The Seminoles of Florida

Chapter 44: PICTURE WRITING.

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About This Book

This book traces the Seminoles' nineteenth-century struggles and survival, recounting early conflicts and forced removals, episodes of resistance and the capture of leaders, then shifting to close observations of the small Florida bands who remained. It describes daily life in the Everglades, seasonal pursuits such as hunting and alligator and bear hunting, social customs, kinship, religious practices, and relations with missionaries and reformers, and includes a vocabulary of Seminole words and names. Supplementary essays examine land questions, visits to camps, and reflections on changing conditions and preservation efforts.

PICTURE WRITING.

The Seminoles have no picture writing, nor do their minds in any way run to art. They prefer the rough athletics of forest life, which educates them for the chase and makes them the vigorous and hardy people that they are. They would sooner “hook” an alligator than paint the finest picture the brush is capable of producing, and yet there is nothing in the white man’s home they enjoy more than studying the pictures of a book. In this way they may be taught much. Through the teaching by pictures they have learned the story of Pocahontas, and of William Penn, “the red man’s brother.” On an occasion the picture of a heathen Zuni god was shown to an Indian and its meaning explained. The effect produced would have done credit to a Christian believer.