5. Catfish Lake, 28° Lat. The late Chipko was chief there, who
had been present with Osceola at the Dade massacre in 1835.
Traces of languages other than the Seminole were not discovered by
him.
In December 1882 J. Francis Le Baron transmitted to the Smithsonian
Institution a few ethnologic notices and a vocabulary obtained from
the Seminole Indians of Chipko's (since deceased) band, which he had
visited in March 1881 in their village near Lake Pierce. The dialect
of the vocabulary does not differ from Creek in any appreciable
degree. On marriage customs and the annual busk of these Indians he
makes the following remarks: "They do not marry or intermix with the
whites, and are very jealous of the virtue of their women, punishing
with death any squaw that accepts the attentions of a white man. Some
Seminoles exhibit a mixture of negro blood, but some are very tall,
fine-looking savages. Their three tribes live at Chipko town, near
Lake Oketchobee, and in the Everglades. They have a semi-religious
annual festival in June or July, called the green corn dance, the new
corn being then ripe enough to be eaten. Plurality of wives is
forbidden by their laws. Tom Tiger, a fine-looking Indian, is said to
have broken this rule by marrying two wives, for which misdemeanor he
was banished from the tribe. He traveled about one hundred miles to
the nearest tribe in the Everglades, and jumped unseen into the ring
at the green corn dance. This procured him absolution, conformably to
their laws."
We have deemed it appropriate to dwell at length on the history,
topography and peculiar customs of the Seminoles on account of their
identity with the Creek Indians, the main object of this research. We
now pass over to the Southeastern or Apalachian group of Maskoki.