The Florida Folklife Reader

The Seminole Family Camp

84 ‘’ ‘’ The Seminole Family Camp orMond h. looMis there is no Better exaMPle of a traditional florida BUilding type than the chickee, the traditional Seminole Indian building which has long been a part of Seminole life. Most Floridians recognize these structures and associate them with the Seminoles whether the name of the building and its background are familiar or not. Chickees provide an environment for the Seminole Folklife Area at the Florida Folk Festival. The Seminole Tribe of Florida has generously installed a temporary family camp on the festival grounds to serve as a base for interpretive demonstrations of several Seminole traditions. The crafts and foodways found among the chickees complement the building tradition itself. The domestic activities suggest the customary daily routines that might be encountered in a camp on a Seminole reservation. In one of the chickees at the folk festival, men are on hand to demonstrate and discuss chickee building. The symbolic as well as practical significance of this kind of structure makes the chickee a central element in Seminole folklife and an ideal setting for the appreciation of Seminole heritage. The chickee is undergoing a major transition. It is tempting to say that, like many reflections of folklife, this form is vanishing and that surviving examples will be gone within a generation or two along with the intimate knowledge of its construction and use. Signs of its decline are easy to find. The current status of the chickee, however, shows cultural tenacity, mirroring in a sense the evolution of the Florida Seminoles themselves. The chickee grew out of the Seminole experience in nineteenth-century Florida when the Seminole Wars and tribal migration into south Florida made building an older type of permanent Indian dwelling impractical. History does not supply an account of the development of the chickee. From 85 The Seminole Family Camp period photographs it is evident that the basic chickee structure was thoroughly established among the Seminoles by the end of the nineteenth century . The form, found today with little change since the late nineteenth century, is well adapted to local climate, relies on the use of materials available in the immediate, natural environment, and is unique to the Seminoles. forM and constrUction Chickees were traditionally built in clusters. A single chickee served as a room rather than as a complete home by itself. The total number of these rooms changed to accommodate the number of individuals in the extended family who lived in a given encampment. According to James Billie, tribal chairman and former chickee building contractor, the elementary camp consisted of at least four chickees, each of a different design and use, usually arranged in a circle such as the one in the Seminole Folklife Area. A cooking chickee stood at the center. Around it were a dining area, utility area, and one or more sleeping chickees. The basic structure of the chickee resembles that of any pole shed. Posts set into the ground support a rafter system, which, in turn, is covered with Seminole chickee, Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation. Photo by Blanton owen, Florida Folklife Program. Courtesy of State Archives of Florida. 86 orMond h. looMis roofing. The arrangement of the corner posts is usually rectangular, but rounded ends are built occasionally as are square and circular floor plans. Most chickees have open sides, but enclosed chickees, sided with materials such as palm leaves, boards, or paneling, are not uncommon. Doors and windows in sided examples are installed at points adjoining the posts. The floor of the chickee is dirt, and permanent furnishings such as platforms and counters are built on small posts sunk into the ground. All the structural members of the chickee are of cypress. On the Big Cypress Reservation, these trees grow plentifully. Builders cut the poles shortly before construction begins and peel off bark. The wood is highly resistant to insects. A layer of bark on the poles will harbor bugs and promote decay. Poles vary in size according to their use in the structure: main posts being the largest, about eight inches in diameter for a standard-sized chickee, and rafters the smallest, two inches at the small end. The Seminole terms for many of the members refer to parts of the body. For example, posts are called “legs,” and rafters are “ribs.” Traditionally the roof of the building is thatched with the leaves of the cabbage palm, which grow in abundance on...