512 SEMINOLE INDIANS OF FLORIDA. 
cane juice to drink. It was clean looking and served in 4 silver gold 
lined cup of spotless brillianey. It made a welcome and delicious drink. 
T tasted some of the sirup also, eating it Indian fashion, i. e., I pared 
some of their small boiled wild potatoes and, dipping them into the 
sweet liquid, ate them. The potato itself tastes somewhat like a boiled 
chestnut. 
The sugar cane mill was a poor imitation of a machine the Indians 
lad seen among the whites. Its cylinders were made of live oak; the 
driving cogs were cut from a much harder wood, the mastic, I was told; 
and these were so loosely set into the cylinders that I could take them 
out with thumb and forefinger. (Fig. 68.) 
It is not necessary to speak in particular of the culture of sweet 
potatoes, beans, melons, &c. At best it is very primitive. It is, how- 
ever, deserving of mention that the Seminole have around their houses 
at least a thousand banana plants. When it is remembered that a 
hundred bananas are not an oyerlarge yield for one plant, it is seen 
how well off, so far as this fruit is concerned, these Indians are. 
HUNTING. 
Next in importance as an industry of the tribe (ifit may be so called) 
is hunting. Southern Florida abounds in game and the Indians have 
only to seek in order to find it. For this purpose they use the rifle. 
The bow and arrow are no longer used for hunting purposes except by 
the smaller children. The rifles are almost all the long, heavy, small 
bore “ Kentucky” rifle. This is economical of powder and lead, and for 
this reason is preferred by many to even the modern improved weapons 
which carry fixed ammunition... The Seminole sees the white man so 
seldom and lives so far from trading posts that he is not willing to be 
confined to the use of the prepared cartridge. 
A few breech loading rifles are owned in the tribe. The shot gun is 
much disliked by the Seminole. There is only one among them, and 
that is a combination of shot gun with rifle. I made a careful count 
of their fire arms, and found that they own, of ‘‘ Kentucky” rifles, 63; 
breech loading rifles, 8; shot gun and rifle, 1; revolvers, 2—total, 74. 
Methods of hunting. —The Seminole always hunt their game on foot, 
They can approach a deer to within sixty yards by their method of rap. 
idly nearing him while he is feeding, and standing perfectly still when he 
raises his head. They say that they are able to discover by certain 
movements on the part of the deer when the head is about to be lifted. 
They stand side to the animal. They believe that they can thus deceive 
the deer, appearing to them as stumps or trees. They lure turkeys 
within shooting distance by an imitation of the calls of the bird. They 
leave small game, such as birds, to the children. One day, while some 
of our party were walking near Horse Creek with Ka-tea-la-ni, a covey 
of quail whirred out of the grass. By a quick jerk the Indian threw 

