Seminole

Jason Baird Jackson and John Beierle

As an ethnically complex group speaking two languages (more at earlier periods) the Seminole have been known by a diversity of names. The Muskogee (Creek) versions of the tribal name include Semvnole and Semvlone. Some Seminole in Florida and most in Oklahoma speak the language alternatively known as Creek and Muskogee, after the ethnic group associated with it, from which the Seminole in part derive. The majority native language spoken in Florida is Mikasuki. As a political label for a portion of the Seminole in Florida, this word is spelled Miccosukee. In Mikasuki, the Creek speakers in Florida are known as CI:SAPONATHLI and the Mikasuki speakers as I:LAPONATHLI:. "Black Seminole" is the common English cover term for all those Seminole of African ancestry. The terms Afro-Seminole and Seminole Maroon are often used in the anthropological literature but are not in general use. Those Black Seminole who were later enrolled, as members of the Seminole Nation in Oklahoma are known as the Seminole Freedman. Those Afro-Seminole communities found today (2002) in the Bahamas, Mexico, and Texas are not accurately referred to as Freedmen, which is a status unique to the Seminole Nation.

Sharing a common history in present-day Florida, the Seminole today are divided geographically and politically. The majority of Seminole reside in central Oklahoma, where they belong to the Seminole Nation. These are descendents of people who were forced west to Indian Territory through the nineteenth century "removal" policies of the U.S. government. In Southern Florida, the Seminole belong to one of three political groups controlling seven reservations. The largest of these is the Seminole Tribe of Florida. A smaller political grouping is the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. A third group of Florida Seminole refuses to affiliate with these bodies and hold themselves independent of involvement with the U.S. government. This group is most often referred to as the Independent Seminole. All Florida Seminole derive from those families and individuals that evaded removal in the nineteenth century. The Seminole Nation includes citizens of African ancestry and there are also Afro-Seminole communities at Bracketville, Texas and Nacimiento de los Negros near Múzquiz, Coahuila, Mexico. The origins of these so-called Black Seminole goes back to the period of Seminole ethnogenesis in North Florida, when escaped slaves joined Seminole society and were integrated into its cultural fabric.

In the year 2001, the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma reported an enrolled tribal population of approximately 12,000 members, with about sixty percent of these citizens living within or near the Seminole Nation's boundaries. The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida claims 369 enrolled members. The Seminole Tribe of Florida represents approximately 2800 Seminoles. The number of Black Seminoles not enrolled in the Seminole Nation is 200-300, divided between Texas and Mexico. All of these figures represent significant population rebounds from nadirs in the late nineteenth century.

Deriving from a mixture of native societies, the Seminole linguistic situation is complex. Into the twenty-first century, two indigenous languages were used among the Florida Seminole. In Florida, Mikasuki is spoken most widely. On the Brighton Reservation in Hendry County, Muskogee (a.k.a. Creek) is the dominant native language. This is a dialect of the language that is also spoken among the Oklahoma Seminole. Muskogee, as used by Seminole in Florida and Oklahoma, is mutually intelligible with Muskogee as spoken in the Creek Nation (Oklahoma). Mikasuki is closely related to Hitchiti, a moribund language that was spoken among the Oklahoma Seminole into the twentieth century. Muskogee-Creek, Hitchiti, and Mikasuki are all Muskogean languages. Because the so-called Creek Confederacy was linguistically diverse, additional languages, such as Yuchi, were once spoken among the Seminole. The linguistic situation of the Black Seminole represents additional complexity. They developed a Creole combining features of African and Muskogean languages with English.

