SPECIAL REPORT OF THE
 FLORIDA SEMINOLE AGENCY.
 By Lucien A. Spencer, Special Commissioner.

 TRIBES.
 The population of the Florida Seminoles is made up of two distinct
tribes, speaking different languages and having very little in common.
 The northern tribe, locally known as the Cow Creeks, numbering
 115, speak the Muskhogean language, while the southern tribe,
known locally as the Big Cyress Indians, with a population of 339,
speak a dialect language kown as Miccosukee. The population,
made up of the two tribes, is scattered over a territory comprising
9,000 square miles, in which there are no roads and practically no
white population.
 During the Indian wars the Cow Creeks and Miccosukees maintained
a defensive alliance, but did not mingle socially, and to this day
intermarriage between the two tribes is of rare occurrence.
 TRIBAL CUSTOMS.
 The Seminoles are an orderly people. They are divided into bands
each under a headman who enforces strict discipline and requires
perfect obedience to the unwritten code. When a statutory law is
broken it is due to ignorance, and when the laws are made known to
an Indian, no second case of violation has ever been recorded
against them. The local courts recognize this fact, and usually the
judges seek to impress upon an Indian who is undergoing trial the
nature of the law that he has broken, knowing that he will carry the
news of this law to his people and thus prevent it from being broken
again.
 The tribal laws of the Indians are just and inflexible and if one is
violated the erring one accepts the penalty, even though it be dc?th
itself, without a protest.
 Indian-custom marriage still prevails, but such marriages are more
binding among them than legal marriages are among white people.
 MORALITY.
 Probably no people on earth have a higher standard of morality
than the Florida Seminoles, and it is not a single standard.
 The Indians have a high -respect for property rights, and theft and
lying are serious crimes m their unwritten code.
 Gambling is unknown among them.
 DOMESTIC LIFE.
 The domestic life of the Florida Seminoles offers a great contrast
to that of most other Indians. The women are treated with much
consideration and their wishes control family policy. The women