obtained upon the subject comes from Billy’s
first reply, “He left her.” In fact, desertion seems to be the only
ceremony accompanying a divorce. The husband, no longer satisfied with
his wife, leaves her; she returns to her family, and the matter is
ended. There is no embarrassment growing out of problems respecting the
woman’s future support, the division of property, or the adjustment of
claims for the possession of the children. The independent self-support
of every adult, healthy Indian, female as well as male, and the gentile
relationship, which is more wide reaching and authoritative than that
of marriage, have already disposed of these questions, which are usually
so perplexing for the white man. So far as personal maintenance is
concerned, a woman is, as a rule, just as well off without a husband
as with one. What is hers, in the shape of property, remains her own
whether she is married or not. In fact, marriage among these Indians
seems to be but the natural mating of the sexes, to cease at the option
of either of the interested parties. Although I do not know that the
wife may lawfully desert her husband, as well as the husband his wife,
from some facts learned I think it probable that she may.
Childbirth.
According to information received a prospective mother, as the hour of
her confinement approaches, selects a place for the birth of her child
not far from the main house of the family, and there, with some friends,
builds a small lodge, covering the top and sides of the structure
generally with the large leaves of the cabbage palmetto. To this
secluded place the woman, with some elderly female relatives, goes at
the time the child is to be born, and there, in a sitting posture, her
hands grasping a strong stick driven into the ground before her, she
is delivered of her babe, which is received and cared for by her
companions. Rarely is the Indian mother’s labor difficult or followed by
a prolonged sickness. Usually she returns to her home with her little
one within four days after its birth.
[Illustration: Fig. 66. Baby cradle or hammock.]
Infancy.
The baby, well into the world, learns very quickly that he is to make
his own way through it as best he may. His mother is prompt to nourish
him and solicitous in her care for him if he falls ill, but, as far as
possible, she goes her own way and leaves the little fellow to go his.
From the first she gives her child the perfectly free use of his body
and, within a limited area, of the camp ground. She does not bundle him
into a motionless thing or bind him helplessly on a board; on the
contrary, she does not trouble her child even with clothing. The Florida
Indian baby, when very young, spends his time, naked, in a hammock, or
on a deer skin, or on the warm earth. (Fig. 66.)
The Seminole mother, I was informed, is not in the habit of soothing
her baby with song. Nevertheless, sometimes one may hear her or an old
grandam crooning a monotonous refrain as she crouches on the ground
beside the swinging hammock of a baby. I heard one of these refrains,
and, as nearly as I could catch it, it ran thus:
[Illustration: Music]
No-wut-tca, No-wut-tca.
The hammock was swung in time with the song. The singing was slow in
movement and nasal in quality. The last note was unmusical and uttered
quite staccato.
There are times, to be sure, when the Seminole mother carries her baby.
He is not always left to his pleasure on the ground or in a hammock.
When there is no little sister or old grandmother to look after the
helpless creature and the mother is forced to go to any distance from
her house or lodge, she takes him with her. This she does, usually, by
setting him astride one of her hips and holding him there. If she wishes
to have both her arms free, however, she puts the baby into the center
of a piece of cotton cloth, ties opposite corners of the cloth together,
and slings her burden over her shoulders and upon her back, where, with
his brown legs astride his mother’s hips, the infant rides, generally
with much satisfaction. I remember seeing, one day, one jolly little
fellow, lolling and rollicking on his mother’s back, kicking her and
tugging away at the strings of beads which hung temptingly between her
shoulders, while the mother, hand-free, bore on one shoulder a log,
which, a moment afterwards, still keeping her baby on her back as she
did so, she chopped into small wood for the camp fire.
Childhood.
But just as soon as the Seminole baby has gained sufficient strength to
toddle he learns that the more he can do for himself and the more he can
contribute to the general domestic welfare the better he will get along
in life. No small amount of the labor in a Seminole household is done by
children, even as young as four years of age. They can stir the soup
while it is boiling; they can aid in kneading the dough for bread;
they can wash the “Koonti” root, and even pound it; they can watch and
replenish the fire; they contribute in this and many other small ways to
the necessary work of the home. I am not to be understood, of course, as
saying that the little Seminole’s life is one of severe labor. He has
plenty of time for games and play of all kinds, and of these I shall
hereafter speak. Yet, as soon as he is able to play, he finds that with
his play he must mix work in considerable measure.
Seminole Dwellings--I-Ful-Lo-Ha-Tco’s House.
Now that we have seen the Seminole family formed, let us look at its
home. The Florida Indians are not nomads. They have fixed habitations:
settlements in well defined districts, permanent camps, houses or
wigwams which, remain from year to year the abiding places of their
families, and gardens and fields which for indefinite periods are used
by the same owners. There are times during the year when parties gather
into temporary camps for a few weeks. Now perhaps they gather upon some
rich Koonti ground, that they may dig an extra quantity of this root and
make flour from it; now, that they may have a sirup making festival,
they go to some fertile sugar cane hammock; or again, that they may have
a hunt, they camp where a certain kind of game has been discovered in
abundance. And they all, as a rule, go to a central point, once a year
and share there their great feast, the Green Corn Dance. Besides, as I
was told, these Indians are frequent visitors to one another, acting in
turn as guests and hosts for a few days at a time. But it is the fact,
nevertheless, that for much the greater part of the year the Seminole
families are at their homes, occupying houses, surrounded by many
comforts and living a life of routine industry.
As one Seminole home is, with but few unimportant differences, like
nearly all the others, we can get a good idea of what it is by
describing here the first one I visited, that of I-ful-lo-ha-tco, or
“Charlie Osceola,” in the “Bad Country,” on the edge of the Big Cypress
Swamp.
When my guide pointed out to me the locality where “Charlie” lives, I
could see nothing but a wide saw-grass marsh surrounding a small island.
The island seemed covered with a dense growth of palmetto and other
trees and tangled shrubbery, with a few banana plants rising among
them. No sign of human habitation was visible. This invisibility
of a Seminole’s house from the vicinity may be taken as a marked
characteristic of his home. If possible, he hides his house, placing
it on an island and in a jungle. As we neared the hammock we found that
approach to it was difficult. On horseback there was no trouble in
getting through the water and the annoying saw-grass, but I found it
difficult to reach the island with my vehicle, which was loaded with our
provisions and myself. On the shore of “Charlie’s” island is a piece of
rich land of probably two acres in extent. At length I landed, and soon,
to my surprise, entered a small, neat clearing, around which were built
three houses, excellent of their kind, and one insignificant structure.
Beyond these, well fenced with palmetto logs, lay a small garden. No one
of the entire household--father, mother, and child--was at home. Where
they had gone we did not learn until later. We found them next day at a
sirup making at “Old Tommy’s” field, six miles away. Having, in the
absence of the owner, a free range of the camp, I busied myself in
noting what had been left in it and what were its peculiarities. Among
the first things I picked up was a “cow’s horn.”
This, my guide informed me, was used in calling from camp to camp.
Mounting a pile of logs, “Billy” tried with it to summon “Charlie,”
thinking he might be somewhere near. Meanwhile I continued my search.
I noticed some terrapin shells lying on a platform in one of the houses,
the breast shell pierced with two holes. “Wear them at Green Corn
Dance,” said “Billy.” I caught sight of some dressed buckskins lying on
a rafter of a house, and an old fashioned rifle, with powder horn and
shot flask. I also saw a hoe; a deep iron pot; a mortar, made from a
live oak (?) log, probably fifteen inches in diameter and twenty-four in
height, and beside it a pestle, made from mastic wood, perhaps four feet
and a half in length.
A bag of corn hung from a rafter, and near it a sack of clothing, which
I did not examine. A skirt, gayly ornamented, hung there also. There
were several basketware sieves, evidently home made, and various bottles
lying around the place. I did not search among the things laid away on
the rafters under the roof. A sow, with several pigs, lay contentedly
under the platform of one of the houses. And near by, in the saw-grass,
was moored a cypress “dug-out,” about fifteen feet long, pointed at bow
and stern.
Dwellings throughout the Seminole district are practically uniform in
construction. With but slight variations, the accompanying sketch of
I-ful-lo-ha-tco’s main dwelling shows what style of architecture
prevails in the Florida Everglades. (Pl. XIX.)
This house is approximately 16 by 9 feet in ground measurement, made
almost altogether, if not wholly, of materials taken from the palmetto
tree. It is actually but a platform elevated about three feet from the
ground and covered with a palmetto thatched roof, the roof being not
more than 12 feet above the ground at the ridge pole, or 7 at the eaves.
Eight upright palmetto logs, unsplit and undressed, support the roof.
Many rafters sustain the palmetto thatching. The platform is composed of
split palmetto logs lying transversely, flat sides up, upon beams which
extend the length of the building and are lashed to the uprights by
palmetto ropes, thongs, or trader’s ropes. This platform is peculiar,
in that it fills the interior of the building like a floor and serves to
furnish the family with a dry sitting or lying down place when, as often
happens, the whole region is under water. The thatching of the roof is
quite a work of art: inside, the regularity and compactness of the
laying of the leaves display much skill and taste on the part of the
builder; outside--with the outer layers there seems to have been less
care taken than with those within--the mass of leaves of which the roof
is composed is held in place and made firm by heavy logs, which, bound
together in pairs, are laid upon it astride the ridge. The covering is,
I was informed, water tight and durable and will resist even a violent
wind. Only hurricanes can tear it off, and these are so infrequent in
Southern Florida that no attempt is made to provide against them.
