RELIGION.
A pretty tradition among the Seminoles is that a beautiful race of Indians, whose women they call the daughters of the sun, reside among the swamps and lakes of the O-kee-fee-ne-kee wilderness and live in uninterrupted felicity upon islands of eternal verdure, feasting upon the luxuries of the islands, but inaccessible to the approach of human footsteps.
Unlike the child of Africa, who lives in a world of ghosts and goblins, the Seminole is not superstitious. He has his traditions, his mythologies, and on these are based his history. He obeys the Great Spirit, but it is not from any spirit of fear; it is the teaching of his fathers, and becomes the duty of the Indian. The religion of the Seminole has been without question the most difficult of all their history to reach.
The Florida Indians believe in a Supreme Being; in the immortality of the soul; in the future existenceand the resurrection of the dead. Reverence, too, is one of his distinguishing features. His language contains no oath, nor any word to express disrespect to the Great Spirit. A missionary will receive most respectful attention for their reverence to God will not permit them to laugh at His messenger. The Seminole qualifies the Supreme Being as the “Giver and Taker away of Life.” The Aztec designated, as the “God by Whom We Live.”
Their conception of the creation of man is very unique. “Long time ago, E-shock-e-tom-isee (God) took seeds and scattered them all around in a rich valley bordering a river. By and by, God saw fingers coming out of the ground and great people—heap too many came up from out of the sand. Some went to the river and washed, washed, washed too much; it made them weak and pale; this was the es-ta-chat-tee (white race). Others went to the river and washed not too much, they returned full of courage, strong, heap; this was the es-ta-had-kee (red race). The remainder no wash, lazy too much, es-ta-lus-tee (black man).”
In an extract taken from an old history printed in London in 1776, descriptive of the native inhabitants of Florida, these people are described as idolaters, worshipping the sun and moon—the worship consisting of saluting the rising sun, chanting his praise and offering sacrifices to the planet four times a year. They believe that the sun was the parent of life.
Whatever may have been the ancient rites of this race, the present people seem to have outlived all remembrance of them as well as of their early ancestors themselves. A glimmering of the Christian religion, no doubt instilled into the race more than two hundred years ago by the Franciscan priests, still seems to linger among the descendants of to-day and constitutes their religion largely. These rites they observe as faithfully as they did a century ago; and yet in all that time they have received no further teaching, and have no personal knowledge of the civilizing effects of the gospel of Christ. In the same length of time where would have been the religion of the Caucasian race, without the divine word, and without the influence of men who have devoted their lives to the cause of Christianity? The Seminoles believe in God (E-shock-e-tom-issee); that God had a son (E-shock-e-tom-issee-e-po-chee) who came on earth and lived with the Indians “long time ago to make them good Indians.”
HI-E-TEE, CAPTAIN TOM TIGER, HO-TI-YEE, AND “LITTLE TIGER”
HI-E-TEE, CAPTAIN TOM TIGER, HO-TI-YEE, AND “LITTLE TIGER”
One is tempted upon an intimate knowledge of this race to wonder whether the Son ofMan appeared to the Indianalso; could not the Light of the World in some mysterious way have touched the soul of this innocent people? The more one studies the Seminole, the more one wonders. Christ, according to their traditions, was killed by the “wicked Spaniards” when they first came to this continent. Since that time it has been the duty of the medicine men to teach the Indians “to think with God,” and to impart the Great Spirit’s wishes to his red children. Each tribehas two or more medicine men who act as priests as well as doctors. These men are highly honored by the tribe, because they believe them to be directed by the Supreme Being. Just before the festival of the Green Corn Dance the medicine men leave the tribe, and going to a secret spot, there build a lodge. Here they fast for twenty-four hours, after which they take a potion, made of herbs, which causes a deep sleep to come over them. It is now that God appears to them in a dream and tells them how to make the Indians “think good,” and how they shall prepare the herbs for medicine. Returning in time to prepare for the great feast they occupy a most prominent position in the dance circle. The Seminole tradition of Christ’s coming to live with the Indians, is that the Son of God stopped at the most southern point of Florida, at which place he was met by three Indians who carried him around the Southern Peninsula on their shoulders, while he sowed the seeds of the “koonti” root, which was God’s gift to the red men. (This koonti is a wild cassava and found only in the extreme southern portion of Florida.) According to the legend, the Indians were in a starving condition. The ground was parched, no corn grew and the game had all left. During the long time in which the Indians waited for the koonti to grow, God rained down bread “heap, plenty,” which the Indians gathered and ate. In describing this bread, which came down in the rain each morning, the Indian illustrated in this wise: “Littly bread, white man’s biscuit all the same, good, every Indian eatplenty.” The Mosaic account of the manna from heaven is evident in this legend.
The Seminole believes in a future state, In-li-Ke-ta (heaven or home). To this place do the good Indians go after death. Here they may “hunt, hunt, hunt, plenty deer, plenty turkey, plenty bear find, and cool water ojus (plenty) all the time. Bad Indians after big sleep hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt deer, turkey, bear—no find ’em, hot water drink all the time.”
The Indians’ religion, for we may justly call it so, is sacred to him, and it is difficult to get him to reveal his inmost thoughts. His idea of the Bible is vague, because he understands it as the work of man. “White man got book, him good one day, he steal, cheat next day; book no good. Injun no make book, he no see hunting ground, him no go and come back. Big sleep, no come back, him no lie about it. Me think good Injun find hunting ground all right; me think me find it. White man, big sleep comes, me think no find In-li-Ke-ta (heaven) easy.”
After death the body of a Seminole is immediately prepared for burial, the corpse being clad in new clothes. When a chief dies one cheek is painted red, the other one is painted black. The rest of the tribe do not have the face painted for burial. It will be recalled that Osceola, with the death struggle already upon him, rose in his bed, and “with his own hand painted one-half of his face, his neck and his throat, his wrists, the back of his hands and the handle of hisknife red, with vermillion,” the marks of a war chief.
At sunrise, on the day following a death, the body is carried by two Indian men to the place of interment. The corpse is placed on a base made of logs with the face to the rising sun. If the deceased be a warrior, his rifle and accoutrements are placed by his side, “that he may be fully armed on his arrival at the happy hunting grounds.” A bottle of Sof-ka is buried with him that he may eat on his long journey. Around the body is built a pen of logs sloping till they close at the top and thickly covered with palmetto leaves. The protection is to prevent the wild beasts from despoiling. With faces now turned reverently to the rising sun, they commend into the keeping of the Great Spirit the bivouac of the dead. The bearers of the dead then make a fire at each end of the grave, and the mourners return to camp, the women loudly wailing and tearing their hair. At the death of a husband the widow must live with disheveled hair for one year. Her long black tresses are worn over her face and shoulders, and she presents aforsaken, pitiable appearance. At the end of twelve moons her period of mourning is over, and she may again arrange her hair, don her beads, which have been removed during her period of mourning, and may marry again. The husband, on the death of his squaw, may not hunt for four days, and for a period of four moons must appear in mourning, which consists in the removal of his neck handkerchiefs,and the laying aside of his turban. When a death occurs in one band or settlement, the news is not communicated to the other bands until such time as it is convenient for a messenger to be sent.