Native Americans: 22 Books on History, Mythology, Culture & Linguistic Studies. James Mooney

1. The Wind. 1. The Tiger. 2. The Tiger. 2. The Wind. 3. The Otter. 3. The Otter. 4. The Bird. 4. The Bird. 5. The Deer. 5. The Bear. 6. The Snake. 6. The Deer. 7. The Bear. 7. The Buffalo. 8. The Wolf. 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

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      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

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Tribal Organization

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      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

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      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

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      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 medicine man.	War chiefs	Little chiefs	Medicine men.
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

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      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.