[Illustration:
Bureau of Ethnology
Fifth Annual Report Pl. XIX
Seminole Dwelling.]
The Seminole’s house is open on all sides and without rooms. It is, in
fact, only a covered platform. The single equivalent for a room in it is
the space above the joists which are extended across the building at the
lower edges of the roof. In this are placed surplus food and general
household effects out of use from time to time. Household utensils are
usually suspended from the uprights of the building and from pronged
sticks driven into the ground near by at convenient places.
From this description the Seminole’s house may seem a poor kind of
structure to use as a dwelling; yet if we take into account the climate
of Southern Florida nothing more would seem to be necessary. A shelter
from the hot sun and the frequent rains and a dry floor above the damp
or water covered ground are sufficient for the Florida Indian’s needs.
I-ful-lo-ha-tco’s three houses are placed at three corners of an oblong
clearing, which is perhaps 40 by 30 feet. At the fourth corner is the
entrance into the garden, which is in shape an ellipse, the longer
diameter being about 25 feet. The three houses are alike, with the
exception that in one of them the elevated platform is only half the
size of those of the others. This difference seems to have been made on
account of the camp fire. The fire usually burns in the space around
which the buildings stand. During the wet season, however, it is moved
into the sheltered floor in the building having the half platform. At
Tus-ko-na’s camp, where several families are gathered, I noticed one
building without the interior platform. This was probably the wet
weather kitchen.
To all appearance there is no privacy in these open houses. The only
means by which it seems to be secured is by suspending, over where one
sleeps, a canopy of thin cotton cloth or calico, made square or oblong
in shape, and nearly three feet in height. This serves a double use,
as a private room and as a protection against gnats and mosquitoes.
But while I-ful-lo-ha-tco’s house is a fair example of the kind of
dwelling in use throughout the tribe, I may not pass unnoticed some
innovations which have lately been made upon the general style. There
are, I understand, five inclosed houses, which were built and are owned
by Florida Indians. Four of these are covered with split cypress planks
or slabs; one is constructed of logs.
Progressive “Key West Billy” has gone further than any other one,
excepting perhaps Me-le, in the white man’s ways of house building.
He has erected for his family, which consists of one wife and three
children, a cypress board house, and furnished it with doors and
windows, partitions, floors, and ceiling. In the house are one upper and
one or two lower rooms. Outside, he has a stairway to the upper floor,
and from the upper floor a balcony. He possesses also an elevated bed,
a trunk for his clothing, and a straw hat.
Besides the permanent home for the Seminole family, there is also the
lodge which it occupies when for any cause it temporarily leaves the
house. The lodges, or the temporary structures which the Seminole make
when “camping out,” are, of course, much simpler and less comfortable
than their houses. I had the privilege of visiting two “camping”
parties--one of forty-eight Indians, at Tak-o-si-mac-la’s cane field, on
the edge of the Big Cypress Swamp; the other of twenty-two persons, at a
Koonti ground, on Horse Creek, not far from the site of what was, long
ago, Fort Davenport.
I found great difficulty in reaching the “camp” at the sugar cane field.
I was obliged to leave my conveyance some distance from the island on
which the cane field was located. When we arrived at the shore of the
saw-grass marsh no outward sign indicated the presence of fifty Indians
so close at hand; but suddenly three turbaned Seminole emerged from the
marsh, as we stood there. Learning from our guide our business, they
cordially offered to conduct us through the water and saw-grass to the
camp. The wading was annoying and, to me, difficult; but at length we
secured dry footing in the jungle on the island, and after a tortuous
way through the tangled vegetation, which walled in the camp from the
prairie, we entered the large clearing and the collection of lodges
where the Indians were. These lodges, placed very close together and
seemingly without order, were almost all made of white cotton cloths,
which were each stretched over ridge poles and tied to four corner
posts. The lodges were in shape like the fly of a wall tent, simply a
sheet stretched for a cover.
At a Koonti ground on Horse Creek I met the Cat Fish Lake Indians. They
had been forced to leave their homes to secure an extra supply of Koonti
flour, because, as I understood the woman who told me, some animals had
eaten all their sweet potatoes. The lodges of this party differed from
those of the southern Indians in being covered above and around with
palmetto leaves and in being shaped some like wall tents and others like
single-roofed sheds. The accompanying sketch shows what kind of a
shelter Täl-la-häs-ke had made for himself fit Horse Creek. (Fig. 67.)
[Illustration: Fig. 67. Temporary dwelling.]
Adjoining each of these lodges was a platform, breast high. These were
made of small poles or sticks covered with, the leaves of the palmetto.
Upon and under these, food, clothing, and household utensils, generally,
were kept; and between the rafters of the lodges and the roofs, also,
many articles, especially those for personal use and adornment, were
stored.
Home Life.
Having now seen the formation of the Seminole family and taken a glance
at the dwellings, permanent and temporary, which it occupies, we are
prepared to look at its household life. I was surprised by the industry
and comparative prosperity and, further, by the cheerfulness and mutual
confidence, intimacy, and affection of these Indians in their family
intercourse.
The Seminole family is industrious. All its members work who are able to
do so, men as well as women. The former are not only hunters, fishermen,
and herders, but agriculturists also. The women not only care for their
children and look after the preparation of food and the general welfare
of the home, but are, besides, laborers in the fields. In the Seminole
family, both, husband and wife are land proprietors and cultivators.
Moreover, as we have seen, all children able to labor contribute their
little to the household prosperity. From these various domestic
characteristics, an industrious family life almost necessarily follows.
The disesteem in which Tûs-ko-na, a notorious loafer at the Big Cypress
Swamp, is held by the other Indians shows that laziness is not
countenanced among the Seminole.
But let me not be misunderstood here. By a Seminole’s industry I do
not mean the persistent and rapid labor of the white man of a northern
community. The Indian is not capable of this, nor is he compelled to
imitate it. I mean only that, in describing him, it is but just for me
to say that he is a worker and not a loafer.
As a result of the domestic industry it would be expected that we should
find comparative prosperity prevailing among all Seminole families; and
this is the fact. Much of the Indian’s labor is wasted through his
ignorance of the ways by which it might be economized. He has no
labor saving or labor multiplying machines. There is but little
differentiation of function in either family or tribe. Each worker does
all kinds of work. Men give themselves to the hunt, women to the house,
and both to the field. But men may be found sometimes at the cooking
pot or toasting stick and women may be seen taking care of cattle and
horses. Men bring home deer and turkeys, &c.; women spend days in
fishing. Both men and women are tailors, shoemakers, flour makers, cane
crushers and sirup boilers, wood hewers and bearers, and water carriers.
There are but few domestic functions which may be said to belong
exclusively, on the one hand, to men, or, on the other, to women.
Out of the diversified domestic industry, as I have said, comes
comparative prosperity. The home is all that the Seminole family needs
or desires for its comfort. There is enough clothing, or the means to
get it, for every one. Ordinarily more than a sufficient quantity of
clothes is possessed by each member of a family. No one lacks money or
the material with which to obtain that which money purchases. Nor
need any ever hunger, since the fields and nature offer them food in
abundance. The families of the northern camps are not as well provided
for by bountiful nature as those south of the Caloosahatchie River. Yet,
though at my visit to the Cat Fish Lake Indians in midwinter the sweet
potatoes were all gone, a good hunting ground and fertile fields of
Koonti were near at hand for Tcup-ko’s people to visit and use to their
profit.
Food.
Read the bill of fare from which the Florida Indians may select, and
compare with that the scanty supplies within reach of the North Carolina
Cherokee or the Lake Superior Chippewa. Here is a list of their meats:
Of flesh, at any time venison, often opossum, sometimes rabbit and
squirrel, occasionally bear, and a land terrapin, called the “gopher,”
and pork whenever they wish it. Of wild fowl, duck, quail, and turkey in
abundance. Of home reared fowl, chickens, more than they are willing to
use. Of fish, they can catch myriads of the many kinds which teem in the
inland waters of Florida, especially of the large bass, called “trout”
by the whites of the State, while on the seashore they can get many
forms of edible marine life, especially turtles and oysters. Equally
well off are these Indians in respect to grains, vegetables, roots,
and fruits. They grow maize in considerable quantity, and from it make
hominy and flour, and all the rice they need they gather from the
swamps. Their vegetables are chiefly sweet potatoes, large and much
praised melons and pumpkins, and, if I may classify it with vegetables,
the tender new growth of the tree called the cabbage palmetto. Among
roots, there is the great dependence of these Indians, the abounding
Koonti; also the wild potato, a small tuber found in black swamp land,
and peanuts in great quantities. Of fruits, the Seminole family may
supply itself with bananas, oranges (sour and sweet), limes, lemons,
guavas, pineapples, grapes (black and red), cocoa nuts, cocoa plums, sea
grapes, and wild plums. And with even this enumeration the bill of fare
is not exhausted. The Seminole, living in a perennial summer, is never
at a loss when he seeks something, and something good, to eat. I have
omitted from the above list honey and the sugar cane juice and sirup,
nor have I referred to the purchases the Indians now and then make from
the white man, of salt pork, wheat flour, coffee, and salt, and of the
various canned delicacies, whose attractive labels catch their eyes.
