18
the languages were quite different, and I like that, Now,
I would like to ask you about the Indians in terms of num-
bers. Is the population of Indians declining in Florida?
R: Oh, no. It is increasing, as I believe I told you earlier.
I had understood that after the tragic removal to Oklahoma,
they left from here. There's some memory of it among Indians,
some tales from Tampa, the ones that did leave, and so many
died. It was a trail of tears for Seminoles as well as
Cherokees. But there were about 300 that fell back down
into this swamp. I think one reason I respect and love
them so is because I think these folks came from the high
clay hills that I know, where I was born-the Appalachian
hills of Georgia and North Florida, Tallahassee.,.those
pretty, high clay hills, To fall back down to this trackless
saw grass that was so different from their home, and to live
at all, seems to me a hell.... Could I have done it? And
live they did, and change their way of life they did. And
there were about 300; in 1950-odd there was supposed to be
about 1200, and now I think there is supposed to be over
2,000. Initially, I was told back in the fifties that
Indians didn't really marry until they were about thirty,
but then they encouraged marriage earlier, and to have children
earlier in recent years, in my lifetime because, hell, we want
'em to be more of us.
K: And you don't know of any conscious Indian effort for birth
control?
R: Oh, by no means!
K: OK.
R: But I'll tell you a nice thing about Indians. I am told--
women don't hear this from their Indian friends so much, but
I am told and I have seen it--that an Indian girl who has an
illegitimate child, nobody is mean to her. She brings it home
to her mother and daddy, and they bring it up very happily
and they are not condemnatory or censorious about pre-marital
relationships off in the bushes, or even the fruit of those pre-
marital relationships. Once you get married, it was always
supposed to be forever!
K: That's why sheriff shot the...had the rival done away with?
R: Yes.