LITR 4326 Early American Literature Research Posts 2016 (research post assignment) Research Post 1

Kasey Akin

Seminole folklore and legend

          The campfire stories that people often tell are inspired by their surroundings and the oral tradition is a long standing one between generations. I remember from some twenty years ago hearing the stories told by various people around a fire at the Seminole reservation in Florida. I loved hearing these stories and wanted to see how many of them were written down for the public to access. In researching I found that there was indeed a recording of the same stories I was once told and the Seminole tribe of Florida sells them online in both English and Miccosukee versions, there are also three small books available that were compiled by peoples from the White Potato Clan.

          Upon reading over these stories I did notice that there was amiss between those stories shared from someone that knows the languages first-hand and those that used assistance of an interpreter. Also I found that in some of the stories there are many parallels in the stories to not only Christian stories but to the stories from regions are far away as Central America. The most interesting one of these stories is the one about witches and owls and the superstitions about them. The same superstitions about saying the witch’s names can still be observed today in American urban legends about Bloody Mary, Freddy Krueger and Betelgeuse, where by the saying of their names could summon them or perhaps even cause a transformation into being one of these soulless monsters.

          Also in the researching in trying to find specific stories about specific events I discovered that the common names of descriptors used by the Puritans had become superimposed into Native folklore not only in the Seminole tribe but in many other tribes that would interact with new settlers. The object of familiars had also come up in instances where by day a monster would look like any other member of the tribe but by night they would change into an animal form to bring about mischief and chaos. There were also common themes between some of their folklore and the fairy tales we hear growing up such as the rabbit and the hare and Jack and the bean stalk which are stories that we think of as fairy tales but these stories have a common thematic presence in Seminole stories as well.

          I start my search looking for the exact stories I once heard growing up when I used to visit and discovered that there are many more stories that are told and many more variations of these stories. I would like to reexamine the Mexican American folklore in contrast with the Seminole and south Florida folklore more closely for follow up in research.

Sources

Seminole tribe official website. http://www.semtribe.com/Culture/Legends.aspx

Native American folk lore site http://www.native-languages.org/seminole-legends.htm

Sacred-texts folk lore site http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/se/index.htm