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MACCAULEY.] HOME LIFE. 503 
Adjoining each of these lodges was a platform, breast high. These 
were made of small poles or sticks covered with the leaves of the pal- 
metto.. Upon and under these, food, clothing, and household utensils, 
generally, were kept; and between the rafters of the lodges and the 
roofs, also, many articles, especially those for personal use and adorn- 
ment, were stored. 
HOME LIFE. 
Having now seen the formation of the Seminole family and taken a 
glance at the dwellings, permanent and temporary, which it occupies, 
we are prepared to look at its household life. I was surprised by the 
industry and comparative prosperity and, further, by the cheerfulness 
and mutual confidence, intimacy, and affection of these Indians in their 
family intercourse. 
The Seminole family is industrious. All its members work who are 
able to do so, men as well as women. The former are not only hunters, 
fishermen, and herders, but agriculturists also. The women not only 
care for their children and look after the preparation of food and the 
general welfare of the home, but are, besides, laborers in the fields. In 
the Seminole family, both husband and wife are land proprietors and 
cultivators. Moreover, as we have seen, all children able to labor con- 
tribute their little to the household prosperity. From these various 
domestic characteristics, an industrious family life almost necessarily 
follows. The disesteem in which Tis-ko-na, a notorious loafer at the 
Big Cypress Swamp, is held by the other Indians shows that laziness 
is not countenanced among the Seminole. 
But let me not be misunderstood here. By a Seminole’s industry I do’ 
not mean the persistent and rapid labor of the white man of a northern 
community. The Indian is not capable of this, nor is he compelled to 
imitate it. I mean only that, in describing him, it is but just for me to 
say that heis a worker and not a loafer. 
As aresult of the domestic industry it would be expected that we 
should find comparative prosperity prevailing among all Seminole fami- 
lies; and thisis the fact. Much of the Indian’s labor is wasted through 
his ignorance of the ways by which it might be economized. He has 
no labor saving or labor multiplying machines. There is but little dif- 
ferentiation of function in either family or tribe. Each worker does all 
kinds of work. Men give themselves to the hunt, women to the house, 
and both to the field. But men may be found sometimes at the cook- 
ing pot or toasting stick and women may be seen taking care of cattle 
and horses. Men bring home deer and turkeys, &c.; women spend 
days in fishing. Both men and women are tailors, shoemakers, flour 
makers, cane crushers and sirup boilers, wood hewers and bearers, and 
water carriers. There are but few domestic functions which may be 
said to belong exclusively, on the one hand, to men, or, on the other, to 
women. 
