MACCAULEZ. J SEMINOLE CHARACTER. 493 
I will not here relate the interesting story of “ Billy’s” previous life or 
of his adventures in reaching his present proud position. Itis sufficient 
to say that, for the time at least, he had become in the eyes of his people 
a member of a foreign Community. As may be easily guessed, Ko-nip- 
ha-teo’s act was not at all looked upon with favor by the Indians; it 
was, on the contrary, seriously opposed. Several tribal councils made 
him the subject of discussion, and once, during the year before I met 
him, five of his relatives came to Myers and compelled him to return 
with them for atime to his home at the Big Cypress Swamp. But to my 
illustration of Seminole frankness: In the autumn of 1880, Mat-te-lo, a 
prominent Seminole, was at Myers and happened to meet Captain Hen- 
dry. While they stood together “ Billy” passed. Hardly had the young 
fellow disappeared when Mat-te-lo said to Captain Hendry, “ Bum-by, 
Indian kill Billy.” But an answer came. In this case the answer of 
the white man was equally frank: “ Mat-te-lo, when Indian kill Billy, 
white man kill Indian, remember.” And so the talk ended, the Semi- 
nole looking hard at the captain to try to discover whether he had 
meant what he said. 
INTELLECTUAL ABILITY. 
In range of intellectual power and mental processes the Florida In- 
dians, when compared with the intellectual abilities and operations of 
the cultivated American, are quite limited. Butif the Seminole are to be 
judged by comparison with other American aborigines, I believe they 
easily enter the first class. They seem to be mentally active. When the 
full expression of any of my questions failed, a substantive or two, an 
adverb, and a little pantomime generally sufficed to convey the meaning 
tomy hearers. In their intercourse with one another, they are, as a rule, 
voluble, vivacious, showing the possession of relatively active brains and 
mental fertility. Certainly, most of the Seminole I met cannot justly 
be ealled either stupid or intellectually sluggish, and I observed that, 
when invited to think of matters with which they are not familiar or 
which are beyond the verge of the domain which their intellectual facul- 
ties haye mastered, they nevertheless bravely endeavored to satisfy me 
before they were willing to acknowledge themselves powerless. They 
would not at once answer a misunderstood or unintelligible question, 
but would return inquiry upon inquiry, before the decided “ I don’t 
know” was uttered. Those with whom I particularly dealt were ex- 
ceptionally patient under the strains to which I put their minds. Ko- 
nip-ha-teo, by no means a brilliant member of his tribe, is much to be 
commended for his patient, persistent, intellectual industry. I kept 
the young fellow busy for about a fortnight, from half-past eight in the 
morning until five in the afternoon, with but an hour and a half’s in- 
termission at noon. Occupying our time with inquiries not very inter- 
esting to him, about the language and life of his people, I could see 
how inuch I wearied him. Often I found by his answers that his brain 
was, to adegree,paralyzed by the long continued tension to which it was 
