7
K: Well, what did you learn from some of these people about what
it was to grow up in the Everglades in the twenties and
thirties?
R: Well, I tell you some of what Buffalo was telling me. He
said...I'm reading' from notes, but I can hear him say it now:
"I was born in the Everglades in 1920. At that time the
Tamiami Trail had been built about as far as William McKinley
Osceola's camp about twenty-five miles west of Miami. My
grandfather had a nice little village about two and a half
miles west of where the Blue Shanty was on the Tamiami Trail,
about ten miles west of the road end. My grandfather bought
skins from Indians, took them into Miami and sold them, bought
groceries to take back. He had a store in the swamp. The
families of my mother's two sisters lived there, so there
were many children with my sisters and brothers and cousins.
My mother had ten children--five boys and five girls. Eight
are still alive. Two died when they were about twelve years
old. One had appendicitis, but I don't know what the other
died of. My grandfather built the camp, but it belonged to
my grandmother, because all villages belonged to the wife.
"The only things that belong to the husband are his guns
and his traps. All the children are members of their mother's
clan or family. When a man tells his wife, "I am going to
my camp," she knows he is going to his sister's camp or his
mother's camp. This is the first place I know is home.
"Sometimes families get together, go on visits to each
other. During the visits they always tell each what happened
in the war between the Indians and the white men, but we
never see any white men. The first thing we are taught
when we are little is to watch where we step so as not to
step on a snake. The next thing we were taught was to be
quiet and good and to mind the older people. They pointed
out why we should be good. White men were the reason. They
taught us about the wars, and how the Indians had to run off
to islands in the sawgrass and the Everglades through the
swamps away from the white soldiers. A child who wasn't quiet
and wasn't good might be left behind, and he would be carried
back to the white folks by the soldiers. I can tell you"--
and I'm quotin' Buff; I can hear his voice now--"they scared
you. The little ones all felt the same way at that time.
They had no warm feelings toward white folks.
"The first white man that I ever saw had stopped at
William McKinley Osceola's camp on the Tamiami Trail. I
thought if I talked to him I would get shot or taken away from
my mother. They shot guns all the time--they were always shooting'