The Seminole emerged as a distinct people during the colonial era (a process beginning around 1716) as native individuals, families, and communities of the Southeastern region moved south from present-day Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina into colonial Florida. The majority of these migrants could be called "Creek" but Creek society of this period, like the Seminole one that separated from it, was a network of confederated towns and communities of diverse and complex ethnic, linguistic, and cultural identity. Movement into Florida was the result of a mixture of factors. Disease, the difficulty of forced labor, and enslavement by the British and their native allies severely reduced the indigenous population of Florida during Spanish colonial rule. This resulted in a population and power vacuum, with north Florida representing a relatively productive, familiar and open landscape in which to settle, with the encouragement of Spanish officials that sought natives to repopulate their struggling colony. Over time, these "pulls" were complimented by factors that "pushed" native people into Florida. Native communities in colonial, and later American, Georgia and Alabama were under growing pressure to cede their lands and they faced European populations that were both growing and becoming more hostile to native interests. Removal into the Florida wilderness representing an opportunity to escape such pressures, but one that was relatively short lived.

After American independence from England, U.S. desire to obtain and settle Florida grew, as did pressure to force the removal of all Native Americans east of the Mississippi to the west. Removal of the Seminole took place in the context of the Second Seminole War (1835-1842) in which the Seminole and their allies of African descent sought to stay in their homeland. This conflict was extremely costly for both sides, with large numbers of Seminole and American dying. Native allies recruited among the Creek and other groups assisted the Americans. This further embittered the Seminole toward their Creek kin in particular.

In Oklahoma, those Seminole who were removed fought to establish their own nation and territory rather than being incorporated in the Creek Nation. After some delay and a further removal of some Seminole to Mexico, this was eventually accomplished. Questions of the rights of Black Seminole figured in this and many other conflicts among the Seminole in the west. In Florida, neither the Second Seminole War, nor the more limited Third Seminole War were concluded by treaty, only by a cessation of hostilities. The small Florida Seminole population that evaded removal lived in relative isolation until the draining of the Everglades and the large-scale Anglo-American settlement of Southern Florida, both of which began in the early to middle twentieth century. The second half of the twentieth century saw the establishment of the two tribal governments in Florida, the Seminole Tribe of Florida (1957) and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida (1962), as well as the political emergence of the Independent Seminole who were unwilling to accept recognition through participation in these modern governments. For all Florida Seminole, tourism became an important part of economic life.

Statehood and allotment brought dramatic changes to the Oklahoma Seminole at the turn of the twentieth century. The territorial integrity of the Seminole Nation was compromised as individually owned lands were alienated from Seminole hands and non-Seminole settled in their territory. Unlike the tribal governments in Florida, that in Oklahoma represents a late twentieth century strengthening of a government established after removal and weakened, but not destroyed by Federal policies at the time of allotment.

Prior to the Second Seminole War (1835-1842), the Seminole shared the settlement pattern found among the Creek and other southeastern groups. Settlements were towns centered on a plaza or "town square." While some households of the town might be found close to this civic center, others would be located more distantly, sometimes forming hamlets or farmsteads, but remaining associated with the town, its political leadership, and public ceremonialism. A version of this pattern has been preserved among some Creek and Seminole communities in Oklahoma, where ceremonial grounds preserve the political organization and civic architecture of pre-removal towns. Such towns were often established on or near rivers or other bodies of water, facilitating movement and social contact between towns.

During the Second Seminole War, the Seminole adopted a more dispersed and nomadic "settlement strategy" with smaller groups moving across the Florida wilderness seeking to elude the U.S. military and engaging in what amounted to as a guerrilla war against a foe whose strategy in its conflicts with southeastern Indians featured the burning of native towns and farms. In such a military context, subsistence farming diminished and was replaced by a greater reliance on hunting and gathering. When open hostilities between the Seminole and the U.S. subsided, the Seminole population in Florida had been greatly reduced through death and forced removal west. With a very small population residing in the Everglades of extreme South Florida, the Seminole did not reestablish the town system, but continued their wartime pattern of living in camps comprised of extended families built around a matrilineage. In essence, the households of the pre-war era became the camp groups of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This distinctly Florida pattern continued until the establishment and settlement of the Florida reservations in the early twentieth century. In Florida today, Seminole reside in reservation communities with American style housing, although some families continue to build and also to use the open sided CHICKEE buildings associated with family camps. In Oklahoma, Seminoles also reside in modern house types and live settled among non-Seminoles in urban and rural communities. Oklahoma Seminole ceremonial grounds preserve the architecture of earlier towns.