These Indians are not, of course, particularly provident. I was told,
however, that they are beginning to be ambitious to increase their
little herds of horses and cattle and their numbers of chickens and
swine.
Camp Fire.
Entering the more interior, the intimate home life of the Seminole, one
observes that the center about which it gathers is the camp fire. This
is never large except on a cool night, but it is of unceasing interest
to the household. It is the place where the food is prepared, and where,
by day, it is always preparing. It is the place where the social
intercourse of the family, and of the family with their friends, is
enjoyed. There the story is told; by its side toilets are made and
household duties are performed, not necessarily on account of the warmth
the fire gives, for it is often so small that its heat is almost
imperceptible, but because of its central position in the household
economy. This fire is somewhat singularly constructed; the logs used
for it are of considerable length, and are laid, with some regularity,
around a center, like the radii of a circle. These logs are pushed
directly inward as the inner ends are consumed. The outer ends of the
logs make excellent seats; sometimes they serve as pillows, especially
for old men and women wishing to take afternoon, naps.
Beds and bedding are of far less account to the Seminole family than the
camp fire. The bed is often only the place where one chooses to lie. It
is generally, however, chosen under the sheltering roof on the elevated
platform, or, when made in the lodge, on palmetto leaves. It is
pillowless, and has covering or not, as the sleeper may wish. If a cover
is used, it is, as a rule, only a thin blanket or a sheet of cotton
cloth, besides, during most of the year, the canopy or mosquito bar.
Manner Of Eating.
Next in importance to the camp fire in the life of the Seminole
household naturally comes the eating of what is prepared there. There
is nothing very formal in that. The Indians do not set a table or lay
dishes and arrange chairs. A good sized kettle, containing stewed meat
and vegetables, is the center around which, the family gathers for its
meal. This, placed in some convenient spot on the ground near the fire,
is surrounded by more or fewer of the members of the household in a
sitting posture. If all that they have to eat at that time is contained
in the kettle, each, extracts, with his fingers or his knife, a piece of
meat or a bone with meat on it, and, holding it in one hand, eats, while
with the other hand each, in turn, supplies himself, by means of a great
wooden spoon, from the porridge in the pot.
The Seminole, however, though observing meal times with some regularity,
eats just as his appetite invites. If it happens that he has a side of
venison roasting before the fire, he will cut from it at any time during
the day and, with the piece of meat in one hand and a bit of Koonti or
of different bread in the other, satisfy his appetite. Not seldom, too,
he rises during the night and breaks his sleep by eating a piece of the
roasting meat. The kettle and big spoon stand always ready for those who
at any moment may hunger. There is little to be said about eating in a
Seminole household, therefore, except that when its members eat together
they make a kettle the center of their group and that much of their
eating is done without reference to one another.
Amusements.
But one sees the family at home, not only working and sleeping and
eating, but also engaged in amusing itself. Especially among the
children, various sports are indulged in. I took some trouble to learn
what amusements the little Seminole had invented or received. I obtained
a list of them which might as well be that of the white man’s as of the
Indian’s child. The Seminole has a doll, i.e., a bundle of rags, a stick
with a bit of cloth wrapped about it, or something that serves just as
well as this. The children build little houses for their dolls and name
them “camps.” Boys take their bows and arrows and go into the bushes and
kill small birds, and on returning say they have been “turkey-hunting.”
Children sit around a small piece of land and, sticking blades of grass
into the ground, name it a “corn field.” They have the game of “hide and
seek.” They use the dancing rope, manufacture a “see-saw,” play “leap
frog,” and build a “merry-go-round.” Carrying a small stick, they say
they carry a rifle. I noticed some children at play one day sitting near
a dried deer skin, which lay before them stiff and resonant. They had
taken from the earth small tubers about an inch in diameter found on the
roots of a kind of grass and called “deer-food.” Through them they had
thrust sharp sticks of the thickness of a match and twice as long,
making what we would call “teetotums.” These, by a quick twirl between
the palms of the hands, were set to spinning on the deer skin. The four
children were keeping a dozen or more of these things going. The sport
they called “a dance.”
I need only add that the relations among the various members of the
Indian family in Florida are, as a rule, so well adjusted and observed
that home life goes on without discord. The father is beyond question
master in his home. To the mother belongs a peculiar domestic importance
from her connection with her gens, but both she and her children seek
first to know and to do the will of the actual lord of the household.
The father is the master without being a tyrant; the mother is a subject
without being a slave; the children have not yet learned self-assertion
in opposition to their parents: consequently, there is no constraint in
family intercourse. The Seminole household is cheerful, its members are
mutually confiding, and, in the Indian’s way, intimate and affectionate.
The Seminole Gens.
Of this larger body of kindred, existing, as I could see, in very
distinct form among the Seminole, I gained but little definite
knowledge. What few facts I secured are here placed on record.
After I was enabled to make my inquiry understood, I sought to learn
from my respondent the name of the gens to which each Indian whose name
I had received belonged. As the result, I found that the two hundred and
eight Seminole now in Florida are divided into the following gentes and
in the following numbers:
1. Wind gens 21
2. Tiger gens 58
3. Otter gens 39
4. Bird gens 41
5. Deer gens 18
6. Snake gens 15
7. Bear gens 4
8. Wolf gens 1
9. Alligator gens 1
Unknown gentes 10
---
Total 208
I endeavored, also, to learn the name the Indians use for gens or clan,
and was told that it is “Po-ha-po-hûm-ko-sin;” the best translation I
can give of the name is “Those of one camp or house.”
Examining my table to find whether or not the word as translated
describes the fact, I notice that, with but one exception, which may
not, after all, prove to be an exception, each of the twenty-two camps
into which the thirty-seven Seminole families are divided is a camp in
which all the persons but the husbands are members of one gens. The
camp at Miami is an apparent exception. There Little Tiger, a rather
important personage, lives with a number of unmarried relatives. A Wolf
has married one of Little Tiger’s sisters and lives in the camp, as
properly he should. Lately Tiger himself has married an Otter, but,
instead of leaving his relatives and going to the camp of his wife’s
kindred, his wife has taken up her home with his people.
At the Big Cypress Swamp I tried to discover the comparative rank or
dignity of the various clans. In reply, I was told by one of the Wind
clan that they are graded in the following order. At the northernmost
camp, however, another order appears to have been established.
_Big Cypress camp._
1. The Wind.
2. The Tiger.
3. The Otter.
4. The Bird.
5. The Deer.
6. The Snake.
7. The Bear.
8. The Wolf.
_Northernmost camp._
1. The Tiger.
2. The Wind.
3. The Otter.
4. The Bird.
5. The Bear.
6. The Deer.
7. The Buffalo.
8. The Snake.
9. The Alligator.
10. The Horned Owl.
This second order was given to me by one of the Bird gens and by one who
calls himself distinctively a “Tallahassee” Indian. The Buffalo and the
Horned Owl clans seem now to be extinct in Florida, and I am not
altogether sure that the Alligator clan also has not disappeared.
The gens is “a group of relatives tracing a common lineage to some
remote ancestor. This lineage is traced by some tribes through the
mother and by others through the father.” “The gens is the grand unit of
social organization, and for many purposes is the basis of governmental
organization.” To the gens belong also certain rights and duties.
Of the characteristics of the gentes of the Florida Seminole, I know
only that a man may not marry a woman of his own clan, that the children
belong exclusively to the mother, and that by birth they are members of
her own gens. So far as duogamy prevails now among the Florida Indians,
I observed that both the wives, in every case, were members of one gens.
I understand also that there are certain games in which men selected
from gentes as such are the contesting participants.
Fellowhood.
In this connection I may say that if I was understood in my inquiries
the Seminole have also the institution of “Fellowhood” among them. Major
Powell thus describes this institution: “Two young men agree to be life
friends, ‘more than brothers,’ confiding without reserve each in the
other and protecting each the other from all harm.”
The Seminole Tribe.
Tribal Organization.
The Florida Seminole, considered as a tribe, have a very imperfect
organization. The complete tribal society of the past was much broken
up through wars with the United States. These wars having ended in the
transfer of nearly the whole of the population to the Indian Territory,
the few Indians remaining in Florida were consequently left in a
comparatively disorganized condition. There is, however, among these
Indians a simple form of government, to which the inhabitants of at
least the three southern settlements submit. The people of Cat Fish Lake
and Cow Creek settlements live in a large measure independent of or
without civil connection with the others. Tcup-ko calls his people
“Tallahassee Indians.” He says that they are not “the same” as the Fish
Eating Creek, Big Cypress, and Miami people. I learned, moreover, that
the ceremony of the Green Corn Dance may take place at the three last
named settlements and not at those of the north. The “Tallahassee
Indians” go to Fish Eating Creek if they desire to take part in the
festival.
