Writing in Native American Issues

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Writing In Native American Issues

Seminole Baptist

The purpose of writing this paper is so the unique group of people will be represented properly from one of their own people. This will get a view into the culture and history that is not usually seen from the outside. In the world of today Native Americans have to be properly represented and understood or misconceptions can happen. Traditionally the Muscogee people practiced opvnkv hacogee, which means drunken, crazy, or spirited dance. More commonly known as the stomp dance they are social dances that included all community members-men, women, and children. The Dances are led by the tribe’s senior men with each turn changing leadership. A leader will call out the verses, and other men respond. The women support the men by shaking shells in rhythm by stomping. The Seminole Baptist used the church as a way to avoid assimilation and to keep the language along side with the culture alive. Throughout this paper I want to show the similarities of both the Seminole Baptist church and the stomp grounds that helped the culture survive in a time of need.

Looking into a history for the Seminoles their history starts with the Muscogee Creeks and were more of a split than a different people. Virtually the difference between the two tribes were never present. The same language was spoke which is Mvskoke and shared cultural practices. When the Seminoles started to migrate south is when the differences started to show. When the Seminole people arrived into Florida which was then owned by the Spanish they called them cimarrones. This term started to describe all the inhabitants that occupied Florida. The Seminoles absorbed rem ants of other Florida tribes into their own; the Oconee were t...

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...oke the cigarettes.” the Seminole pastor responded: “White people placed flowers all around each other’s graves. When the dead white man sits up to smell the flowers, the dead Indian will be right behind him eating the food and smoking the cigarettes” (Schultz 73). Always when a body is buried it is placed East-West with the head placed to the West.

Work Cited

"About Seminole Nation." About Seminole Nation. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Apr. 2014. .

Foreman, Grant. The Five civilized tribes. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1934. Print.

Schultz, Jack M.. The Seminole Baptist churches of Oklahoma: maintaining a traditional community. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. Print.

"Seminole Stomp Dance ." Circle of Dance . N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Apr. 2014. .

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