Before the modern era, basic Seminole subsistence activities were primarily slash and burn horticulture supplemented by hunting, gathering, and the fur trade with non-Seminoles. The basic farming techniques of the native Southeast were modified through changes in social organization and ecology as the Seminole were pressured southward into South Florida. In the context of the Everglades environment, gardens were established on small hammocks found scattered island-like across the permanently wet landscape. Principle crops included pumpkins, corn, and beans. In Oklahoma, these same crops were grown, with Seminoles also practicing small-scale commercial agriculture, growing cotton and other cash crops into the twentieth century.

From the time of their emergence as a people, the Seminole participated in the colonial trade in animal hides. In the colonial Southeast, deer hides were a major commodity traded by Seminole groups to European, particularly British, firms in exchange for manufactured goods such as metal tools, ammunition, cloth, beads, and foodstuffs. After removal, the Seminole in the west continued to participate in the market economy, but the fur trade continued a decline that had begun after American independence. The special ecological and social context of the Florida Seminole allowed them to maintain a commercial hunting economy into the twentieth century. They traded otter and alligator hides, but also bird feathers, at trading posts located on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Into the twentieth century, both Seminole groups also continued to practice subsistence agriculture.

In the twentieth century, tourism became the center of the Florida Seminole economic adaptation. The emergence of a crafts market in Florida can be tied to this larger tourist context. In Florida and Oklahoma, some Seminoles also adopted cattle ranching and agricultural wage work as economic activities. In Oklahoma, Seminole people have participated in the rural economy of multi-ethnic Oklahoma, including work in the oil industry. In the late twentieth century, all of the Seminole tribal governments established commercial business ventures, including retail, tourism, and gaming operations.

Eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century Seminole material culture included baskets made from river cane and palmetto, pottery vessels, wooden utensils, finger-woven textiles, appliqué beadwork, and elaborate clothing made from trade wool and cotton cloth. In Florida, clothing and objects decorated with horizontal bands of patchwork--pieced strips of machine sewn solid colored cotton cloth arranged in geometric designs--became emblematic of the Seminole. Patchwork garments have become Seminole national dress and patchwork was applied to an array of goods made for sale to non-native tourists and collectors. Other craft genres established for the tourist trade include dolls, coiled grass basketry, and woodcarvings. While patchwork diffused from Florida to the Oklahoma Seminole in the middle twentieth century, Oklahoma Seminole traditional dress shares much with that of the Creek and other Woodland Indian groups in Oklahoma. In the absence of a tourism economy, the Oklahoma Seminole practice few traditional crafts. Among those maintained, the most vibrant are those associated with ceremonialism--the manufacture of traditional clothing, musical instruments, and ceremonial ground architecture. This latter tradition of vernacular architecture involves the construction of family camp buildings and a town plaza surrounded by open clan arbors. These are built without commercial materials in a style of considerable antiquity.

Through many changes, Seminole trade in Florida has consistently focused on maintaining social and physical distance from non-Seminoles while insuring access to European material goods that were already necessities by the time of Seminole ethnogenesis. In the fur trade, Seminoles traveled to coastal trading posts to trade hides for goods or cash with which to purchase manufactured items. This pattern characteristic of the pre-removal era, reemerged in modified forms in South Florida and continued into the twentieth century. Even into the twenty-first century, Seminole people in Florida have worked to control the terms on which they interact with non-Seminoles. The tourist and crafts complex, and newer commercial undertakings represent highly controlled domains in which the Seminole gain access to non-Seminole resources without laying Seminole society open to complete social integration with their non-native neighbors. In Oklahoma, maintaining such social distance without the reservation context proved difficult, but even there economic integration has not produced cultural or social assimilation.