Seat Of Government.
So far as there is a common seat of government, it is located at Fish
Eating Creek, where reside the head chief and big medicine man of the
Seminole, Tûs-ta-nûg-ge, and his brother, Hŏs-pa-ta-ki, also a medicine
man. These two are called the Tus-ta-nûg-ul-ki, or “great heroes” of the
tribe. At this settlement, annually, a council, composed of minor chiefs
from the various settlements, meets and passes upon the affairs of the
tribe.
Tribal Officers.
What the official organization of the tribe is I do not know. My
respondent could not tell me. I learned, in addition to what I have
just written, only that there are several Indians with official titles,
living at each of the settlements, except at the one on Cat Fish Lake.
These were classified as follows:
Settlements | Chief and | War | Little | Medicine men.
| medicine man. | chiefs | chiefs |
-------------------+---------------+--------+--------+--------------
Big Cypress Swamp | | 2 | 2 | 1
Miami River | | 1 | | 1
Fish Eating Creek | 1 | | | 1
Cow Creek | | | | 2
+---------------+--------+--------+--------------
Total | 1 | 3 | 2 | 5
-------------------+---------------+--------+--------+--------------
Name Of Tribe.
I made several efforts to discover the tribal name by which these
Indians now designate themselves. The name Seminole they reject. In
their own language it means “a wanderer,” and, when used as a term of
reproach, “a coward.” Ko-nip-ha-tco said, “Me no Sem-ai-no-le; Seminole
cow, Seminole deer, Seminole rabbit; me no Seminole. Indians gone
Arkansas Seminole.” He meant that timidity and flight from danger are
“Seminole” qualities, and that the Indians who had gone west at the
bidding of the Government were the true renegades. This same Indian
informed me that the people south of the Caloosahatchie River, at Miami
and the Big Cypress Swamp call themselves “Kän-yuk-sa Is-ti-tca-ti,”
i.e., “Kän-yuk-sa red men.” Kän-yuk-sa is their word for what we know as
Florida. It is composed of I-kan-a, “ground,” and I-yuk-sa, “point” or
“tip,” i.e., point of ground, or peninsula. At the northern camps the
name appropriate to the people there, they say, is “Tallahassee
Indians.”
CHAPTER III.
Seminole Tribal Life.
We may now look at the life of the Seminole in its broader relations
to the tribal organization. Some light has already been thrown on this
subject by the preceding descriptions of the personal characteristics
and social relations of these Indians. But there are other matters to be
considered, as, for example, industries, arts, religion, and the like.
Industries.
Agriculture.
Prominent among the industries is agriculture. The Florida Indians have
brought one hundred or more acres of excellent land under a rude sort of
cultivation. To each family belong, by right of use and agreement with
other Indians, fields of from one to four acres in extent. The only
agricultural implement they have is the single bladed hoe common on the
southern plantation. However, nothing more than this is required.
_Soil._-- The ground they select is generally in the interiors of the
rich, hammocks which abound in the swamps and prairies of Southern
Florida. There, with a soil unsurpassed in fertility and needing only to
be cleared of trees, vines, underbrush, &c., one has but to plant corn,
sweet potatoes, melons, or any thing else suited to the climate, and
keep weeds from the growing vegetation, that he may gather a manifold
return. The soil is wholly without gravel, stones, or rocks. It is soft,
black, and very fertile. To what extent the Indians carry agriculture
I do not know. I am under the impression, however, that they do not
attempt to grow enough to provide much against the future. But, as they
have no season in the year wholly unproductive and for which they must
make special provision, their improvidence is not followed by serious
consequences.
_Corn._--The chief product of their agriculture is corn. This becomes
edible in the months of May and June and at this time it is eaten in
great quantities. Then it is that the annual festival called the “Green
Corn Dance” is celebrated. When the corn ripens, a quantity of it is
laid aside and gradually used in the form of hominy and of what I heard
described as an “exceedingly beautiful meal, white as the finest wheat
flour.” This meal is produced by a slow and tedious process. The corn is
hulled and the germ cut out, so that there is only a pure white residue.
This is then reduced by mortar and pestle to an almost impalpable dust.
From this flour a cake is made, which, is said to be very pleasant to
the taste.
_Sugar cane._--Another product of their agriculture is the sugar cane.
In growing this they are the producers of perhaps the finest sugar cane
grown in America; but they are not wise enough to make it a source of
profit to themselves. It seems to be cultivated more as a passing
luxury. It was at “Old Tommy’s” sugar field I met the forty-eight of the
people of the Big Cypress Swamp settlement already mentioned. They had
left their homes that they might have a pleasuring for a few weeks
together, “camping out” and making and eating sirup. The cane which had
been grown there was the largest I or my companion, Capt. F. A. Hendry,
of Myers, had ever seen. It was two inches or more in diameter, and, as
we guessed, seventeen feet or more in length. To obtain the sirup the
Indians had constructed two rude mills, the cylinders of which, however,
were so loosely adjusted that full half the juice was lost in the
process of crushing the cane. The juice was caught in various kinds of
iron and tin vessels, kettles, pails, and cans, and after having been,
strained was boiled until the proper consistency was reached.
[Illustration: Fig. 68. Sugar cane crusher.]
At the time we were at the camp quite a quantity of the sirup had been
made. It stood around the boiling place in kettles, large and small, and
in cans bearing the labels of well known Boston and New York packers,
which had been purchased at Myers. Of special interest to me was a
platform near the boiling place, on which lay several deer skins, that
had been taken as nearly whole as possible from the bodies of the
animals, and utilized as holders of the sirup. They were filled with the
sweet stuff, and the ground beneath was well covered by a slow leakage
from them. “Key West Billy” offered me some of the cane juice to drink.
It was clean looking and served in a silver gold lined cup of spotless
brilliancy. It made a welcome and delicious drink. I tasted some of the
sirup also, eating it Indian fashion, i.e., I pared some of their small
boiled wild potatoes and, dipping them into the sweet liquid, ate them.
The potato itself tastes somewhat like a boiled chestnut.
The sugar cane mill was a poor imitation of a machine the Indians had
seen among the whites. Its cylinders were made of live oak; the driving
cogs were cut from a much harder wood, the mastic, I was told; and these
were so loosely set into the cylinders that I could take them out with
thumb and forefinger. (Fig. 68.)
It is not necessary to speak in particular of the culture of sweet
potatoes, beans, melons, &c. At best it is very primitive. It is,
however, deserving of mention that the Seminole have around their houses
at least a thousand banana plants. When it is remembered that a hundred
bananas are not an overlarge yield for one plant, it is seen how well
off, so far as this fruit is concerned, these Indians are.
Hunting.
Next in importance as an industry of the tribe (if it may be so called)
is hunting. Southern Florida abounds in game and the Indians have only
to seek in order to find it. For this purpose they use the rifle. The
bow and arrow are no longer used for hunting purposes except by the
smaller children. The rifles are almost all the long, heavy, small bore
“Kentucky” rifle. This is economical of powder and lead, and for this
reason is preferred by many to even the modern improved weapons which
carry fixed ammunition. The Seminole sees the white man so seldom and
lives so far from trading posts that he is not willing to be confined to
the use of the prepared cartridge.
A few breech loading rifles are owned in the tribe. The shot gun is much
disliked by the Seminole. There is only one among them, and that is a
combination of shot gun with rifle. I made a careful count of their fire
arms, and found that they own, of “Kentucky” rifles, 63; breech loading
rifles, 8; shot gun and rifle, 1; revolvers, 2--total, 74.
_Methods of hunting._--The Seminole always hunt their game on foot. They
can approach a deer to within sixty yards by their method of rapidly
nearing him while he is feeding, and standing perfectly still when he
raises his head. They say that they are able to discover by certain
movements on the part of the deer when the head is about to be lifted.
They stand side to the animal. They believe that they can thus deceive
the deer, appearing to them as stumps or trees. They lure turkeys within
shooting distance by an imitation of the calls of the bird. They leave
small game, such as birds, to the children. One day, while some of our
party were walking near Horse Creek with Ka-tca-la-ni, a covey of quail
whirred out of the grass. By a quick jerk the Indian threw his ramrod
among the birds and billed one. He appeared to regard this feat as
neither accidental nor remarkable.
I sought to discover how many deer the Seminole annually kill, but
could get no number which I can call trustworthy. I venture twenty-five
hundred as somewhere near a correct estimate.
Otter hunting is another of the Seminole industries. This animal has
been pursued with the rifle and with the bow and arrow. Lately the
Indians have heard of the trap. When we left Horse Creek, a request was
made by one of them to our guide to purchase for him six otter traps for
use in the Cat Fish Lake camp.
Fishing.
Fishing is also a profitable industry. For this the hook and line are
often used; some also use the spoon hook. But it is a common practice
among them to kill the fish with bow and arrow, and in this they are
quite skillful. One morning some boys brought me a bass, weighing
perhaps sis pounds, which one of them had shot with an arrow.
