504 SEMINOLE INDIANS OF FLORIDA. 
Out of the diversified domestic industry, as I have said, comes com- 
parative prosperity. The home is all that the Seminole family needs or 
desires for its comfort. There is enough clothing, or the means to get 
it, for every one. Ordinarily more than a sufficient quantity of clothes 
is possessed by each member of a family. No one lacks money or the 
material with which to obtain that which money purchases. Nor need 
any ever hunger, since the fields and nature offer them food in abun- 
dance. The families of the northern camps are not as well provided for 
by bountiful nature as those south of the Caloosahatchie River. Yet, 
though at my visit to the Cat Fish Lake Indians in midwinter the 
sweet potatoes were all gone, a good hunting ground and fertile fields 
of Koonti were near at hand for Teup-ko’s people to visit and use to 
their profit. 
FOOD. 
Read the bill of fare from which the Florida Indians may select, and 
compare with that the scanty supplies within reach of the North Caro- 
lina Cherokee or the Lake Superior Chippewa. Here is a list of their 
meats: Of flesh, at any time venison, often opossum, sometimes rabbit 
and squirrel, occasionally bear, and a laud terrapin, called the ** gopher,” 
and pork whenever they wish it. Of wild fowl, duck, quail, and turkey 
in abundance. Of home reared fowl, chickens, more than they are will- 
ing to use. Of fish, they can catch myriads of the many kinds which 
teem in the inland waters of Florida, especially of the large bass, called 
“trout” by the whites of the State, while on the seashore they can get 
many forms of edible marine life, especially turtles and oysters. 
Equally well off are these Indians in respect to grains, vegetables, roots, 
and fruits. They grow maize in considerable quantity, and from it 
make hominy and flour, and all the rice they need they gather from 
the swamps. Their vegetables are chiefly sweet potatoes, large and 
much praised melons and pumpkins, and, if I may classify it with veg- 
etables, the tender new growth of the tree called the cabbage palmetto. 
Among roots, there is the great dependence of these Indians, the 
abounding Koonti; also the wild potato, a small tuber found in black 
swamp land, and peanuts in great quantities. Of fruits, the Seminole 
family may supply itself with bananas, oranges (sour and sweet), limes, 
lemons, guavas, pineapples, grapes (black and red), cocoa nuts, cocoa 
plums, sea grapes, and wild plums. And with even this enumeration 
the bill of fare is not exhausted. The Seminole, living in a perennial 
summer, is never at a loss when he seeks something, and something 
good, to eat. I have omitted from the above list honey and the sugar 
cane juice and sirup, nor have I referred to the purchases the Indians 
now and then make from the white man, of salt pork, wheat flour, 
coffee, and salt, and of the various canned delicacies, whose attractive 
labels catch their eyes. 
These Indians are not, of course, particularly provident. I was toid, 
4 
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