Early Sport

HOW THE ALLIGATOR'S NOSE WAS BROKEN – Creek

"In the old days," said Fixco, the Seminole, "all the animals determined upon a big ball play. 

The 4-footed animals, with the Alligator for their chief, challenged the fowls, with the Eagle at their head, for a game. Sides were chosen, the poles put up, the ground measured off, and the medicine men conjured the balls.

"The day came and they all met on the ground. The animals ran around their poles, all painted and dressed up, while the birds flew and screamed around their poles. At last the ball was tossed into the air and the game began. The Alligator caught the ball as it came down and, grasping it in his teeth, ran toward the poles. The birds in vain attempted to snatch it from him and at last gave it up in utter despair. The Eagle, however, soared aloft and circled in the air till almost out of sight, and then like an arrow he swooped to the earth and struck the Alligator on the nose and broke it. The Alligator's wife had run along with her old man and was shouting at the top of her voice: 

"Look at the little striped alligator's daddy, just look at him," while all the animals shouted in triumph.

"But when the Eagle struck the Alligator all was changed. The Alligator's teeth opened on the ball and the Turkey poked his head in among the teeth, pulled it out, and ran to the poles of the birds and threw the ball between them.

"The fowls won the game and ever since that time the Alligator has had a sunken place on his nose where the Eagle broke it."


Myths and Tales of the Southeastern Indians, by John R. Swanton; Smithsonian Institution, USGPO, Washington, D.C.; Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 88 [1929] and is now in the public domain.(creek)



from archives of Blue Panther

Native American Book of Wisdom

"What did Chiefs like John Ross, Osceola, Joseph, and Quanah Parker have in common? They were all children of parents both white and Indian. John Ross was only one-sixteenth Cherokee, Osceola, whose English name was Billy Powell was part Seminole because of his father, and Chief Joseph, who fought off four divisions of United States Army with a handful of warriors, women and children. Quanah Parker, the great Comanche leader had a white woman for his mother.What does your blood say you are?

Dawn Wolf, Keeper of the Drum at Frog Pond Oct. 20, 2012 by Gail Dickert

I am an African/Absaroka & Muskogee man. The first born of Herbert and Constance Woods, and the second grandchild of my maternal grandparents. I am a Keeper of Stories and of the clan of the Lion by way of the African, and the adopted grandson of an Ethiopian Rabbi, Ojuku. My gifts to the world are... 

This is the old way I was taught to meet and greet a stranger on the road.

DIANE FLETCHER

I've always thought she was so fine. Always wondered what her voice sounded like, how her eyes moved. What penetrating depths must've been in those eyes of hers. How did she use silence in her communications? A lot of questions jumped out at me, as I am sure it does others. Questions we will never know the answers to like what was her smell? How did her hands move? Did she have a loving touch?, and so forth. - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 2.23.13

Diana Fletcher (1838?-?)
Seminole/African/Kiowa heritage

Diana Fletcher was the daughter of an enslaved African who ran away to seek freedom in Florida, and a Seminole woman who died on "The Trail of Tears," the forced relocation of American Indians to Oklahoma. It is said that she was separated from her father, once in Oklahoma, then adopted and raised by a Kiowa family.

Diana learned traditional Kiowa crafts from her step-mother: sewing, cooking, tanning buffalo hides, making tepees  and basket weaving.

When the members of the tribe raised enough money, they built a small school and hired a teacher. The Black Indian schools were operated by what were known as The Five Civilized Tribes: the Creek, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Choctaw, and Seminole. Some sources say Diana taught fellow Native Americans.

Diana's main accomplishment was valuing and preserving her family's history, culture and values, while, at the same time, learning to adjust and adapt to white American society. Because of ignorance, prejudice and racial hostility, the U.S. government attempted to force American Indians with African heritage, as well as all Native Americans, to reject their heritage. Because people like Diana maintained their traditions, we can now learn about their important contributions to the history of America.

