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public relations firm. Every time some national or inter-
national writer comes to Florida and wants to know a little
bit about Indians, they delegate you to go and show them the
Indians. You're talking about a writer you took out to meet
the Indians.
R: Yeah. I forgot where we were.
K: About the Singer sewing machines.
R: Well, this is a thesis of mine entirely. These sewing machines
came into this part of the world about 1890 with the Brickells,
and not long thereafter they were making these beautiful quilted
patterns which require a sewing machine. It was pedal operated
then. Well, actually it was hand-operated. Now they're doing
it with electric ones. I took a very perceptive writer
out there once. She was especially interested in that, and
she said, "I think these shirts and skirts are the only authen-
tic Seminole craft."
I said, "Oh, quite right! Right'" And my own thesis is
that I don't know where they got the quilting--it was probably
circa 1900 and Mary Brickell, or something like that--but they
make them initially so that they would not be Jim Crowed.
K: What do you mean?
R: Jim Crow. Oh. You wouldn't know, not being a Southerner.
K: I know what Jim Crow means in the black-white context, but
I don't understand....
R: Bah! Here are these Indians coming into town, and they are
dusky-skinned, and our Seminoles have a prognathous chin and
full lips that might be Negroid. Their Indian features, they
carried over from Mongolia are the black eyebrows and the
straight, light black hair, but they are by no means red-
skinned. And any fool Ku Kluxer, a Southern immigrant to
South Florida--obviously all South Florida is not Southern;
they were immigrants coming down here--might of thought they
were "niggers" and could treat them badly. And so they made
these shirts which said in effect, "I am Seminole and I'm an
Indian." And every little Ku Kluxer that ever came to Florida
was pretty scared of Indians!
K: But you think these were based on the dress that the Indians
actually wore?