Like other southeastern peoples, the Seminole traditionally manifest a gendered and age graded division of labor, with women undertaking craftwork, gardening and childcare and men engaging in activities such as hunting, trade, warfare and house construction. This gendered division of labor underpins ceremonies and cosmology as well as everyday life. As men and women age, they are accorded increased respect in acknowledgement of their increased knowledge, which is an expression of increased power. Labor activities shift in conjunction with these age-based changes, with elders playing important roles in childcare and community leadership.

In the traditional political economy, use-rights to the land associated with domestic camps and gardens were associated with the matrilocal, matrilineal extended family. Today, the tribal government controls reservation land Florida. Off reservation, Florida Seminole land tenure follows Florida state law. In Oklahoma, statehood was preceded by the allotment of lands formerly held in common by the Seminole Nation. Family heads were assigned allotments that became individually owned parcels. Many of these have been alienated from Seminole ownership or divided into smaller and smaller units through inheritance. Some Oklahoma Seminole still reside on allotted lands, but many live in towns and cities in Eastern and Central Oklahoma.

The basic kinship groups are matrilineal clans named after ancestral totems, such as deer, alligator, and wind. Clans function to structure ceremonial activities, govern exogamous marriage, and as interest groups in instances of individual conflict. In this latter role, clans traditionally sought justice or restitution on behalf of fellow clan members victimized by the member of another clan. Historically, clans were divided into a pair of moieties and perhaps also phratries. Clans were segmental rather than structural, with the number and size of clans varying through time and with clans being unevenly distributed among Seminole settlements. In the town system of the Oklahoma Seminole, town offices, such as chief, were associated with particular clans.

The Seminole kinship system is of the matrilineal Crow-type in which one's father's sister's daughter is equated with father's sister and father's sister's son is equated with one's father. Beyond this distinguishing feature, the kinship, descent, clan systems as well as the basic domestic group all embody generally matrilineal and matrilocal principals. The literature on Seminole kinship and social organization is well developed when compared to that for other southeastern American Indian groups. The persistence of Seminole kinship patterns in the context of language shift to English has not been investigated.

As among other southeastern groups, Seminole marriages were informally established and dissolved, but they were of special interest beyond the couple themselves. Clans sought to protect the interests of their members in marriage and might intervene in instances of adultery or abuse. Clan exogamy was and, to an extent remains, central to marriages between Seminoles and tribal endogamy is also preferred.

In contemporary Florida and Oklahoma, the basic domestic unit is the matrifocal family. In Florida, this is built on the older institution of "camp" groups, which are an extended family, related matrilineally or by marriage, living together, often in a number of CHICKEE--open sided raised platform buildings.

Inheritance is not highly elaborated in traditional Seminole culture. Some goods are interred with the deceased and others are distributed or destroyed after death.

Primary responsibility for the socialization of children lies with the primary caregivers, mothers, and often aunts and grandmothers. In keeping with their traditional kinship system, mother's brothers were central to disciplining and teaching their nephews and, to a lesser extent, nieces. Grandparents played, and continue to play, an important role in passing on traditional cultural knowledge and were, therefore respected on account of their experience and authority. Schools were established among the Oklahoma Seminole after removal and today, Oklahoma Seminoles attend local integrated public schools. In Florida, Seminoles fought the establishment of separate reservation schools and by the middle twentieth century, Seminole students were attending public schools near their reservations. In the later twentieth century, the Florida and Oklahoma Seminole also established their own educational programs, including "head start" preschool programs. The first generation of Florida Seminoles to be formally educated in the western style, attended government boarding schools outside Florida. In both communities, traditional education of Indian doctors included apprenticeship and attendance at special schools under the supervision of active practitioners.