The Hampton government boarding school was opened for Black students in 1868, with the intent of educating by training "the head, the hand, and the heart" so pupils could return to their communities as leaders and professionals among their people. In 1878, the institute opened its doors to American Indians. The following year, in a grand experiment led by Capt. Richard Henry Pratt, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania  was opened as a way to assimilate Indians into "civilized" society, although without the intent of returning graduates to their communities. - I Love Ancestry

Radmilla Cody is a Navajo/African-American woman. In 1997 she was Miss Navajo. It was an astonishing accomplishment. That event required a thorough knowledge of the tribe's language and customs. It was much more than a beauty contest. It was an expression, a continuation and enhancement of the nation's identity. Who won would represent the culture. 

Radmilla was raised by her Grandmother. The beauty of that is a powerful indictment against the African American community.  Had she been raised in most Black American families her Navajo lifeway would have been shoved into a bitter corner to spoil. So deep is the disdain for the other bloodlines it begs for analysis in horror. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 2.24.13

OH, NO!! NOT ME !!!

Creation Story - Seminole 

Near the beginning of time, five Seminole Indian men wanted to visit the sky to see the Great Spirit. 

They travelled to the East, walking for about a month. Finally, they arrived at land's end. They tossed their baggage over the end and they, too, disappeared beyond earth's edge. 

Down, down, down the Indians dropped for a while, before starting upward again toward the sky. For a long time they travelled westward. At last, they came to a lodge where lived an old, old woman. 

"Tell me, for whom are you looking?" she asked feebly. 

"We are on our way to see the Great Spirit Above," they replied. 

"It is not possible to see him now," she said. "You must stay here for a while first." 

That night the five Seminole Indian men strolled a little distance from the old woman's lodge, where they encountered a group of angels robed in white and wearing wings. They were playing a ball game the men recognized as one played by the Seminoles. 

Two of the men decided they would like to remain and become angels. The other three preferred to return to earth. Then to their surprise, the Great Spirit appeared and said, "So be it!" 

A large cooking pot was placed on the fire. When the water was boiling, the two Seminoles who wished to stay were cooked! When only their bones were left, the Great Spirit removed them from the pot, and put their bones back together again. He then draped them with a white cloth and touched them with his magic wand. The Great Spirit brought the two Seminole men back to life! They wore beautiful white wings and were called men-angels. 

"What do you three men wish to do?" asked the Great Spirit. 

"If we may, we prefer to return to our Seminole camp on earth," replied the three Seminoles. 

"Gather your baggage together and go to sleep at once," directed the Great Spirit. 

Later, when the three Seminole men opened their eyes, they found themselves safe at home again in their own Indian camp. 

"We are happy to return and stay earthbound. We hope never to venture skyward again in search of other mysteries," they reported to the Chief of the Seminoles. 

 

CHEROKEE SLAVE REVOLT OF 1842

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1842_Slave_Revolt_in_the_Cherokee_Nation  

"...Mixed-blood Indians, the offspring of white traders and frontiersmen who married Indian women, were the principal slaveholders in the tribes, largely because their fathers had taught them the economics of slavery. Those mixed-blood Indians remained tribal members and became important middlemen between white settlers and Indian communities.

Many Cherokees depended on black slaves as a bridge to white society. Full-blood Indian slave owners relied on the blacks as English interpreters and translators.

By 1860, the Cherokees had 4,600 slaves; the Choctaws, 2,344; the Creeks, 1,532; the Chickasaws, 975; and the Seminoles, 500. Some Indian slave owners were as harsh and cruel as any white slave master. Indians were often hired to catch runaway slaves; in fact, slave-catching was a lucrative way of life for some Indians, especially the Chickasaws.

Seminoles attitudes toward slavery were different than those of other tribes. Never practicing chattel slavery, they took in fugitive slaves and claimed them as their own 'property' to protect the blacks from slave-catchers. In return, the blacks, who lived in separate villages in the Seminole country, gave livestock and crop tributes to the Indians. The blacks and Seminoles also formed a military alliance, with the blacks serving the Indians as warriors and strategists. In some instances, the blacks would intermarry into the Seminole community.

All of the tribes except the Seminoles had slave codes. Even after their removal to Indian Territory, the Seminoles allowed their slaves to carry weapons and own horses and other property. Until a treaty in 1845 provided for their relocation to the western area of the Creek Nation, the Seminoles lived in the Cherokee country around Fort Gibson, Indian Territory. Before that, Cherokee and Creek slaveholders complained about the influence of Seminole slaves on their own slave populations..." - © Art T. Burton