LIVING HISTORY
Above, a Florida license plate denotes the owner’s Seminole Indian heritage.
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on the shore. We would switch jobs when someone got
tired. We didn’t kill the turtles right away. We would save
them for a later date. We put them in pens. Once we got a
big ole gator —14 feet long. We butchered and skinned it
and got the meat from the tail.
“When we brought deer back from hunting, the women
would cook it. Gramma would cut the meat in strips and
hang it on the line to dry. Guys got the meat, but women
did the cooking. The women would clean and cook the turtle
with rice and onion. They would make fry bread to go
with it. Grandma had a cast iron pot with a lid. She would
make biscuits and put them in the pot. She would put fire
and coals on top of the lid and cook the biscuits. We would
eat some that night and save some for the next day.”
“My uncle, Buster, had a garden. He grew corn, tomatoes,
collards, cabbage, potatoes, green beans, and pumpkins. He
had chicken wire around it to keep rabbits out. We had
orange trees at the camp, too.
“We had a hand pump to get water in the camp. We carried
buckets from the pump or the river about 300 yards
away. We would go down there to the river and bathe.
“When we lived in that camp we went to the Corn Dance
the yearly religious celebration of the harvest of the corn
and time of purification. I never missed a year until I was
38. I got scratched every year Men are scratched as part of
purification. I don’t participate like I used to.’’
Elders were an important source of hunting and preparing
food. “We ate together. When we went to bed we heard
stories about the past and legends. In the morning Grandma
got up and made coffee.
At top, a row of homes in Chupco’s Landing.
“When you have close family ties, you didn’t have to
worry about going without food. When one ate, we all ate.
You knew everyone there, were more neighborly and greeted
each other.” Until later years, the camp had no electricity
— no television, refrigeration or stove. Entertainment was
mostly over a fire. “At night,’’ Shamy said, “that’s when we
would hear the stories.’’
PASSING IT ON
Shamy is half Seminole and half African-American. In
addition to his mother, all of Shamy’s aunts married
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