In Oklahoma, the basic units of social organization are family, clan, and town (or "band"), operating within the context of an overarching tribal government and a system of social ties maintained with the Creek and other southeastern groups. In Florida, these same units operate, with the exception of the town organization and the broader multi-tribal context, both of which disappeared during the wars and removals of the nineteenth century. A smaller residential group--the "camp", replaced towns. Beyond the domestic group in Florida is the emergence of different local reservation communities, which were established in the middle twentieth century. Prior to the establishment of the Florida reservations, distinct regional groupings of Seminole settlements existed, but these, like the reservations, featured movements of people between them.

In Oklahoma, Seminole Freedmen (those Seminole Maroons or "Black Seminole" enrolled in the Seminole Nation) participate in tribal affairs and are affiliated with their own "bands" which are represented by tribal council members. Seminole Maroons outside Oklahoma have organized descent organizations, and interest groups based on Black Seminole ancestry. Among the Black Seminole, extended families are the prominent social institution and genealogical knowledge is an important expression of identity. Among Oklahoma Seminole, churches and ceremonial ground organizations are often affiliated with band or town identity. In Florida, Seminole participate in one or more annual Green Corn Ceremonies organized by clan leaders. Some Florida Seminole participate in their own Christian churches. The latter are localized but not tied to other modes of social organization, as those in Oklahoma often are.

In general terms, Florida Seminole social organization has been modified by demographic, historical, and ecological changes, while Oklahoma Seminole social patterns re-converged with those of their Creek neighbors.

The three federally recognized tribal governments representing Seminole people share governmental features borrowed from the U.S. federal and state systems, with a division between executive and legislative branches. Elected representation in Oklahoma is by "band," a division going back to the town-system as it existed after removal. In Florida, representatives in the Seminole tribal council are chosen to represent reservation communities within the larger tribal government. The Miccosukee also utilize a council system but its members do not represent reservation communities, as functionally there is only one contiguous Miccosukee reservation. In Florida, from the middle eighteenth century to the middle twentieth, there were no central political groupings beyond the level of clan and camp. Before the Second Seminole War, the Seminole shared the town-level government characteristic of the Creek.

Concern with gossip and the anti-social uses of traditional medicine played a role in both managing individual behavior and giving expression to individual and intra-group conflicts. The advice and sanction of respected elders, together with camp and clan solidarity, formed the basis of social control. The modern tribal governments all operate police forces governed by tribal laws and codes. These systems function within the context of both other governmental jurisdictions (federal, state, and local) and the continued, if modified, belief in traditional law and custom.

Clans played a key role in traditional forms of intra-group conflict resolution, avenging wrongs against clan members and serving as interest groups during judicial phases of the Green Corn Ceremony. In the nineteenth century, conflict between Seminole groups and outsiders was marked by withdrawal and, in the case of the three so-called "Seminole Wars," armed resistance. Withdrawal continues to be a Seminole interpersonal strategy, but fiercely fought legal and public relations battles, have come, in the late twentieth-early twenty-first century, to be the hallmark of resistance to encroachments on Seminole rights.

Traditional Seminole religion is focused on an integrated set of beliefs and practices that are primarily expressed in traditional medicine and the annual performance of the Green Corn Ceremony. Features of this system include: clan exogamy and associated beliefs about clans; gender divisions in which women are associated with the domestic sphere and horticulture and men with the external domain and hunting; belief in a single creator (the Master of Breath) and a range of lesser spiritual powers, and the existence of ancestral bodies of knowledge relating to power, such as dance songs, medicinal formulas, and sacred narratives that explain the form and significance of traditional customs. The annual cycle of natural life is reflected in the patterning of major ceremonies. Plant growth generally and horticulture specifically, the focus of Spring and Summer, is marked by the Green Corn Ceremony, while Fall and Winter are associated with hunting and are featured in ceremonies such as the Hunting Dance (Florida) and the Soup Dance and stickball games (Oklahoma). Feasts, dances, and rituals of fasting and purification with herbal medicines are the basic units of Seminole ritual life. Traditional games and informal social activity are also central to its practice.