Stock Raising.
Stock raising, in a small way, may be called a Seminole industry.
I found that at least fifty cattle, and probably more, are owned by
members of the tribe and that the Seminole probably possess a thousand
swine and five hundred chickens. The latter are of an excellent breed.
At Cat Fish Lake an unusual interest in horses seems now to be
developing. I found there twenty horses. I was told that there are
twelve horses at Fish Eating Creek, and I judge that between thirty-five
and forty of these animals are now in possession of the tribe.
Koonti.
The unique industry, in the more limited sense of the word, of the
Seminole is the making of the Koonti flour. Koonti is a root containing
a large percentage of starch. It is said to yield a starch equal to
that of the best Bermuda arrowroot. White men call it the “Indian
bread root,” and lately its worth as an article of commerce has been
recognized by the whites. There are now at least two factories in
operation in Southern Florida in which the Koonti is made into a flour
for the white man’s market. I was at one such factory at Miami and saw
another near Orlando. I ate of a Koonti pudding at Miami, and can say
that, as it was there prepared and served with milk and guava jelly, it
was delicious. As might be supposed, the Koonti industry, as carried on
by the whites, produces a far finer flour than that which the Indians
manufacture. The Indian process, as I watched it at Horse Creek, was
this: The roots were gathered, the earth was washed from them, and they
were laid in heaps near the “Koonti log.”
[Illustration: Fig. 69. Koonti log.]
The Koonti log, so called, was the trunk of a large pine tree, in which
a number of holes, about nine inches square at the top, their sides
sloping downward to a point, had been cut side by side. Each of these
holes was the property of some one of the squaws or of the children of
the camp. For each of the holes, which were to serve as mortars, a
pestle made of some hard wood had been furnished. (Fig. 69.)
[Illustration: Fig. 70. Koonti pestles.]
The first step in the process was to reduce the washed Koonti to a kind
of pulp. This was done by chopping it into small pieces and filling with
it one of the mortars and pounding it with a pestle. The contents of the
mortar were then laid upon a small platform. Each worker had a platform.
When a sufficient quantity of the root had been pounded the whole mass
was taken to the creek near by and thoroughly saturated with water in a
vessel made of bark.
[Illustration: Fig. 71. Koonti mash vessel.]
The pulp was then washed in a straining cloth, the starch of the Koonti
draining into a deer hide suspended below.
[Illustration: Fig. 72. Koonti strainer.]
When the starch had been thoroughly washed from the mass the latter was
thrown away, and the starchy sediment in the water in the deerskin left
to ferment. After some days the sediment was taken from the water and
spread upon palmetto leaves to dry. When dried, it was a yellowish white
flour, ready for use. In the factory at Miami substantially this process
is followed, the chief variation from it being that the Koonti is passed
through several successive fermentations, thereby making it purer and
whiter than the Indian product. Improved appliances for the manufacture
are used by the white man.
The Koonti bread, as I saw it among the Indians, was of a bright orange
color, and rather insipid, though not unpleasant to the taste. It was
saltless. Its yellow color was owing to the fact that the flour had had
but one fermentation.
Industrial Statistics.
The following is a summary of the results of the industries now engaged
in by the Florida Indians. It shows what is approximately true of these
at the present time:
Acres under cultivation 100
Corn raised bushels 500
Sugarcane gallons 1,500
Cattle number owned 50
Swine do. 1,000
Chickens do. 500
Horses do. 35
Koonti bushels 5,000
Sweet potatoes do. ...
Melons number 3,000
Arts.
Industrial Arts.
In reference to the way in which, the Seminole Indians have met
necessities for invention and have expressed the artistic impulse,
I found little to add to what I have already placed on record.
_Utensils and implements._--The proximity of this people to the
Europeans for the last three centuries, while it has not led them to
adopt the white man’s civilization in matters of government, religion,
language, manners, and customs, has, nevertheless, induced them to
appropriate for their own use some of the utensils, implements, weapons,
&c., of the strangers. For example, it was easy for the ancestors of
these Indians to see that the iron kettle of the white man was better in
every way than their own earthenware pots. Gradually, therefore, the art
of making pottery died out among them, and now, as I believe, there is
no pottery whatever in use among the Florida Indians. They neither make
nor purchase it. They no longer buy even small articles of earthenware,
preferring tin instead, Iron implements likewise have supplanted those
made of stone. Even their word for stone, “Tcat-to,” has been applied
to iron. They purchase hoes, hunting knives, hatchets, axes, and, for
special use in their homes, knives nearly two feet in length. With these
long knives they dress timber, chop meat, etc.
_Weapons._--They continue the use of the bow and arrow, but no longer
for the purposes of war, or, by the adults, for the purposes of hunting.
The rifle serves them much better. It seems to be customary for every
male in the tribe over twelve years of age to provide himself with a
rifle. The bow, as now made, is a single piece of mulberry or other
elastic wood and is from four to six feet in length; the bowstring is
made of twisted deer rawhide; the arrows are of cane and of hard wood
and vary in length from two to four feet; they are, as a rule, tipped
with a sharp conical roll of sheet iron. The skill of the young men in
the use of the bow and arrow is remarkable.
_Weaving and basket making._--The Seminole are not now weavers. Their
few wants for clothing and bedding are supplied by fabrics manufactured
by white men. They are in a small way, however, basket makers. From the
swamp cane, and sometimes from the covering of the stalk of the fan
palmetto, they manufacture flat baskets and sieves for domestic service.
_Uses of the palmetto._--In this connection I call attention to the
inestimable value of the palmetto tree to the Florida Indians. From the
trunk of the tree the frames and platforms of their houses are made; of
its leaves durable water tight roofs are made for the houses; with the
leaves their lodges are covered and beds protecting the body from the
dampness of the ground are made; the tough fiber which lies between the
stems of the leaves and the bark furnishes them with material from which
they make twine and rope of great strength and from which they could,
were it necessary, weave cloth for clothing; the tender new growth at
the top of the tree is a very nutritious and palatable article of food,
to be eaten either raw or baked; its taste is somewhat like that of the
chestnut; its texture is crisp like that of our celery stalk.
[Illustration: Fig. 73. Mortar and pestle.]
_Mortar and pestle._--The home made mortar and pestle has not yet been
supplanted by any utensil furnished by the trader. This is still the
best mill they have in which to grind their corn. The mortar is made
from a log of live oak (?) wood, ordinarily about two feet in length
and from fifteen to twenty inches in diameter. One end of the log is
hollowed out to quite a depth, and in this, by the hammering of a pestle
made of mastic wood, the corn is reduced to hominy or to the impalpable
flour of which I have spoken. (Fig. 73.)
_Canoe making._--Canoe making is still one of their industrial arts, the
canoe being their chief means of transportation. The Indian settlements
are all so situated that the inhabitants of one can reach those of the
others by water. The canoe is what is known as a “dugout,” made from the
cypress log.
_Fire making._--The art of fire making by simple friction is now, I
believe, neglected among the Seminole, unless at the starting of the
sacred fire for the Green Corn Dance. A fire is now kindled either by
the common Ma-tci (matches) of the civilized man or by steel and flint,
powder and paper. “Tom Tiger” showed me how he builds a fire when away
from home. He held, crumpled between the thumb and forefinger of the
left hand, a bit of paper. In the folds of the paper he poured from his
powder horn a small quantity of gunpowder. Close beside the paper he
held also a piece of flint. Striking this flint with a bit of steel and
at the same time giving to the left hand a quick upward movement, he
ignited the powder and paper. From this he soon made a fire among the
pitch pine chippings he had previously prepared.
[Illustration: Fig. 74. Hide stretcher.]
_Preparation of skins._--I did not learn just how the Indians dress deer
skins, but I observed that they had in use and for sale the dried skin,
with the hair of the animal left on it; the bright yellow buckskin, very
soft and strong; and also the dark red buckskin, which evidently had
passed, in part of its preparation, through smoke. I was told that the
brains of the animal serve an important use in the skin dressing
process. The accompanying sketch shows a simple frame in use for
stretching and drying the skin. (Fig. 74)
Ornamental Arts.
In my search for evidence of the working of the art instinct proper,
i.e., in ornamental or fine art, I found but little to add to what
has been already said. I saw but few attempts at ornamentation beyond
those made on the person and on clothing. Houses, canoes, utensils,
implements, weapons, were almost all without carving or painting. In
fact, the only carving I noticed in the Indian country was on a pine
tree near Myers. It was a rude outline of the head of a bull. The local
report is that when the white men began to send their cattle south of
the Caloosahatchie River the Indians marked this tree with this sign.
The only painting I saw was the rude representation of a man, upon the
shaft of one of the pestles used at the Koonti log at Horse Creek. It
was made by one of the girls for her own amusement.
I have already spoken of the art of making silver ornaments.
