Kinship

Kinship

   The Seminole Tribe of Florida states that when a child of Seminole descent is born from their mother who is also of Seminole ancestry, he/she will join her clan. Customarily, the mother’s Clan is the extended family unit. As tradition goes, the husbands will join their wives and live in the area where her clan resides. The Tribe considers marriage and incest of members within their own clan to be culturally unacceptable; Seminoles of Florida believe that one should marry outside of their clan while inheriting the mother’s clan as their own. The mother’s clan will continue on for decades to come and will then be considered extinct when the last female in that specific clan is deceased.

     Every clan in the Seminole Tribes has a distinct attribute which characterizes the clans traits. The different clans in the Seminole Tribe of Florida are shown below:

Subsistence

The Florida Indians are not nomads. They have fixed habitations which consist of permanent camps, and wigwams (houses) which, remain in the abiding places of their families. There are several times during the year when various Seminole clans gather into temporary camps for a couple of weeks. During this gathering, the Seminoles share in a great feast and the Green Corn Dance in which purification and manhood ceremonies take place that prepare the participants for the years to come.

The Seminole Indians live in tree houses called I-ful-lo-ha-tco’s that are approximately 40 by 30 feet in an oblong clearing and are made of materials from the palmetto tree. Their thatched roofs made by the palmetto trees are durable and strong and the only thing that could possibly tear it down would be by Florida’s devastating hurricanes. The I-ful-lo-ha-tco’s have platforms on the bottom which serves as a dry sitting when they face flooding during the rainy seasons.

 

 

 

 

The Seminole men are hunters as well as fishermen, bringing home deer, trout, quail, and other various meats. The women typically stay away from the hunting and plant crops including corn, sugar cane, and sweet potatoes. The women also have a specific role in taking care of the children, the house, the cattle, and cooking whatever their husbands brings home from the hunt. When a member of the tribe is ill, the Seminoles rely on their medicine men and women to help them be cured from their sickness.

The education system in the tribe consists of programs that begin teaching the members at the age of five and continues on into their elder lives. The Education Advisory Board is made up of twelve tribal members, two of each are from each reservation in Florida. The Education Advisory Board meets bi-monthly during the academic school year and rotate throughout this time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

American Anthropological Association

2013 Seminole Tribe of Florida: Culture. Electronic Doument, http://www.semtribe.com/Culture/, accessed March 21, 2013