al morality is a matter of
common notoriety. The white half-breed does not exist among the Florida
Seminole, and nowhere could I learn that the Seminole woman is other
than virtuous and modest. The birth of a white half-breed would be
followed by the death of the Indian mother at the hands of her own
people. The only persons of mixed breed among them are children of
Indian fathers by negresses who have been adopted into the tribe. Thus
health, climate, food, and personal habits apparently conduce to an
increase in numbers. The only explanation I can suggest of the fact that
there are at present but 208 Seminole in Florida is that at the close of
the last war which the United States Government waged on these Indians
there were by no means so many of them left in the State as is popularly
supposed. As it is, there are now but 17 persons of the tribe over sixty
years of age, and no unusual mortality has occurred, certainly among the
adults, during the last twenty years. Of the 84 persons between twenty
and sixty years of age, the larger number are less than forty years old;
and under twenty years of age there are 107 persons, or more than half
the whole population. The population tables of the Florida Indians
present, therefore, some 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
trib