_Music._--Music, as far as I could discover, is but little in use among
the Seminole. Their festivals are few; so few that the songs of the
fathers have mostly been forgotten. They have songs for the Green Corn
Dance; they have lullabys; and there is a doleful song they sing in
praise of drink, which is occasionally heard when the white man has sold
Indians whisky on coming to town. Knowing the motive of the song, I
thought the tune stupid and maudlin. Without pretending to reproduce it
exactly, I remember it as something like this:
[Illustration: Music]
My precious drink, I fondly love thee.
Standing I take thee. And walk until morning. Yo-wan-ha-de.
I give a free translation of the Indian words and an approximation to
the tune. The last note in this, as in the lullaby I noted above, is
unmusical and staccato.
Religion.
I could learn but little of the religious faiths and practices existing
among the Florida Indians. I was struck, however, in making my
investigations, by the evident influence Christian teaching has had upon
the native faith. How far it has penetrated the inherited thought of the
Indian I do not know. But, in talking with Ko-nip-ha-tco, he told me
that his people believe that the Koonti root was a gift from God; that
long ago the “Great Spirit” sent Jesus Christ to the earth with the
precious plant, and that Jesus had descended upon the world at Cape
Florida and there given the Koonti to “the red men.” In reference to
this tradition, it is to be remembered that during the seventeenth
century the Spaniards had vigorous missions among the Florida Indians.
Doubtless it was from these that certain Christian names and beliefs now
traceable among the Seminole found way into the savage creed and ritual.
I attempted several times to obtain from my interpreter a statement of
the religious beliefs he had received from his people. I cannot affirm
with confidence that success followed my efforts.
He told me that his people believe in a “Great Spirit,” whose name is
His-a-kit-a-mis-i. This word, I have good reason to believe, means “the
master of breath.” The Seminole for breath is His-a-kit-a.
I cannot be sure that Ko-nip-ha-tco knew anything of what I meant by
the word “spirit.” I tried to convey my meaning to him, but I think I
failed. He told me that the place to which Indians go after death is
called “Po-ya-fi-tsa” and that the Indians who have died are the
Pi-ya-fits-ul-ki, or “the people of Po-ya-fi-tsa.” That was our nearest
understanding of the word “spirit” or “soul.”
Mortuary Customs.
As the Seminole mortuary customs are closely connected with their
religious beliefs, it will be in place to record here what I learned of
them. The description refers particularly to the death and burial of a
child.
[Illustration: Fig. 75. Seminole bier.]
The preparation for burial began as soon as death had taken place. The
body was clad in a new shirt, a new handkerchief being tied about the
neck and another around the head. A spot of red paint was placed on the
right cheek and one of black upon the left. The body was laid face
upwards. In the left hand, together with a bit of burnt wood, a small
bow about twelve inches in length was placed, the hand lying naturally
over the middle of the body. Across the bow, held by the right hand,
was laid an arrow, slightly drawn. During these preparations, the women
loudly lamented, with hair disheveled. At the same time some men had
selected a place for the burial and made the grave in this manner:
Two palmetto logs of proper size were split. The four pieces were then
firmly placed on edge, in the shape of an oblong box, lengthwise east
and west. In this box a floor was laid, and over this a blanket was
spread. Two men, at next sunrise, carried the body from the camp to the
place of burial, the body being suspended at feet thighs, back, and neck
from a long pole (Fig. 75). The relatives followed. In the grave, which
is called “To-hŏp-ki”--a word used by the Seminole for “stockade,” or
“fort,” also, the body was then laid the feet to the east. A blanket was
then carefully wrapped around the body. Over this palmetto leaves were
placed and the grave was tightly closed by a covering of logs. Above the
box a roof was then built. Sticks, in the form of an _X_, were driven
into the earth across the overlying logs; these were connected by a
pole, and this structure was covered thickly with palmetto leaves.
(Fig. 76.)
[Illustration: Fig. 76. Seminole grave.]
The bearers of the body then made a large fire at each end of the
“To-hŏp-ki.” With this the ceremony at the grave ended and all returned
to the camp. During that day and for three days thereafter the relatives
remained at home and refrained from work. The fires at the grave were
renewed at sunset by those who had made them, and after nightfall
torches were there waved in the air, that “the bad birds of the night”
might not get at the Indian lying in his grave. The renewal of the fires
and waving of the torches were repeated three days. The fourth day the
fires were allowed to die out. Throughout the camp “medicine” had been
sprinkled at sunset for three days. On the fourth day it was said that
the Indian “had gone.” From that time the mourning ceased and the
members of the family returned to their usual occupations.
The interpretation of the ceremonies just mentioned, as given me, is
this: The Indian was laid in his grave to remain there, it was believed,
only until the fourth day. The fires at head and feet, as well as the
waving of the torches, were to guard him from the approach of “evil
birds” who would harm him. His feet were placed toward the east, that
when he arose to go to the skies he might go straight to the sky path,
which commenced at the place of the sun’s rising; that were he laid with
the feet in any other direction he would not know when he rose what path
to take and he would be lost in the darkness. He had with him his bow
and arrow, that he might procure food on his way. The piece of burnt
wood in his hand was to protect him from the “bad birds” while he was on
his skyward journey. These “evil birds” are called Ta-lak-i-çlak-o. The
last rite paid to the Seminole dead is at the end of four moons. At that
time the relatives go to the To-hŏp-ki and cut from around it the
overgrowing grass. A widow lives with disheveled hair for the first
twelve moons of her widowhood.
Green Corn Dance.
The one institution at present in which the religious beliefs of the
Seminole find special expression is what is called the “Green Corn
Dance.” It is the occasion for an annual purification and rejoicing.
I could get no satisfactory description of the festival. No white man,
so I was told, has seen it, and the only Indian I met who could in any
manner speak English, made but an imperfect attempt to describe it. In
fact, he seemed unwilling to talk about it. He told me, however, that as
the season for holding the festival approaches the medicine men assemble
and, through their ceremonies, decide when it shall take place, and, if
I caught his meaning, determine also how long the dance shall continue.
Others, on the contrary, told me that the dance is always continued for
four days.
Fifteen days previous to the festival heralds are sent from the lodge
of the medicine men to give notice to all the camps of the day when the
dance will commence. Small sticks are thereupon hung up in each camp,
representing the number of days between that date and the day of the
beginning of the dance. With the passing of each day one of these sticks
is thrown away. The day the last one is cast aside the families go to
the appointed place. At the dancing ground they find the selected space
arranged as in the accompanying diagram (Fig. 77).
The evening of the first day the ceremony of taking the “Black Drink,”
Pa-sa-is-kit-a, is endured. This drink was described to me as having
both a nauseating smell and taste. It is probably a mixture similar to
that used by the Creek in the last century at a like ceremony. It acts
as both an emetic and a cathartic, and it is believed among the Indians
that unless one drinks of it he will be sick at some time in the year,
and besides that he cannot safely eat of the green corn of the feast.
During the drinking the dance begins and proceeds; in it the medicine
men join.
At that time the Medicine Song is sung. My Indian would not repeat
this song for me. He declared that any one who sings the Medicine Song,
except at the Green Corn Dance or as a medicine man, will certainly meet
with some harm. That night, after the “Black Drink” has had its effect,
the Indians sleep. The next morning they eat of the green corn. The day
following is one of fasting, but the next day is one of great feasting,
“Hom-pi-ta-çlak-o,” in which “Indian eat all time,” “Hom-pis-yak-i-ta.”
[Illustration: Fig. 77. Green Corn Dance.]
----------------------------------------------------------------
++++++
N. Squaws
|
-+-E “O-PÛN-KA-TO-LO-KA-TI”
| or the Dance Circle
S. “HIL-LIS-WA-MA-TOE-UL-KI”
Men who watch the
+--+ \ | / medicine fire
| | -- O -- ++
| | / | \ X +++
| | Medicine Medicine
+--+ The Fire or Fire Men
“TEOK-KO-CLACO” “O-PÛN-KA-TOT-KIT-A”
House where the
warriors sit.
Squaws
++++++
----------------------------------------------------------------
Use Of Medicines.
Concerning the use by the Indians of medicine against sickness, I
learned only that they are in the habit of taking various herbs for
their ailments. What part incantation or sorcery plays in the healing
of disease I do not know. Nor did I learn what the Indians think of the
origin and effects of dreams. Me-le told me that he knows of a plant the
leaves of which, eaten, will cure the bite of a rattlesnake, and that he
knows also of a plant which is an antidote to the noxious effects of the
poison ivy or so-called poison oak.
General Observations.
I close this chapter by putting upon record a few general observations,
as an aid to future investigation into Seminole life.
Standard of Value.
The standard of value among the Florida Indians is now taken from the
currency of the United States. The unit they seem to have adopted, at
least at the Big Cypress Swamp settlement, is twenty-five cents, which
they call “Kan-cat-ka-hum-kin” (literally, “one mark on the ground”). At
Miami a trader keeps his accounts with the Indians in single marks or
pencil strokes. For example, an Indian brings to him buck skins, for
which the trader allows twelve “chalks.” The Indian, not wishing then to
purchase anything, receives a piece of paper marked in this way:
“IIII--IIII--IIII.
