Food: considered extinct.Several historical clans, including Alligator, are
Food: Seminole men were good hunters. Fish were speared from canoes. They caught otter, raccoon, bobcats, alligator, turtle, and birds. To catch deer, they would burn a patch of grass. When the new grass grew in, the deer came to feast, and the Seminole caught the deer. Villagers planted crops behind their house and on nearby hammocks.
They did not weed or fertilize or irrigate. Wild plants mingled with the ones they had planted. The Seminole planted pumpkins, squash, and corn. Corn was the main crop.
They used corn to make corn flour, corn bread, corn pancakes, and even a corn soft drink called sofkee.Sofkee is still a popular soft drink among the Seminoles on reservations today. They sweetened their food with sugar cane, and to get the sugar out of the cane they put wheels on either end of a wooden pole. The men pushed the pole across the cane until it shredded.
Each village had an eating house. This was the biggest house in the village. The women cooked the food, and made food for the entire village.
Everyone ate together. They did not have silverware. They ate with their fingers. The two big meals were breakfast and lunch.Clans: There are eight Seminole clans – Panther, Bear, Deer, Wind, Toad, Bird, Snake, and Otter. Husbands traditionally went to live in the wife’s clan camp.
Each clan is characterized by a non-human entity with which is shares many traits, such as strength, courage, or endurance. Clan members are not supposed to marry within their clan. Children inherit the clan of the mother. One must be at least 1/4 Seminole in order to qualify as a tribal member.
When the last female in a clan passes on, the clan is considered extinct.Several historical clans, including Alligator, are now extinct. The Panther clan is the largest clan in today’s Seminole Tribe of Florida. Clothing Because of the warm weather, the Seminole did not like to wear a lot of clothing, like many other tribes.
All Seminole children wore patchwork dresses and a bead necklace, but the girls switched to a blouse and skirt at age three. Seminole men wore breechcloths and leggings made of different types of hides such as deer and sometimes cotton. Seminole women wore wraparound skirts, usually woven from hides also. Shirts were not necessary n Seminole culture, but men and women both wore poncho-style wraps in cool weather. The Seminoles also wore moccasins on their feet. In colonial times, the Seminoles adapted European clothing into their own characteristic styles, including turbans and long colorful tunics for men and full patchwork skirts for women.
Seminoles used a lot of beading in their clothing, and also embroidered it. To complete the woman’s outfit, she wore as many strings of glass necklace beads as she could afford. Seminole baby gets the first strand of beads at birth and additional strands every year thereafter.At middle-age the sequence is reversed, until she finally goes to her grave with the first string of beads given to her at birth. 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.
The women wore their hair back in a ponytail usually tied with a bright ribbon and had bangs. Religion: The Seminole were not very religious people, and very few still practice traditional ceremonies.One being the Green corn dance. Most Native Americans have a similar event within their cultures, stemming from traditional expressions of gratitude to the Creator for providing food. The majority of Seminoles converted to Christianity.
Seminoles had many myths. One called the White Patato Clan which is the story of how when Europeans and Indians had children and the children had no clan so they made one up for those children that being called the white potato clan. Most other Seminole myths taught lessons, and were passed on through generations.
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