The Seminole Indians of Florida | Page 4

facts upon which it may
be interesting to speculate.
CHAPTER I.
Personal Characteristics.
It will be convenient for me to describe the Florida Seminole as they

present themselves, first as individuals, and next as members of a
society. I know it is impossible to separate, really, the individual as
such from the individual as a member of society; nevertheless, there is
the man as we see him, having certain characteristics which, we call
personal, or his own, whencesoever derived, having a certain physique
and certain, distinguishing psychical qualities. As such I will first
attempt to describe the Seminole. Then we shall be able the better to
look at him as he is in his relations with his fellows: in the family, in
the community, or in any of the forms of the social life of his tribe.
Physical Characteristics.
Physique of the Men.
Physically both men and women are remarkable. The men, as a rule,
attract attention by their height, fullness and symmetry of development,
and the regularity and agreeableness of their features. In muscular
power and constitutional ability to endure they excel. While these
qualities distinguish, with a few exceptions, the men of the whole tribe,
they are particularly characteristic of the two most widely spread of the
families of which the tribe is composed. These are the Tiger and Otter
clans, which, proud of their lines of descent, have been preserved
through a long and tragic past with exceptional freedom from
admixture with degrading blood. Today their men might be taken as
types of physical excellence. The physique of every Tiger warrior
especially I met would furnish proof of this statement. The Tigers are
dark, copper-colored fellows, over six feet in height, with limbs in good
proportion; their hands and feet well shaped and not very large; their
stature erect; their bearing a sign of self-confident power; their
movements deliberate, persistent, strong. Their heads are large, and
their foreheads full and marked. An almost universal characteristic of
the Tiger's face is its squareness, a widened and protruding
under-jawbone giving this effect to it. Of other features, I noticed that
under a large forehead are deep set, bright, black eyes, small, but
expressive of inquiry and vigilance; the nose is slightly aquiline and
sensitively formed about the nostrils; the lips are mobile, sensuous, and
not very full, disclosing, when they smile, beautiful regular teeth; and

the whole face is expressive of the man's sense of having extraordinary
ability to endure and to achieve. Two of the warriors permitted me to
manipulate the muscles of their bodies. Under my touch these were
more like rubber than flesh. Noticeable among all are the large calves
of their legs, the size of the tendons of their lower limbs, and the
strength of their toes. I attribute this exceptional development to the
fact that they are not what we would call "horse Indians" and that they
hunt barefoot over their wide domain. The same causes, perhaps,
account for the only real deformity I noticed in the Seminole physique,
namely, the diminutive toe-nails, and for the heavy, cracked, and
seamed skin which covers the soles of their feet. The feet being
otherwise well formed, the toes have only narrow shells for nails, these
lying sunken across the middles of the tough cushions of flesh, which,
protuberant about them, form the toe-tips. But, regarded as a whole, in
their physique the Seminole warriors, especially the men of the Tiger
and Otter gentes, are admirable. Even among the children this physical
superiority is seen. To illustrate, one morning Ko-i-ha-tco's son,
Tin-fai-yai-ki, a tall, slender boy, not quite twelve years old, shouldered
a heavy "Kentucky" rifle, left our camp, and followed in his father's
long footsteps for a day's hunt. After tramping all day, at sunset he
reappeared in the camp, carrying slung across his shoulders, in addition
to rifle and accouterments, a deer weighing perhaps fifty pounds, a
weight he had borne for miles. The same boy, in one day, went with
some older friends to his permanent home, 20 miles away, and returned.
There are, as I have said, exceptions to this rule of unusual physical
size and strength, but these are few; so few that, disregarding them, we
may pronounce the Seminole men handsome and exceptionally
powerful.
Physique of the Women.
The women to a large extent share the qualities of the men. Some are
proportionally tall and handsome, though, curiously enough, many,
perhaps a majority, are rather under than over the average height of
women. As a rule, they exhibit great bodily vigor. Large or small, they
possess regular and agreeable features, shapely and well developed
bodies, and they show themselves capable of long continued and severe

physical exertion. Indeed, the only Indian women I have seen with
attractive features and forms are among the Seminole.