J. W. E. owes Little Tiger $3.”
At his next visit the Indian may buy five “marks” worth of goods. The
trader then takes the paper and returns it to Little Tiger changed as
follows:
“IIII--III.
J. W. E. owes Little Tiger
$1.75.”
Thus the account is kept until all the “marks” are crossed off, when
the trader takes the paper into his own possession. The value of the
purchases made at Miami by the Indians, I was informed, is annually
about $2,000. This is, however, an amount larger than would be the
average for the rest of the tribe, for the Miami Indians do a
considerable business in the barter and sale of ornamental plumage.
What the primitive standard of value among the Seminole was is suggested
to me by their word for money, “Tcat-to Ko-na-wa.” “Ko-na-wa” means
beads, and “Tcat-to,” while it is the name for iron and metal, is also
the name for stone. “Tcat-to” probably originally meant stone. Tcat-to
Ko-na-wa (i.e., stone beads) was, then, the primitive money. With
“Hat-ki,” or white, added, the word means silver; with “La-ni,” or
yellow, added, it means gold. For greenbacks they use the words
“Nak-ho-tsi Tcat-to Ko-na-wa,” which is, literally, “paper stone beads.”
Their methods of measuring are now, probably, those of the white man. I
questioned my respondent closely, but could gain no light upon the terms
he used as equivalents for our measurements.
Divisions Of Time.
I also gained but little knowledge of their divisions of time. They have
the year, the name for which is the same as that used for summer, and in
their year are twelve months, designated, respectively:
1. Çla-fŭts-u-tsi, Little Winter.
2. Ho-ta-li-ha-si, Wind Moon.
3. Ho-ta-li-ha-si-çlak-o, Big Wind Moon.
4. Ki-ha-su-tsi, Little Mulberry Moon.
5. Ki-ha-si-çlat-o, Big Mulberry Moon.
6. Ka-too-ha-si.
7. Hai-yu-tsi.
8. Hai-yu-tsi-çlak-o.
9. O-ta-wŭs-ku-tsi.
10. O-ta-wŭs-ka-çlak-o.
11. I-ho-li.
12. Çla-fo-çlak-o, Big Winter.
I suppose that the spelling of these words could be improved, but I
reproduce them phonetically as nearly as I can, not making what to me
would be desirable corrections. The months appear to be divided simply
into days, and these are, in part at least, numbered by reference to
successive positions of the moon at sunset. When I asked Täl-la-häs-ke
how long he would stay at his present camp, he made reply by pointing,
to the new moon in the west and sweeping his hand from west to east to
where the moon would be when he should go home. He meant to answer,
about ten days thence. The day is divided by terms descriptive of the
positions of the sun in the sky from dawn to sunset.
Numeration.
The Florida Indians can count, by their system, indefinitely. Their
system of numeration is quinary, as will appear from the following list:
1. Hûm-kin.
2. Ho-_ko-lin_.
3. To-_tei-nin_.
4. _Os-tin_.
5. Tsaq-ke-pin.
6. I-pa-kin.
7. _Ko-lo_-pa-kin.
8. _Tci-na_-pa-kin
9. _Os-ta_-pa-kin.
10. Pa-lin.
11. Pa-lin-hûm-kin, _i.e._, ten one, &c.
20. Pa-li-ho-ko-lin, _i.e._, two tens.
As a guide towards a knowledge of the primitive manner of counting the
method used by an old man in his intercourse with me will serve. He
wished to count eight. He first placed the thumb of the right hand upon
the little finger of the left, then the right forefinger upon the next
left hand finger, then the thumb on the next finger, and the forefinger
on the next, and then the thumb upon the thumb; leaving now the thumb
of the right hand resting upon the thumb of the left, he counted the
remaining numbers on the right hand, using for this purpose the fore
and middle fingers of the left; finally he shut the fourth and little
fingers of the right hand down upon its palm, and raising his hands,
thumbs touching, the counted fingers outspread, he showed me eight as
the number of horses of which I had made inquiry.
Sense Of Color.
Concerning the sense of color among these Indians, I found that my
informant at least possessed it to only a very limited degree. Black and
white were clear to his sight, and for these he had appropriate names
Also for brown, which was to him a “yellow black,” and for gray, which
was a “white black.” For some other colors his perception was distinct
and the names he used proper. But a name for blue he applied to many
other colors, shading from violet to green. A name for red followed a
succession of colors all the way from scarlet to pink. A name for yellow
he applied to dark orange and thence to a list of colors through to
yellow’s lightest and most delicate tint. I thought that at one time I
had found him making a clear distinction between green and blue, but as
I examined further I was never certain that he would not exchange the
names when asked about one or the other color.
Education.
The feeling of the tribe is antagonistic to even such primary education
as reading, writing, and calculation. About ten years ago an attempt,
the only attempt in modern times, to establish schools among them was
made by Rev. Mr. Frost, now at Myers, Fla. He did not succeed.
Slavery.
By reference to the population table, it will be noticed that there are
three negroes and seven persons of mixed breed among the Seminole. It
has been said that these negroes were slaves and are still held as
slaves by the Indians. I saw nothing and could not hear of anything
to justify this statement. One Indian is, I know, married to a negress,
and the two negresses in the tribe live apparently on terms of perfect
equality with the other women. Me-le goes and comes as he sees fit.
No one attempts to control his movements. It may be that long ago the
Florida Indians held negroes as slaves, but my impression is to the
contrary. The Florida Indians, I think, rather offered a place of refuge
for fugitive bondmen and gradually made them members of their tribe.
Health.
In the introduction to this report I said that the health of the
Seminole is good. As confirming this statement, I found that the deaths
during the past year had been very few. I had trustworthy information
concerning the deaths of only four persons. One of these deaths was of
an old woman, O-pa-ka, at the Fish Eating Creek settlement; another was
of Täl-la-häs-ke’s wife, at Cat Fish Lake settlement; another was of a
sister of Täl-la-häs-ke; and the last was of a child, at Cow Creek
settlement. At the Big Cypress Swamp settlement I was assured that no
deaths had occurred either there or at Miami during the year. On the
contrary, however, I was told by some white people at Miami that several
children had died at the Indian camp near there in the year past.
Täl-la-häs-ke said to me, “Twenty moons ago, heap pickaninnies die!” And
I was informed by others that about two years before there had been
considerable fatality among children, as the consequence of a sort of
epidemic at one of the northern camps. Admitting the correctness of
these reports, I have no reason to modify my general statement that the
health of the Seminole is good and that they are certainly increasing
their number. Their appearance indicates excellent health and their
environment is in their favor.
CHAPTER IV.
Environment Of The Seminole.
Nature.
Southern Florida, the region to which most of the Seminole have been
driven by the advances of civilization, is, taken all in all, unlike any
other part of our country. In climate it is subtropical; in character
of soil it shows a contrast of comparative barrenness and abounding
fertility; and in topography it is a plain, with hardly any perceptible
natural elevations or depressions. The following description, based upon
the notes of my journey to the Big Cypress Swamp, indicates the
character of the country generally. I left Myers, on the Caloosahatchie
River, a small settlement composed principally of cattlemen, one morning
in the month of February. Even in February the sun was so hot that
clothing was a burden. As we started upon our journey, which was to be
for a distance of sixty miles or more, my attention was called to the
fact that the harness of the horse attached to my buggy was without the
breeching. I was told that this part of the harness would not be needed,
so level should we find the country. Our way, soon after leaving the
main street of Myers, entered pine woods. The soil across which we
traveled at first was a dry, dazzling white sand, over which, was
scattered a growth of dwarf palmetto. The pine trees were not near
enough together to shade us from the fierce, sun. This sparseness of
growth, and comparative absence of shade, is one marked characteristic
of Florida’s pine woods. Through this thin forest we drove all the day.
The monotonous scenery was unchanged except that at a short distance
from Myers it was broken by swamps and ponds. So far as the appearance
of the country around as indicated, we could not tell whether we were
two miles or twenty from our starting point. Nearly half our way during
the first day lay through water, and yet we were in the midst of what is
called the winter “dry season.” The water took the shape here of a swamp
and there of a pond, but where the swamp or the pond began or ended it
was scarcely possible to tell, one passed by almost imperceptible
degrees from dry land to moist and from moist land into pool or marsh.
Generally, however, the swamps were filled with a growth of cypress
trees. These cypress groups were well defined in the pine woods by the
closeness of their growth and the sharpness of the boundary of the
clusters. Usually, too, the cypress swamps were surrounded by rims of
water grasses. Six miles from Myers we crossed a cypress swamp, in which
the water at its greatest depth was from one foot to two feet deep.
A wagon road had been cut through the dense growth of trees, and the
trees were covered with hanging mosses and air plants.