Religious practices are inseparable from the beliefs that govern the conduct of everyday life. Obligations structured by the kinship and clans systems relate to health and social well-being. Inappropriate behavior can lead to illness or misfortune, which then must be diagnosed by a doctor or other medico-religious specialist who will prescribe both a cure and changed behavior. Good health follows from following customary obligations and participating in the Green Corn Ceremonial and other observances. These ceremonies are multifaceted, but they place emphasis of spiritual and physical purification as a means of promoting individual and community health. As medical and religious specialists, medicine people play a central role in the religious system. Because ceremonialism and its associated beliefs permeate traditional culture, ceremonial ground chiefs (Oklahoma) and medicine people (Florida) are prominent, if informal, secular leaders in Seminole communities.

In both Florida and Oklahoma, the annual Green Corn Ceremony is the highpoint of the seasonal round. It is a new-fire ceremony, a harvest celebration, and a ritual of collective purification. In Florida, the ceremony also continues to serve a political and legal function, with crucial decisions made and ratified during a time of spiritual and social renewal. The other major ceremonial event in Florida is the fall Hunting Dance, marking the annual transition away from an agricultural to hunting focus. In Oklahoma, ceremonial dances take place throughout the summer season and the final dance of the year preserves aspects of the Hunting Dance. With the dissolution in Florida of tribal towns as governmental units, ceremonials there are organized around a number of locally cared for community medicine bundles, which figure prominently in the Green Corn Ceremony. In Oklahoma, medicine bundles are absent from the ceremonial system but the older system of tribal towns is preserved. Tribal towns possess ceremonial ground sites where rituals are held. A town chief and other officers lead them. In both communities, naming rituals are part of the Green Corn Ceremonial. In Oklahoma, the Seminole follow the Creek pattern of organizing ceremonial events at the town level under the leadership of a town chief and medicine man. In Florida, communal ceremonies, particularly the Green Corn Ceremony, are centered on a medicine bundle, with Seminoles attending the Green Corn Ceremony associated with a particular bundle and under the direction of an individual medicine man assisted by the elders of specific clans.

The other major categories of rituals are those marking major life transitions. Funerals are the most elaborate of this series. Funerals serve to encourage the spirit of the deceased to undertake the journey to the land of the afterlife. Childbirth is also marked out and associated with traditional beliefs and ritual practices.

Like other southeastern groups, the Seminole possess a rich expressive culture. Clothing, long a primary aesthetic focus, was further elaborated in the early twentieth century with the introduction, to the Florida Seminole, of the hand-powered sewing machine. With this tool, Florida Seminole women created a new art form known as patchwork (discussed above). In Florida and Oklahoma, music and dance are a major artistic focus, with dances forming a major focus of the annual Seminole ceremonials. Seminole dance music belongs to a broader regional repertoire featuring male singing of antiphonal songs, with women providing accompaniment with paired leg rattles. In most dances, singing is done by the dancers themselves rather than by a stationary accompanist. Storytelling, public oratory, and other genres of verbal art are also prominent in traditional Seminole culture. In the twentieth century, Seminoles participated in the emergence of the Native American fine art movement, with Oklahoma Seminoles playing a prominent role in the emergence of native painting. Seminole people have begun participating in pan-Indian powwow dances. This development in Florida has been facilitated through tribal sponsorship of large-scale events. Because Oklahoma Seminole ceremonial groups are part of a larger regional system of Woodland ceremonial dances and regularly visit the stomp dance events of the Creek and other groups, the powwow has not been widely adopted by non-urban Oklahoma Seminole.

