ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      I would like to thank my committee chair, Dr. Glenn Willumson, and my

committee member, Dr. William Marquardt, for their support and guidance, and their

generosity of time and thoughtful feedback. Thanks go to Elise LeCompte for providing

access to collections resources, for her time, and for her kind support of my project.

Thanks also go to Darcie McMahon, Jeff Gage, and Eric Zamora in their assistance in

acquiring digital images of the collection.

       I thank my colleague and friend, Dushanthi Jayawardena, for joining me in my

project travels to the Big Cypress Reservation. I am also grateful for her careful editing

skills and willingness to act as a sounding board through the entire project. I also thank

my soon-to-be-husband, Joe Meiser, for acting as a pillar of support and

encouragement during the six months I developed my thesis project. I also appreciate

his help in the meticulous revising of the many drafts of my paper. I thank my parents

for their encouraging words and for enthusiastically supporting my educational goals.

Thanks go to Tracy Pfaff, Molly Conley, and Jessica Belcoure for reviewing different

aspects of the project, report, and defense preparation.

      I am grateful for the warm welcome I received from the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Musuem

staff at Big Cypress, especially Greg Palumbo, Saul Drake, and Jonathan MacMahon.

Their support and recommendations for the wiki project were immensely helpful. I also

appreciate the generous wiki feedback contributed by Pedro Zepeda and Everett

Osceola.