The ponds differed from the swamps only in being treeless. They are open
sheets of water surrounded by bands of greater or less width of tall
grasses. The third day, between 30 and 40 miles from Myers, we left the
pine tree lands and started across what are called in Southern Florida
the “prairies.” These are wide stretches covered with grass and with
scrub palmetto and dotted at near intervals with what are called pine
“islands” or “hammocks” and cypress swamps. The pine island or hammock
is a slight elevation of the soil, rising a few inches above the dead
level. The cypress swamp, on the contrary, seems to have its origin only
in a slight depression in the plain. Where there is a ring of slight
depression, inclosing a slight elevation, there is generally a
combination of cypress and pine and oak growth. For perhaps 15 miles we
traveled that third day over this expanse of grass; most of the way we
were in water, among pine islands, skirting cypress swamps and saw-grass
marshes, and being jolted through thick clumps of scrub palmetto. Before
nightfall we reached the district occupied by the Indians, passing there
into what is called the “Bad Country,” an immense expanse of submerged
land, with here and there islands rising from it, as from the drier
prairies. We had a weird ride that afternoon and night: Now we passed
through saw-grass 5 or 6 feet high and were in water 6 to 20 inches in
depth; then we encircled some impenetrable jungle of vines and trees,
and again we took our way out upon a vast expanse of water and grass. At
but one place in a distance of several miles was it dry enough for one
to step upon the ground without wetting the feet. We reached that place
at nightfall, but found no wood there for making a fire. We were 4 miles
then from any good camping ground. Captain Hendry asked our Indian
companion whether he could take us through the darkness to a place
called the “Buck Pens.” Ko-nip-ha-tco said he could. Under his guidance
we started in the twilight, the sky covered with clouds. The night which
followed was starless, and soon we were splashing through a country
which, to my eyes, was trackless. There were visible to me no landmarks.
But our Indian, following a trail made by his own people, about nine
o’clock brought us to the object of our search. A black mass suddenly
appeared in the darkness. It was the pine island we were seeking, the
“Buck Pens.”
On our journey that day we had crossed a stream, so called, the
Ak-ho-lo-wa-koo-tci. So level is the country, however, and so sluggish
the flow of water there that this river, where we crossed it, was more
like a swamp than a stream. Indeed, in Southern Florida the streams,
for a long distance from what would be called their sources, are more a
succession of swamps than well defined currents confined to channels by
banks. They have no real shores until they are well on their way towards
the ocean.
Beyond the point I reached, on the edge of the Big Cypress Swamp, lie
the Everglades proper, a wide district with, only deeper water and
better defined islands than those which mark the “Bad Country” and the
“Devil’s Garden” I had entered.
The description I have given refers to that part of the State of Florida
lying south of the Caloosahatchee River. It is in this watery prairie
and Everglade region that we find the immediate environment of most of
the Seminole Indians. Of the surroundings of the Seminole north of the
Caloosahatchee there is but little to say in modification of what has
already been said. Near the Fish Eating Creek settlement there is a
somewhat drier prairie land than that which I have just described. The
range of barren sand hills which extends from the north along the middle
of Florida to the headwaters of the Kissimmee River ends at Cat Fish
Lake. Excepting these modifications, the topography of the whole Indian
country of Florida is substantially the same as that which we traversed
on the way from Myers into the Big Cypress Swamp and the Everglades.
Over this wide and seeming level of land and water, as I have said,
there is a subtropical climate. I visited the Seminole in midwinter;
yet, for all that my northern senses could discover, we were in the
midst of summer. The few deciduous trees there were having a midyear
pause, but trees with dense foliage, flowers, fruit, and growing grass
were to be seen everywhere. The temperature was that of a northern June.
By night we made our beds on the ground without discomfort from cold,
and by day we were under the heat of a summer sun. There was certainly
nothing in the climate to make one feel the need of more clothing or
shelter than would protect from excessive heat or rain.
Then the abundance of food, both animal and vegetable, obtainable in
that region seemed to me to do away with the necessity, on the part of
the people living there, for a struggle for existence. As I have already
stated, the soil is quite barren over a large part of the district; but,
on the other hand, there is also in many places a fertility of soil that
cannot be surpassed. Plantings are followed by superabundant harvests,
and the hunter is richly rewarded. But I need not repeat what has
already been said; it suffices to note that the natural environment
of the Seminole is such that ordinary effort serves to supply them,
physically, with more than they need.
Man.
When we consider, in connection with these facts, what I have also
before said, that these Indians are in no exceptional danger from wild
animals or poisonous reptiles, that they need not specially guard
against epidemic disease, and when we remember that they are native to
whatever influences might affect injuriously persons from other parts of
the country, we can easily see how much more favorably situated for
physical prosperity they are than others of their kind. In fact, nature
has made physical life so easy to them that their great danger lies in
the possible want or decadence of the moral, strength needed to maintain
them in a vigorous use of their powers. This moral strength to some
degree they have, but in large measure it had its origin in and has been
preserved by their struggles with man rather than with nature. The wars
of their ancestors, extending over nearly two centuries, did the most to
make them the brave and proud people they are. It is through the effects
of these chiefly that they have been kept from becoming indolent and
effeminate. They are now strong, fearless, haughty, and independent.
But the near future is to initiate a new epoch in their history, an era
in which their career may be the reverse of what it has been. Man is
becoming a factor of new importance in their environment. The moving
lines of the white population are closing in upon the land of the
Seminole. There is no farther retreat to which they can go. It is their
impulse to resist the intruders, but some of them are at last becoming
wise enough to know that they cannot contend successfully with the white
man. It is possible that even their few warriors may make an effort to
stay the oncoming hosts, but ultimately they will either perish in the
futile attempt or they will have to submit to a civilization which,
until now, they have been able to repel and whose injurious
accompaniments may degrade and destroy them. Hitherto the white man’s
influence has been comparatively of no effect except in arousing in the
Indian his more violent passions, and in exciting him to open hostility.
For more than three centuries the European has been face to face with
the Florida Indian and the two have never really been friends. Through
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the peninsula was the scene of
frequently renewed warfare. Spaniard, Frenchman, Englishman, and
Spaniard, in turn, kept the country in an unsettled state, and when the
American Union received the province from Spain, sixty years ago, it
received with it, in the tribe of the Seminole, an embittered and
determined race of hostile subjects. This people our Government has
never been able to conciliate or to conquer. A different Indian policy,
or a different administration of it, might have prevented the disastrous
wars of the last half century; but, as all know, the Seminole have
always lived within our borders as aliens. It is only of late years, and
through natural necessities, that any friendly intercourse of white man
and Indian has been secured. The Indian has become too weak to contend
successfully against his neighbor and the white man has learned enough
to refrain from arousing the vindictiveness of the savage. The few white
men now on the border line in Florida are, with only some exceptions,
cattle dealers or traders seeking barter with the red men. The cattlemen
sometimes meet the Indians on the prairies and are friendly with them
for the sake of their stock, which often strays into the Seminole
country. The other places of contact of the whites and Seminole are
the settlements of Myers, Miami, Bartow, Fort Meade, and Tampa, all,
however, centers of comparatively small population. To these places,
at infrequent intervals., the Indians go for purposes of trade.
The Indians have appropriated for their service some of the products of
European civilization, such as weapons, implements, domestic utensils,
fabrics for clothing, &c. Mentally, excepting a few religious ideas
which they received long ago from the teaching of Spanish missionaries
and, in the southern settlements, excepting some few Spanish words, the
Seminole have accepted and appropriated practically nothing from, the
white man. The two peoples remain, as they always have been, separate
and independent. Up to the present, therefore, the human environment
has had no effect upon the Indians aside from that which has just been
noticed, except to arouse them to war and to produce among them war’s
consequences.
But soon a great and rapid change must take place. The large immigration
of a white population into Florida, and especially the attempts at
present being made to drain Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades, make it
certain, as I have said, that the Seminole is about to enter a future
unlike any past he has known. But now that new factors are beginning to
direct his career, now that he can no longer retreat, now that he can
no longer successfully contend, now that he is to be forced into close,
unavoidable contact with men he has known only as enemies, what will he
become? If we anger him, he still can do much harm before we can conquer
him; but if we seek, by a proper policy, to do him justice, he yet may
be made our friend and ally. Already, to the dislike of the old men of
the tribe, some young braves show a willingness to break down the
ancient barriers between them and our people, and I believe it possible
that with encouragement, at a time not far distant, all these Indians
may become our friends, forgetting their tragic past in a peaceful and
prosperous future.
INDEX
Big Cypress Swamp Seminole settlement 477, 478, 499, 507, 529
Billy, brother of Key West Billy 492-494, 499, 528
Brown, Lieutenant, aid of, among Seminole 489
Catfish Lake Seminole settlement 477, 478, 509
Cow Creek Seminole settlement 477, 478
Cypress swamps, Florida 527-529
Devil’s Garden, Florida 478
Hendry, F. A., aid in Florida 492, 511, 528
Key West Billy 484, 485
Koonti, preparation of 513-516
Seminole tradition of origin of 519
Me-le the Seminole 489, 490
Miami River Seminole settlement 477, 478
Errata
(Table of Contents)
Use of Medicines...
_missing from printed text_
(Green Corn Dance diagram)
“TEOK-KO-CLACO”
_may be error for -ÇLAC-O_
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Seminole Indians of Florida - Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the - Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1883-84, - Government Printing Office, Washington, 1887, pages 469-532" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.