Traditional medicine, which continues (as of the early twenty-first century) to be practiced in both Oklahoma and Florida, is the domain of medico-religious specialists referred to in English as doctors. It combines detailed knowledge of plants--their life histories, uses, and medicinal preparation--with esoteric religious knowledge, particularly spoken and sung formulas that are used to empower the appropriate herbal medicine. A third phase of traditional medicine is diagnosis, in which the cause, usually spiritual, of illness is detected and determined. These three aspects of medicinal practice--herbalist, diagnostician, and doctor--may be combined in the person of a single individual, or divided between different persons. All three require detailed study and apprenticeship to a mature specialist, but the role of doctor and diagnostician also relate to innate qualities of practitioners, with the diagnostician (sometimes known in English as a prophet or fortune teller) function relying especially on special native abilities. The Seminole medical system is generally like that of other southeastern peoples, particularly that of the Creek and Cherokee. The causes of ill health are often negative spiritual forces seeking to harm the individual, sometimes due to inappropriate social behavior and sometimes due to witchcraft. Historical change among the Seminole and other southeastern groups show a diminishing of belief in hostile animal spirits as the cause of illness and an increasing belief in behavioral and biological causes. Seminole people in Oklahoma and Florida today practice medical pluralism in which traditional medicine is combined with western biomedicine.

Death is recognized with the absence of breathing and, among the Florida Seminole at least, burial occurs as quickly as possible after death. Clan membership determines funeral and mourning behavior and arrangements are ideally, supervised by an Indian doctor or other knowledgeable individual. In Oklahoma, small house-like structures are built to cover the grave of the deceased. In Florida, similar structures made of logs were built to house the casket and body, which was traditionally not buried. Goods may be placed with the deceased for the journey to the afterlife and herbal medicines are prepared to protect the funeral party from spiritual harm. Funeral rituals are aimed at preparing the deceased for the journey to the land of spirits, while protecting the living from inappropriate and dangerous contact with this realm. During a period of mourning, restrictions are placed on the conduct of the surviving family. In the afterlife, the soul of the deceased travels east to west over the Milky Way to the land of the deceased. Good people are permitted to enter the company of the relatives who preceded them and enjoy a happy eternal life. Failed journeys to the spirit world result in ghosts wandering the world of the living causing disruptions. Christian Seminole practice and belief reflects varying degrees of acceptance and integration of traditional and Christian views.

Documents referred to in this section are included in the eHRAF collection and are referenced by author, date of publication, and eHRAF document number.

The Seminole collection consists of 38 English language documents dealing with a wide range of subject matter relevant to both the Florida and Oklahoma Seminole population. The time coverage for the collection ranges from the sixteenth century to the 1990s, with a major focus on the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Since the majority of studies in this collection tend to concentrate on either the Florida Seminoles or those of Oklahoma, comprehensive works dealing with the Seminole "nation" as a whole are sparsely represented. Probably the best of these are: McReynolds, 1957, no. 9; Sturtevant, 1971, no. 16; and probably Fairbanks, 1978, no. 22. Major ethnographic topics in the collection deal with history, religion, socio-political organization, acculturation, and culture change, and women's status. History is well covered in: Fairbanks, 1973, 1978, nos. 3 and 22; Spoehr, 1942, no. 5; Kersey, 1975, no. 7; McReynolds, 1957, no. 9; Sturtevant, 1956, 1971, nos. 15 and 16; Sattler, 1987, 1996, nos. 30 and 42; and Weisman, 1989, no. 48. Religion, particularly in reference to magic and ceremonialism, is discussed in: Howard and Lena, 1984, no. 2; Capron, 1953, 1956, nos. 8 and 36; Hadley, 1935, no. 19; and Buswell, 1979, no. 28. Socio-political organization, culture change and acculturation are topics of discussion in: Spoehr, 1941, 1942, nos. 4 and 5; Garbarino, 1972, no. 6; Hadley, 1935, no. 19; Sattler, 1987, no. 30; and Fairbanks, 1973, no. 3. Information on the status of women in Seminole society is a major topic in Freeman, 1944, no. 37, and Kersey and Bannan, 1995, no. 40.

For more detailed information on the content of the individual works in this collection, see the abstracts in the citations preceding each document.

This culture summary was written by Jason Baird Jackson in July 2002. The synopsis and indexing notes were written by John Beierle in July 2002. The Human Relations Area Files would like to thank Jason Baird Jackson of the Department of Anthropology, University of Oklahoma at Norman, Oklahoma, in providing additional bibliographical suggestions in the preparation of this file.

• Beadwork -- categories 531, 5311

• Black Drink, used in conjunction with the Green Corn Dance --categories 278, 751, 824, and 796 where appropriate

• Blacks among the Seminoles, when discussed as separate communities living in the Seminole territory -- category 177; as slaves among the Seminoles -- category 567; as integrated ethnic elements in Seminole society (i. e., through marriage) -- category 563

• BUSK -- see Green Corn Dance

• Chair of the Tribal Council -- category 643

• CHICKEES -- Seminole thatched roof, open sided dwellings -- category 342 commercial camps, as tourist attractions along the Tamiami trail -- categories 543, 177, 439

• Cowkeeper -- headman of the Alachua Seminoles -- category 622

• Federal recognition of Seminole/Miccosukee tribe -- category 648

• Green Corn Dance (BUSK) ceremonies -- categories 796, 535

• Medicine Keepers -- categories 793 and /or 756 depending on context

• Osceola (Powell) -- war chief or leader -- categories 624, 701

• SAPIYA -- certain types of magic stones, colored red, blue, and yellow -- category 789

• Seminole "towns" -- category 621

• Seminole Indian Association -- category 665

• Seminole Tribe of Florida, Inc. -- the business organization of the tribe -- category 473

• TCHOC-KO-THLOC-KO --a club house for men of all the Seminole clans where they sit and talk at the Green Corn Dance ceremonies -- category 345 tribal council -- category 646

Belmont, Laura L. Seminole Kinship System and Clan Interaction. Mendoza, Argentina: Facultad de Filosofia y Letras, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, 1985.

Blackard, David M. Patchwork and Palmettos: Seminole-Miccosukee Folk Art Since 1820. Fort Lauderdale; Fort Lauderdale Historical Society, 1990.

Howard, James H. and Willie Lena. Oklahoma Seminoles: Medicines, Magic and Religion. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984.

Jumper, Betty Mae and Patsy West. A Seminole Legend: The Life of Betty Mae Tiger Jumper. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001.

Mulroy, Kevin. Freedom on the Border: The Seminole Maroons in Florida, the Indian Territory, Coahuila, and Texas. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1993.

Schultz, Jack M. The Seminole Baptist Churches of Oklahoma: Maintaining a Traditional Community. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999.

Snow, Alice Micco and Susan Enns Stans. Healing Plants: Medicine of the Florida Seminole Indian. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001.

Spoehr, Alexander. Camp, Clan, and Kin among the Cow Creek Seminole in Florida. Anthropological Series, Field Museum of Natural History. 33 (1)1: 28. 1941.

Spoehr, Alexander. Kinship System of the Seminole. Anthropological Series, Field Museum of Natural History. 33 (2): 29-114. 1942.

Spoehr, Alexander. The Florida Seminole Camp. Anthropological Series, Field Museum of Natural History. 33(3): 115-150. 1944.

Sturtevant, William C. "Creek into Seminole." In North American Indians in Historical Perspective. Eleanor Burke Leacock and Nancy Oestreich Lurie, eds. Pp. 92-128. New York: Random House, 1971.

Sturtevant, William C. A Seminole Source Book. New York: Garland, 1987.

Tiger, Buffalo and Harry A. Kersey, Jr. Buffalo Tiger: A Life in the Everglades. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.

West, Patsy. The Enduring Seminoles: From Alligator Wrestling to Ecotourism. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998.

Weisman, Brent Richards. Like Beads on a String: A Culture History of the Seminole Indians in North Peninsular Florida. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989.